08/01/2011

Hey Manhattan


On my first trip to New York I spent an idle moment trying to compose an email consisting of names of songs about the place. It started off something like, ‘I am an Englishman in New York, having arrived in Manhattan by a Big Yellow Taxi to stay in the apartment of a Native New Yorker. Looking over the Manhattan Skyline, however, I realise I am not The Only Living Boy in New York...’. It didn’t progress much further. However, it did make me think about the significance of names here. The subject of the last column – Harlem - is, of course, part of Manhattan but the names themselves carry a very different set of associations : rather as, in London, Soho signifies something different from the larger area of Westminster.

Perhaps more than any other part of New York, just the name ‘Manhattan’ carries before it a history of images from songs, films and TV, images that were cinematically summarised in the opening credits of Woody Allen’s Manhattan as Rhapsody in Blue plays. These have become so pervasive that it has become hard to separate reality and myth, perhaps not surprising given the importance of the advertising industry there However, the generic picture that has persisted seems to hark back to a specific ‘golden age’, roughly from post - WW2 to the mid-sixties. It is the Manhattan of Madison Avenue and Mad Men; of Holly Golightly and Breakfast at Tiffany’s; of Frank Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours of the Morning that has lingered in the popular imagination, rather than, say, the Manhattan of Wall Street and the 1980’s.

It is the triumph of a mythical era in the UK as much as the USA itself: hence the popularity of Mad Men or the peculiar success of the various Rat Pack Experiences (Manhattan plus Las Vegas), coming to a theatre, club, pub or corporate event near you soon so the ‘ unforgettable halcyon days of hip, cool and style’ can re-appear at Hainault Golf Club. In this phenomenon of buying into another country’s myths I am reminded of a radio interview I heard a few years ago with Dennis Locorierre (ex-Dr Hook singer ), who had been asked to join a reformed Lovin’ Spoonful as vocalist. His reply was “I don’t want to sing my old hits. Why would I want to sing someone else’s old hits?”.The same comment could apply to mythologies.

There have, of course, been plenty of songs inspired by Manhattan, from the Hart-Rodgers classic - “We’ll turn Manhattan into an isle of joy “ – onwards, a tune turned into an evocation of a smoky New York jazz club by Sonny Rollins’ saxophone interpretation. In Manhattan Skyline, Julia Fordham compared the iconic skyline to a doomed and broken relationship between a New Yorker and Londoner (containing the winceable line, ‘You are my Ireland, I am your ‘Nam’). Kate Voegele extended this metaphor by describing the lover in Manhattan from the Sky as ‘ You are my Manhattan from the sky, you look so neat and tidy when I am way up high’. In a further display of lyricism the singer in Death Cab for Cutie fantasised about a marching band of Manhattan coming out of his mouth ‘to make your name sing,and bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings.” (Marching Bands of Manhattan)

The song here, Hey Manhattan by Prefab Sprout, neatly sums up the pervasive image of Manhattan in one line - ‘hey Manhattan, doobie doo’. For a while in the late 1980’s it appeared as though Prefab Sprout could be huge. The King of Rock ‘n Roll was a big hit in 1988, Stevie Wonder and Pete Townsend guested on the album, From Langley Park to Memphis, from which this song came and Prefab Sprout mainman Paddy McAloon was spoken of as a lyricist in the same league as Sondheim and Cole Porter. It didn’t really work out that way, however, and the Prefab Sprout distinctive sound, with the half-whispered vocals, was not to everyone’s taste: ‘too-clever by half’ was a comment sometimes heard.

Hey Manhattan is perhaps not one of their best songs but shows McAloon’s typically neat ways with words. Written as a kind of faux show-tune, it manages to look behind the myths of Manhattan –‘just to think the poor could live here too’ - whilst recognising their allure: ‘These myths we can’t undo, they lie in wait for you, We live them till they're true’. You see in a place what you want to see: for the narrator, this includes Sinatra, Fifth Avenue and the Carlyle Hotel, where Kennedy owned his own apartment. My own initial experience of Manhattan was more prosaic but probably more enjoyable. My daughter took me to the Morning Star diner (I went in vaguely expecting, from the name, a communist menu) between 50th and 51st Street : waffles, eggs over easy and not a doobie-doo to be heard.

