02/09/2011

Voyage to Atlantis


Places are not always straight forward. A previous column looked at places that no longer exist but live on in some people’s minds as current reference points (Cole’s Corner). Then there are places that really do exist but sound so exotically remote that it is easy to imagine they are made up. Timbuktu, in Mali, has already been mentioned, with the tune From Kalamazoo to Timbuktu.  Xanadu is  another. Xanadu  (Shangdu)  was the capital of Kublai Khan’s dynasty and the ruins still remain in Mongolia. It is probably best known, however, from one of 3 sources, each of which might lead the listener/reader to think  that it was an imaginary place. In order of credibility, there is the poem Kubla Khan  by Coleridge, written  (in 1797) after waking from a  dream and in which Xanadu sounds like the Garden of Eden. Then there is Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich’s Legend of Xanadu (1967),  complete with sound of whip cracking but which  is possibly historically incorrect in describing the place  as ‘a black barren land’.  Finally, one’s ideas might come from the take by Olivia Newton-John and ELO in  the film Xanadu and song of the same name (1980), a place ‘where your neon lights will shine” and almost definitely historically incorrect.

Then there are places that do not exist but sound plausible enough that you might have to think twice about their possible reality. Shangri-La, for example, the title of a Kinks song as well as a 1930’s novel –maybe it is  a Himalayan kingdom somewhere between Tibet and Bhutan. Or El Dorado (ELO again!)  - perhaps it is somewhere near El Salvador and Guatemala (instead of being, as Edgar Allan Poe put it in his poem of the  same name, “Over the Mountains of the Moon. down the Valley of the Shadow” .You cant miss it).  Or Echo Beach, made famous by Martha and the Muffins. Surely that existed: the single came out with a map on the record sleeve - but apparently it was a figment of the lyricist’s imagination. These, of course, are different from those places that do not exist but no-one ever imagined that they really did., Like The Land of Grey and Pink (Caravan). Or The Land of Make Believe ( Bucks Fizz). Or The Land of Oo-Bla-Dee (Dizzy Gillespie)

There is another  category too, best described as places which may be fantasy or may  have actually   been real but which also now exist in a modern, though more prosaic, form. One example is Albion. It was  an early  name for Britain but took on  more mythical overtones over the centuries, the idea becoming a recurrent theme in Pete Doherty’s music. A more well-known example is Atlantis, the  legendary island that was also supposed to host a lost civilisation and has provided the inspiration for countless books, films, comic strips and video games. The geographical  origins for the story have been placed everywhere from Mexico to Antarctica. However, its inclusion in this blog of places I remember only makes sense if one particular theory is accepted: that the legend was based on  the Mediterranean island of Crete and the Minoan empire of 2000 years or so BC , destroyed by a massive volcano eruption on nearby Santorini.

The theory seems more plausible than most and there are parts of Crete where it would be very easy to believe it. Admittedly it is a  long time since I went to Crete and certainly there was nothing mystical about the stormy journey over from Piraeus on an overnight ferry that had a below-deck toilet almost as bad as the one at Milton Keynes bus station. However, when you see the ruins of Knossos Palace - source of the myth of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur – or the Dictean cave where Zeus was supposedly born, you get a sense of the antiquity of the island. You also realise that there are places there a world away from the clubs and nightlife of the coastal resorts -  decades after the end of World War 2 a Resistance fighter emerged from a hidden mountain location like a Japanese soldier on a Pacific island.

 Most songs that have taken inspiration from the idea of Atlantis, it is true, have taken a more fanciful perspective and Crete doesn’t really figure in them  much, if  at all. Musically, the Shadows were first off the block with a 1963 instrumental hit Atlantis, though in truth the tune didn’t really conjure up Atlantis, any more than their  Kon Tiki conjured up Thor Heyerdahl and his raft. (Sun Ra’s instrumental album, Atlantis, will give the listener a better vision of Atlantis -  or possibly a headache).Donovan really went to town, with quotes from Plato sprinkled through  his Atlantis hit  in 1969: “The antediluvian kings colonised the world..All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas in all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.”  Australian outfit Flash and the Pan offered Atlantis Calling in 1980, with lyrics  actually mentioning a Greek island and throwing in the Flood, the Pyramids, the Tiahuanaco ruins and Stonehenge for good measure.

The song here from 1977, Voyage to Atlantis by the Isley Brothers, is really a love ballad with Atlantis as a hook to hang it on. The Isleys were a band who transformed themselves from a 60’s Motown-type vocal group into a rock/funk outfit in the 70’s, with classics like Who’s That Lady and the definitive  Summer Breeze characterised by the silky lead vocals of Ronald Isley and the Hendrix-influenced soaring guitar of Ernie Isley (who also played drums on many tracks). This song follows that trend. Yet  if I listen to the echoing closing bars and imagine  ancient white temple pillars silhouetted against a blue sky, the smell of a lemon grove and wild thyme in the air, and the hot sun throwing spots of  light reflecting  off the dancing waves of the sea, Atlantis/Crete seems quite plausible.

57 comments:

  1. Wonderful column Geoff! Also, Happy Labor Day! It's a holiday weekend in the U.S., and so although it is off topic, I thought you might enjoy this recent list by the Nation of the top ten songs about working people! - http://www.thenation.com/blog/163148/top-ten-labor-day-songs

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  2. Yes, I don't think you have Labor Day in England, but it marks the contributions of workers, and really just means that everyone visits family this weekend and has a big barbecue and maybe watches a parade! (Plus we get tomorrow off work, yay!).

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  3. I loved this week's column. I just got back online: i live in Long Island, which felt like the lost city of Atlantis this week - we and thousands of others only got power back this afternoon after a week without any electricity, after the hurricane last weekend!! There are thousands still without it on the East Coast though. First thing I did after making a coffee was power up the modem and log on to your blog!

