26/03/2011

Coles Corner


Most of the columns have been about places that exist in real time, although artist and listener may well see them in very different ways. There is another, and rather unusual, type of place. You may have seen it mentioned, and people may talk about it in the present tense, but you won’t find it on any map. That is because it no longer exists - but in some people’s minds it is still there in the here and now. I have come across this phenomenon myself. ‘You know, next to the Co-op’, someone has said, oblivious to the fact that the Co-op referred to was shut and turned into something else 20 years ago. Or, “Go past Baileys and down the road’, when the last time the nightclub in question was called Baileys was when The Searchers played there, with Mike Pender still as lead singer. It is a curious concept of time, and one that brings to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five, where time is presented as a continuous loop or as a mountain range already laid out: step back and you can see it all there still, stretching behind and in front.

There are obvious problems in writing a song about a place that no longer exists in reality but is still there in some people’s heads - the listener probably won’t have been there nor will even know of its previous life. I suppose Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane fall into this category and there are probably others. It is even harder to write a song that makes you feel you must have been to such a place . The song here from 2005, Coles Corner by Richard Hawley, manages just that though. Like many of Richard Hawley’s songs, Coles Corner is about a part of Sheffield, Coles Bros being a large department store on the corner of Fargate and Church Street, near the Cathedral, that actually moved out in 1963: the building has housed a whole variety of businesses since then, most recently the HSBC Bank. The spot was, however, mainly remembered as a place for courting couples to meet up on a date and it kept its name, Coles Corner. There is thus a conundrum about this song. Though I have driven past Sheffield on the M1 many times heading further north I have only visited the city once and though I walked past Coles Corner I didn’t realise it at the time –why would I, it doesn’t exist now. However, hearing this song makes me feel I have been there when it did exist, though I haven’t. Hmm.

The song is decidedly retro - the Sheffield here is nothing like that seen in the music of the Human League or Arctic Monkeys or even Hawley’s previous group, Pulp. This is a Billy Liar Sheffield. Echoes of the musical past run through it, from the overwhelmingly lush intro to the touches of ‘hold back the night’ and ‘downtown’ , though it is a much more melancholy downtown than the rather brash one of Petula Clark. But somehow there is nothing of a self-conscious pastiche about it. It is like two eras separated by 45 years have somehow touched –Vonnegut’s time loop. Hawley’s baritone voice has been compared to Scott Walker and certainly there is something about Coles Corner that is reminiscent of Copenhagen. However, Scott Walker seems too cosmopolitan and ‘European’ for this record and a more apt comparison might be with Matt Munro - variously known as ‘the singing bus driver’ and ‘the English Frank Sinatra’ - and his songs like Softly As I Leave You and Portrait of My Love. As surely as the early Shadows, this sound was part of that era of British pop after rock and roll had faded and before the Beatles arrived. With the sweeping orchestration and the heavy sense of nostalgia hanging over this tune, this song if given visual form would be the rich red velvet curtains in an old fashioned cinema just before they opened for the start of the ‘B’ movie.

For me the track sounds like a musical backdrop for a little scenario set in England round about 1961 or so, in fact the era of the last column on Wonderful Land. In this scene it is early Saturday evening in a terraced street in a provincial town. Sheffield, Blackburn, Weymouth –whichever one, London is a long way away, only seen on school trips or the occasional family visit. The younger son is upstairs in his bedroom practising the Shadows walk and wondering if he dare borrow his sister’s hair dye and turn his head blond like Jet Harris. He would really like to go and see Mike Berry and the Outlaws rocking it up in the Corn Exchange but knows that even if he nips out before they play the national anthem at the end he won’t get home in time. His older sister is watching Juke Box Jury on the TV, hoping they will play the latest record by Craig Douglas, who she secretly thinks looks rather like her new boy friend, who is taking her to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s at The Gaumont later. Only, crikey, there is a young actor called David McCallum on the panel and he’s better looking than Craig Douglas. His mother is washing up, before coming in to the living room later to watch the Billy Cotton Band Show. She likes Russ Conway tinkling away on the piano: such a handsome man, she can’t understand why he hasn’t been snapped up by some nice young lady by now. His father is sitting in an armchair –he has done the pools but no luck this week. He is not that keen on the Billy Cotton Show. There is one of those rock and rollers, Joe Brown, on it now, making a racket. All right, he can play the guitar behind his head but what is the point of that? Pity National Service has finished, that would have given him a proper trade. The older son is also in his room. He would like to be meeting someone with a smile and a flower in her hair - by Coles Corner, or the Roxy. Only he doesn’t know anyone to meet so he puts Marty Wilde’s Tomorrow’s Clown on his Dansette and settles for an evening in.