67 comments:

  1. Geoff! I love your account of Manhattan, and it's so interesting how different the music is to the Harlem songs - and how different your own account of it all is. Of course Harlem is part of the island of Manhattan.... but perhaps not in songs about the place!!

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  2. This is maybe one of the happiest songs you've posted! Just seems full of happiness about Manhattan. Maybe the group was trying to make it in the U.S. and felt the need to pay tribute to the city!!!!

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  3. This sounds like a song straight out of a Broadway musical! Which isn't necessarily a good thing I suppose.....

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  4. I love that email you started Geoff!:) Wonder if you could write a whole blog column just in song titles.........

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  5. Hi Geoff

    I think there IS a difference between Harlem / Manhattan summoning different images, and Soho / Westminster summoning different images. The parallel would be if Soho / London summoned different images - because Soho is part of London (like Harlem is part of Manhattan) but not part of Westminster. I actually think the images of "London" summons both Soho and Westminster and a thousand other districts and images. Whereas it is quite unique, I think, that the name "Manhattan" does conjure up just a specific part of the island (downtown and midtown - Wall Street and Madison Avenue). With Harlem somehow not included. It would be as though "London" just meant Canary Wharf or something.

    I think here your column gets at a huge and historic problem of excluding Harlem from Manhattan (with public financing for schools, public transport, even street cleaning). This exclusion is played out in music it seems! Which is really interesting.

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  6. I wonder if there is a golden age for every city in terms of its imagery in films and music. I agree with you that New York's is about 1945-65 (or maybe the Roaring Twenties as well). I wonder if London / Paris / Rome have similar golden ages. I think Paris might be the 1920s/1930s. London the 1960s? Or maybe it's specific to New York, as the most filmed city in the world (because it's free for filmmakers apparently unlike other cities).

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  7. Geoff that's a fascinating point about this image of Manhattan being in part spawned by another country's imagination and myth-making - the U.K. I definitely think it works in reverse. Half of the U.S. probably thinks England looks like a period drama, or else every British man is pretty much Hugh Grant:) I think from the American perspective the mythologizing is definitely a 19th century myth though - or early 20th century. Some kind of vague Sherlock Holmes / Jack the Ripper / cobbled streets / horse and carriage / large-skirts for women and tophats for men period of time!!

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  8. Geoff - wonderful column! The youtube video is blocked to the U.S. though - here's a link for any U.S. readers (you can click 'skip the ad' to get right to the music video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp2oJkiM_Ik

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  9. I think you are right about the Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper era appeal, Roberta-but also to take up Laura's point-I suppose the equivalent of a very selective name in London would be the term 'Swinging London', which meant a very small area and, as seen earlier, definitely didnt extend to Finchley Central!

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  10. Wow Geoff, that line - "‘You are my Ireland, I am your ‘Nam’" - definitely should be a contender for the Worst Line in Music History competition (if such a competition exists). I love these comedy nuggets in the column - brilliant!

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  11. Love that I just learned another English phrase - ‘too-clever by half’ :)

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  12. I suppose it is very English-like'getting above himself' or 'who does he think he is'!

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  13. Thank you for the shout out Geoff! We are actually the Morning Star Cafe, not Diner. I waitress there and often read your column!! Please come back next time you are in the city for some complimentary waffles.

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  14. Ha ha yes, those are new phrases too! I think we would just say "he's too smart for his own good." Although I did just find The New Yorker using the phrase "too clever by half" in a headline - http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2010/05/17/100517ta_talk_surowiecki - so maybe it's just me who didn't know it!

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  15. Hey thanks Ellen! -and for the evocative photo..

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  16. the sprouts were a profoundly great band

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  17. God, I used to worship this band,and then they disappeared.Love this song!

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  18. Geoff, whatever you do, don't buy their 1997 "Andromeda Heights" album. The songs are syrupy with a Kenny G-style saxophone that ruins nearly half of them.

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  19. The first record I ever bought was their 1983 four-song EP, featuring "Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)," "Radio Love," "The Devil Has All the Best Tunes" and "Walk On"!

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  20. This is such a great parody song. Like "Cars and Girls" which I think is a clearer, better parody - a real dig at Bruce Springsteen's musical world of highways, hot rods and love (that probably irritated fans of Springsteen if they ever heard it!).

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  21. Geoff - how about a column about Mexico soon? ‘Cortez the Killer’ by Neil Young maybe? ‘Mexico’ by James Taylor? I just got back from there and kept thinking 'i wonder what song Geoff would write about for this'!

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  22. Unfortunately, I haven't been to Mexico, Belle!

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  23. Their album ‘Jordan: The Comeback’ does even more with American film mythology. It's a whole album playing with iconic figures (Elvis, Fred Astaire, Howard Hughes, etc).

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  24. I remember hearing ‘Cars And Girls’ on my college radio in the U.S. in the Spring of 1988. A lot. I think it had a level of underground success on U.S. college radio.

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  25. I like that this is the story of a newcomer to the Big Apple - it somewhat explains the imagery of all the cliches (show tunes etc).

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  26. I'm not completely convinced that this is a total parody or pastiche. It seems more like someone who has a love/hate relationship with New York City.

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  27. For anyone who is about to go in search of the Pete Townshend/Stevie Wonder moments on this album, Townshend plays guitar on Hey Manhattan I think. And I know Stevie Wonder played harmonica on "Nightingales".

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  28. Geoff! I'm planning a NYC trip right now, from the drab, grey sprawl of outermost North London, and I'll have the winning whimsy of ‘Hey Manhattan’ playing as I imagined my glorious Gotham adventure!:)

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  29. I agree with Jim. I'm never quite sure if McAloon's love for New York here is genuine or if he's having a laugh. If he is, it's definitely a very deadpan joke.

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  30. The only light I can find to throw on the Prefab Sprout's intention here was this clip with McAloon from an interview with an odd-looking Richard Jobson
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izvHztV2w8M

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  31. Manhattan has more than 200 streets from South to North, and this song focuses on about 10 of them. Half the island is Harlem and above really. It's so strange to listen to this song and watch the video, and wonder if this band REALLY thinks they are singing about 'Manhattan' or just a very limited version of it..........

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  32. That's a fascinating interview - thank you Geoff! Also, although it doesn't shed any light on the question of parody vs sincerity, I enjoyed this interview in Pop Matters: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/132686-a-slacker-like-myself-an-interview-with-prefab-sprout/

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  33. Geoff! I feel like you must be waiting for someone to say 'is this a joke?' What a terrible song, especially compared to the music you usually post about! I guess there was that Watford Gap one. But usually I think you post songs that you think are somewhat good - and I can't imagine you voluntarily listen to this one!!!! Which makes it all the more admirable that you've posted about it, and I definitely see the value in choosing this song so you can open a debate about how we all imagine "Manhattan" and how mythologised it all it, but this won't be added to my "Songs about Places" Itunes playlist that I usually update with your pick each week!!!:

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  34. I heard their new album the other day, ‘Let’s Change The World With Music’, their first album in eight years. It's not bad!

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  35. What a hugely underrated band - thanks Geoff!

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  36. Ah, that cavernous drum sound popularised by Phil Collins destroyed many a promising recording, including several by Sprout.

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  37. Actually for some reason that link I posted isn't working in the U.S. now either, but here's another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr0Y_oPyzME

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  38. Say what you like about their music, McAloon is a poet:

    “Should a love be tender, and bleed out loud?
    Or be tougher than tough, and prouder than proud.
    If I’m troubled by every folding of your skirt,
    Am I guilty of every male inflicted hurt?
    But I don’t know how to describe the modern rose,
    When I can’t refer to her shape against her clothes.
    With the fever of purple prose.”

    From "Cruel".

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  39. Remember when they released the album "Steve McQueen"? Over here in the U.S., the estate of the late Steve McQueen took a dim view of the Sprouts use of the man’s name, soit became ‘Two Wheels Good,’ a reference to the cover shot of McAloon and Smith astride an old Triumph or BSA. Talk about something being lost in translation........

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  40. He's the great songwriter on the planet.

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  41. This is a much more accurate account of New York I think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4IiccUjGps

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  42. ‘Let’s change the world with music’ was actually recorded in the early 90′s.

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  43. The McAloon archives allegedly contain complete unreleased albums based on the ‘Zorro’ stories originated by Johnstone McCulley and another album based on the life and times of Michael Jackson..............!

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  44. I was at that famous Reading University gig that the BBC recorded - they were pretty great live.

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  45. Anyone else remember watching them get their first break, that video of them for Channel 4′s ’The Tube’ in a gale on a clifftop, as I recall, miming to ‘Don’t sing’ , one of the songs from their first LP, ‘Swoon’.......