Somehow a song about a place that no longer exists becomes a tune for a whole era: provincial England, late 50’s/early 60’s.

Link to song

49 comments:

  1. What a beautiful song, and definitely not what I would have expected for a song about Sheffield - which I only know about from the film The Fully Monty!!

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  2. Wow, this is like Roy Orbison but a million times better!

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  3. I have this album and just had a second look at the liner notes - where Hawley describes Coles Corner as the place in Sheffield where couples arrange to meet, reckoning “there must be so many people in this world who are alive because a love bloomed there”. Which is really lovely!

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  4. It's funny, I was listening to a BBC radio piece about the music of Sheffield a few months ago, hosted by Jarvis Cocker - it's here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0090mxd - I don't think he mentioned Richard Hawley though, which clearly was a major omission!

    Wonderful column this week Geoff - THANK YOU for writing about my North!

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  5. The next album Lady’s Bridge is equally brilliant, I very much recommend it......

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  6. I know exactly what you mean Geoff - this song makes me feel homesick for something, somewhere that I think I've been but actually haven't!

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  7. It's nice album art too - on the front a man stands, waiting for someone, holding flowers. On the back, the flowers are stuffed into a bin.

    Here is the front: http://pathfinderpat.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/coles-corner-richard-hawley-2005.jpg

    I haven't been able to find the back picture online yet, but I'll post it if I find it!

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  8. I always think there is something a bit quietly tragic about Hawley, whenever I've seen him interviewed - that stoic but sensitive British man who suffers quietly, patiently. It makes sense that his music summons a whole era I think, because he himself always summons for me a whole kind of person.

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  9. This is so bittersweet - definitely not something to listen to if you're already feeling melancholy!

    Beautiful column, Geoff!

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  10. Wow, this is like discovering a long-lost song from the 1950s or 1960s - I love how it manages to be from a different era without being just an antique.... pretty amazing!

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  11. I believe that in 2009 Coles Corner was used on a trailer advert for Sex in the City-which seems a long way from a bloke standing on a street corner in Sheffield!

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  12. Love this - it's like Johnny Cash singing Bing Crosby!

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  13. I read an interview where he described that he wrote this song walking through his local park, pushing his 2 children in their prams..... Which makes the nostalgia for the past even more impressive, because he wrote it while walking with his young children, when it's hard to feel nostalgic for the past I think, in that situation.

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  14. There is a bit of Lou Reed in this I think - beautiful!

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  15. Wow, it's like songs have been in a time capsule for several decades, only to be released now! Love it!

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  16. I really liked how this led on from your last week's column, in looking at a particular era from England's history. In spirit this song seems to be part of that era of the Shadows, those individuals and groups that predate The Beatles. What a wonderful continuation of your theme last week, Geoff.

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  17. My parents used to meet at Coles Corner when they were courting in the 1950s. This gorgeous song captures a period in that city's history.... and my family history too!

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  18. It's a far cry from "It's Grim Up North".... seems like it might not be so grim after all, although Sheffield is mentioned.....:

    Bolton,
    Barnsley,
    Nelson,
    Colne,
    Burnley
    Bradford,
    Buxton,
    Crewe,
    Warrington,
    Widnes,
    Wigan,
    Leeds,
    Northwich,
    Nantwich,
    Knutsford,
    Hull,
    Sale,
    Salford,
    Southport,
    Leigh,
    Derby,
    Kearsley
    Keighley
    Maghull,
    Harrogate,
    Huddersfield,
    Oldham, Lancs,
    Grimsby,
    Glossop,
    Hebden Bridge,
    It's Grim Up North,
    It's Grim Up North.

    Brighouse,
    Bootle,
    Featherstone,
    Speke,
    Runcorn,
    Rotherham,
    Rochdale,
    Barrow,
    Morecambe,
    Macclesfield,
    Lytham St. Annes
    Clitheroe,
    Cleethorpes,
    The M62,
    It's Grim Up North,
    It's Grim Up North.

    Pendlebury,
    Prestwich,
    Preston,
    York,
    Skipton,
    Scunthorpe,
    Scarborough-on-Sea,
    Chester,
    Chorley,
    Cheedle Hulme,
    Ormskirk,
    Accrington Stanley,
    and Leigh,
    Ossett,
    Otley,
    Ikley Moor,
    Sheffield,
    Manchester,
    Castleford,
    Skem,
    Doncaster,
    Dewsbury,
    Hali-fax,
    Bingley,
    Bramall,
    Are all in the North.
    It's Grim Up North.

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  19. Yes, Geoff, I remember that song being in a trailer for the Sex and the City Film. Then they also used his song "Open up your door" for Sex and the City 2! Someone who makes film advertisements clearly likes Richard Hawley!

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  20. It also a far cry from Pulp’s "Sheffield Sex City"!:)

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  21. His old band LONGPIGS were one of the best from the Brit scene of the mid to late 90s. only two albums sadly... but his solo stuff is ace too.

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  22. You might enjoy this album too - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Made-Sheffield-Tony-Christie/dp/B001HB9P4S - Made in Sheffield by Tony Christie.

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  23. I just love this guy's voice and this whole album could have been released any time over the last 40 years and it would still sound amazing.

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  24. He is truly fantastic musician, one that needs to be seen live - I saw him in New York in December of 2007 and he was just superb.

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  25. You could almost assemble a walking tour of Sheffield from the song titles and references he works into his music. And I think this song is drawn in part from details of Hawley's life in Sheffield.

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  26. If Sinatra had played guitar and been a Brit, he might have sounded something like Richard Hawley!

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  27. Amazing that it’s all so well done that there’s no hint of pastiche. Not since the heyday of Dave Edmunds and Rockpile has there been so much life breathed into retro rock’n'roll, I think.

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  28. For me he's the 21st century's Elvis Presley - just can't put a foot wrong now.

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  29. Re Mike's listing of It's Grim Up North, there is also John Cooper Clarke's ode to Burnley:

    I'll tell you now and I'll tell you firmly
    I don't never want to go to Burnley
    What they do there don't concern me
    Why would anybody make the journey?

    I'll tell you know and I'll tell you flatly
    I don't never want to go to Gatley
    I don't even want to go to Batley
    Where is that place exactly.

    Do I wanna to go to Redditch?
    I wouldn't visit in a souped-up sheddish
    what am I some kind of Nebbish?
    No I don't want to go to Reddish

    I'll tell you now and I'll tell you briefley
    I don't never want to go to Keighley
    I'll tell you now, just like I told Elsa Lanchester...
    I don't ever want to go to... Cumbernauld

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  30. Robert Plant stole the first line of "In the Evening" from "Tomorrow's Clown", you know.

    The B-side of that single was "The Hellions" which was also the name of my movie, which I'm hoping will come out on DVD at some point.

    Did you hear the show "The Reunion: 50s Rockers" yesterday on BBC 4? It'll be online this weekend supposedly: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2011/03/rocking_and_rolling_on_the_reunion.html. It's eerie but that was what you were talking about in this column and last week, that pre-Beatles era! Coincidence of timing, or are you with the BBC as well Geoff, I'm confused. Anyway, I was telling them all about your blog, Terry, Vince and the others.

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  31. No, I am not with the BBC! I will listen to the Reunion programme if I can find it online.

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  32. Geoff! The combination of your profile listing you as Hertfordshire, plus the mention of the Co-op and Baileys this week makes me think you're from Watford!!! I live in Basingstoke now but I remember the Watford Baileys and the Co-op. Baileys was there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I used to go every Wednesday night without fail. We saw many groups and singers and never had a boring night. It was the 1970s and was at the time when the girls mostly wore long dresses. Very often we got to meet the artists performing at the club, although not the top artists. The one I would have dearly loved to have met was Gene Pitney. He was my absolute favourite going right back to his first hit 24 Hours from Tulsa. The thing I recall about Baileys is that in all the time I went there I never ever saw any fights or trouble, not like the nightclubs these days.

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  33. I remember Baileys too.... if in fact Geoff means the old Watford nightclub. Here's a photo I took in 1983 or 1984: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3328/3301069636_91e1574380_o.jpg

    There was always a really long queue!