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  46. I feel like they are just one of many bands from the early 80s who seemed like they had a huge amount of potential but never quite mdae it. Like Silent Running, The Lucy Show, Personal Column, Blue in Heaven......

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  47. I don't think there is any parody here at all - it seems like painfully sincere sentiment to me!

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  48. Prefab Sprout rank alongside the Comsat Angels and Talk Talk as one of the most underrated British bands to emerge during the 80's. For neophytes, start with the immortal STEVE MCQUEEN, and check out "Bonny" and "Appetite". Then go on to the whole of the first "suite" of JORDAN. Finally, proceed to buy the rest of their catalog.

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  49. I definitely recommend Two Wheels/Steve McQueen. I picked it up originally because of the Thomas Dolby production credit, but I liked it immediately and was a missionary for PS for several years. A few years ago, their US record label rereleased a "Legacy" version with newly recorded versions of the songs, without the sometimes overly ornate or dated Dolby touches.

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  50. This is one of those bands I'm supposed to like and I feel like I've given them a decent shot, but jeez, talk about music that's made for nobody else but other music nerds. They make Yo La Tengo look like the Pussycat Dolls.

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  51. I have the same reaction to Prefab Sprout that I have to Grizzly Bear today: I think, well, this is extremely well-crafted and thoughtful and, er ... 'expert'. And ... nope, it doesn't move me at all.

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  52. I have only ever heard "King of Rock and Roll" as played on "Spaced," and had no idea what they were saying.

    Is it

    Dark log
    Jumping flog
    I've gotta pushy
    ?

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  53. I always get Prefab Sprouts and Hothouse Flowers confused.

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  54. Wes, I'm pretty sure it's

    Hot dog/jumping frog/Albuquerque :)

    He does say "Albuquerque" pretty clearly on the record, apparently, but it's only in the background in Spaced, and Jessica Stevenson is singing over it.

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  55. Chris: can't believe you don't like Andromeda Heights.

    Listening to that record is like wandering the bustling streets on a cold night in the city, stars blazing down and surrounded by beauty and life...but being unable to fully enjoy any of it because your heart was broken into nothingness.

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  56. Oh. Thanks! I originally thought it was "Hot dog/jumping far/have a cookie."

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  57. I heard them at Kings College London in January 1984. A couple of things that amused me this gig was Ms Smith's ashen face at the rugger bugger (he did look a bit like Gary Bushall) singing "boring" as question & answers at the start of 'I Couldn't Bear To Be Special" at the start, & the start of PREFAB SPROUT's long standing 'Spinal Tap' approach to drummers... That night it was the turn of one all round good egg, Dave Ruffy.

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  58. This song is really a stellar example of how sophisticated the 80′s U.K. charts really were. Even if most Americans would probably think Prefab Sprout is the latest frozen vegetable medley from Arctic Gardens and that Paddy McAloon is an Irish beer.

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  59. Lyrically, they’re just a weird, weird band. Example from Movin’ the River: “But I’m turkey hungry. I’m chicken free! And I can’t break dance on your knee!”

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  60. I used to tell my girlfriend, at the time, that Wendy Smith was the only girl who I would leave her for. Love her.

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  61. My idea of heaven is whiling away a Sunday afternoon listening to Prefab Sprout CDs.

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  62. Oh dear, the new album Let’s Change the World with Music is a strange one. As if Prefab’s dated production and overwrought sentimentality weren’t enough to put off casual listeners, LCTWWM also is so laden with religious references it might as well be a gospel album and it’s literal, matter-of-fact tributes to Paddy McAloon’s musical influences are silly bordering on absurd. Why do I love it so much? Because it’s brilliant.

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  63. I bet you could do a whole column about a subgenre of Manhattan songs - songs about Manhattan diners, in which case don't forget "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega!

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  64. And if you do diners, then don't forget hotels - like Chelsea Hotel!

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  65. For anyone still wondering about the 'hot dog, jumping frog' lines in King of Rock n Roll, this is the video for it, which explains it all (!)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4czVmZQUbM

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  66. :) Oh dear, that video both explains everything.... and nothing. :)

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  67. Cheers Geoff. Come and see me if you're ever in Montpellier where I have a studio. Come and check out the studio, see the way we work and have a cup of tea.

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