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  34. Well, I remember when it was called Top Rank. That was before it was Baileys. It was THE disco venue of the 70s in the southeast.

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  35. I love the comparison to Slaughterhouse Five - the idea that music can be unstuck in time, in the same way that Billy is. Making time not a continuum but a collection of simultaneous moments.

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  36. In the case of Strawberry Fields, I know a lot of people who think that it was written about Central Park.... not realizing that the area in the park is named for the song! For those people, the imaginary place is real, but wrong!

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  37. Re David's comment, there was a 1965 pop film, Dateline Diamonds, with the Small Faces pre-Ian MacLaughlin and a young Kiki Dee. One of the scenes was apparently filmed in the Top Rank venue.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzrWH8A6mQQ

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  38. Yes - that's definitely Top Rank - you can tell from the shot with the second level in the background.Thanks Geoff. Might go watch this whole film now!

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  39. I love that feeling music can give you - where that "I have been there when it did exist, though I haven’t." It's a unique kind of nostalgia for someone that not only no longer exists, but doesn't even exist in a real memory. A doubly distant nostalgia.

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  40. I loved the reference to Billy Liar:) This is what Geoff is talking about, in case anyone didn't get the reference...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFdJ-Pr15S4

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  41. I love the singing bus driver:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQR5iDsuud8

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  42. I loved this column, just discovered it. And I still have my dansette! - http://walkingollie.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/dansette.jpg

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  43. Geoff, I LOVED your scenario. You should write a film with this as a scene!!
    "In this scene it is early Saturday evening in a terraced street in a provincial town. Sheffield, Blackburn, Weymouth –whichever one, London is a long way away, only seen on school trips or the occasional family visit. The younger son is upstairs in his bedroom practising the Shadows walk and wondering if he dare borrow his sister’s hair dye and turn his head blond like Jet Harris. He would really like to go and see Mike Berry and the Outlaws rocking it up in the Corn Exchange but knows that even if he nips out before they play the national anthem at the end he won’t get home in time. His older sister is watching Juke Box Jury on the TV, hoping they will play the latest record by Craig Douglas, who she secretly thinks looks rather like her new boy friend, who is taking her to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s at The Gaumont later. Only, crikey, there is a young actor called David McCallum on the panel and he’s better looking than Craig Douglas. His mother is washing up, before coming in to the living room later to watch the Billy Cotton Band Show. She likes Russ Conway tinkling away on the piano: such a handsome man, she can’t understand why he hasn’t been snapped up by some nice young lady by now. His father is sitting in an armchair –he has done the pools but no luck this week. He is not that keen on the Billy Cotton Show. There is one of those rock and rollers, Joe Brown, on it now, making a racket. All right, he can play the guitar behind his head but what is the point of that? Pity National Service has finished, that would have given him a proper trade. The older son is also in his room. He would like to be meeting someone with a smile and a flower in her hair - by Coles Corner, or the Roxy. Only he doesn’t know anyone to meet so he puts Marty Wilde’s Tomorrow’s Clown on his Dansette and settles for an evening in."

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  44. Hello there,

    I was a panelist on Juke Box Jury - they had me as the "typical teenager" giving a "teenager's view" for a few years. Remember the first theme tune of 1959? http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/adults/rocknroll/jukeboxfury.wav. Most people only remember the one we used from 1960 onwards: http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/adults/rocknroll/jukeboxjury.wav

    This is a brilliant column, thanks!

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  45. Thank you. Hey -Magpie! Much better than Blue Peter..
    I was only aware of the second theme tune, the John Barry 7 one. I didn't know that wasn't the original.

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  46. yes, it was a song called Juke Box Fury by Ozzie Warlock's band the 'Wizards' - just for the first 6 episodes or so.

    Glad you liked Magpie. Here's a clip from one of the early ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep3rAfPvkrY

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  47. My Dad used to say things like that!:)- Pity National Service has finished, that would have given him a proper trade!

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  48. hello Geoff, thanks for the mention. Not sure whereabouts you are but I'm touring this year around the place, www.mikeberry.net/gigsr.html. Maybe you can sneak out to see us rocking it up in the Corn Exchange and then nip out before the end so you get home in time.... or stay to the end and come and say hello..... !

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