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  4. Great column! I think it's a bit depressing though. Because the narrator in the song is basically telling his lover that their reunion will never happen; it is as mythical as the ‘paradise’ for which the song is named (‘Atlantis . . . is back to you.’).

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  5. I love the Isley Brothers, thank you Geoff:)

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  6. It always made me laugh that Ice-T's song Inside of a Gangsta managed to sample this song!:)

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  7. Thanks for the list of songs about working people, Desiree. I guess the equivalent of Labor Day here is May Day (1 May with a public holiday the first Monday in May)

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  8. I should have gone to knossos but was too busy being lazy

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  9. Ha ha, so if we believed the songs and literature you reference about Xanadu, it's a black barren land with neon lights that also contains lush landscape a la the Garden of Eden..... WEIRD!!!!

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  10. Here is Kubla Khan by Coleridge, in case anyone doesn't know the poem - http://poetry.eserver.org/kubla-khan.html

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  11. There was also Broadway musical adaptation of Xanadu in 2007 that did pretty well!

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  12. Also, the band Rush has a song called Xanadu from its1977 album A Farewell to Kings.

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  13. Xanadu is such a terrible film - very much a Xanadon't!:) Here is the trailer! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcHQHd2jdlo

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  14. Olivia Newton-John rocked the soundtrack title song though:) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1UWSD-FaA

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  15. Geoff, I went to find a video of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich’s Legend of Xanadu. I found it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuJ4GIXB5Uc. And I was just amazed by the man introducing the band, who I think we've seen before on this blog except he was a lot older. He is young in this one. But I can't understand a WORD he is saying. It surely can't be the English language. Really, just watch it for me, the host man at the beginning, and I'll be amazed if you can understand him!!! He says the word 'record' at one point, but I've watched it several times and I can't understand anything else!

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  16. I always thought the map was real on the Martha and the Muffins single artwork!! - http://radiocoloradocollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Martha-and-the-Muffins.jpg

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  17. It is Jimmy Savile again, Martha -in his 40's at time of this clip. He has a Leeds accent and introduces DD,D,B,M & T, says they have recently come on the scene, that it is hard to pronounce their name and says the camera man is wearing a nice yellow coat!

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  18. Echo Beach had a different sleeve in the UK!
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b4/Echo_Beach_cover.jpg/200px-Echo_Beach_cover.jpg

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  19. Wait, the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee doesn't exist? This is devastating.

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  20. Peter Sinfield, who wrote The Land of Make Believe for Bucks Fizz, later claimed it was a song criticizing on Margaret Thatcher and her government's policy at the time. He said it was a "virulent anti Thatcher song" and he quoted in particular the lines: "Something nasty in your garden, waiting, til it can steal your heart. . ." So I think the land actually does exist, sort out - it's the land that Thatcher was trying to pretend existed (Thatcher's glorious Britain) but was really the dystopian nightmare of 1980s Britain.

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  21. I think the U.S. album map looks more convincing though! (more like a real place).

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  22. Ha yes, just go 2 miles Over the Mountains of the Moon, make a left and go down the Valley of the Shadow - you can't miss it!

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  23. Geoff, do you remember the name of the Resistance fighter who emerged from a hidden mountain location decades after the end of WW2? I find this fascinating and I want to go read more about him but can't find any info online at all....

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  24. That's interesting about the Buck Fizz song, Laura.-I hadnt realised that. Mind you, a later member of Bucks Fizz-David Van Day- stood as a Tory candidate!
    I think the UK map on Echo Beach is real - it's Chesil Beach near Weymouth

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  25. No, sorry Maggie-I tried to find it. I remember reading about it in a newspaper account once.

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  26. The Sun Ra album Atlantis will DEFINTIELY give you a headache. Unless you love going on "an intergalactic-space travel in sound." Here's a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4ozJG_Xyj0. Also, the liner notes are weird. They simply read:

    "The Dead Past"
    The civilizations of the past have been used as the foundation of the civilization of today. Because of this, the world keeps looking toward the past for guidance. Too many people are following the past. In this new space age, this is dangerous. The past is DEAD and those, who are following the past are doomed to die and be like the past. It is no accident that those who die are said to have passed since those who have PASSED are PAST.

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  27. Oh, I see - so the maps were of real places, but Echo Beach itself didn't exist so they weren't maps of Echo Beach, just somewhere else. Got it! I was confused.

    But I bet the poor album art designer was confused too - and probably thought, 'how am I supposed to design a cover for a song about a place that doesn't exist? Darn it, I'll just stick a map of somewhere real on there!"

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  28. Also, after a bit of searching, it turns out that cover art for Echo Beach on that other version really shows a map for the shoreline of Toronto - the harbor on Lake Ontario, with Wards Island, Tommy Thompson Park and North Shore Park! http://www.destination360.com/north-america/canada/ontario/toronto/the-westin-harbour-castle-map.gif

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  29. Wow, thank you. I would never have been able to translate that. Especially because of the randomness of the camera-man in his yellow coat comment. It's not just me though, I made several friends and family members watch it, and they all thought he was speaking a foreign language.

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  30. Yes, we celebrate May Day as well, but it isn't a national holiday. Even though apparently the commemoration of May Day as International Workers' Day received its inspiration from the United States, before becoming an international celebration of the labor movement (it marks the Haymarket killings, when the cops killed dozens of unarmed protesters during a strike in 1886).

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  31. Well, poor Peter Sinfield - one of the most progressive, bohemian lyricists and poets of the 20th century - can't be held responsible for the weirdness of David Van Day (who was only a Bucks Fizz member from 1996 to 1997, before leaving to form a new version of the group, which after legal wrangling he was only ever allowed to call "David Van Day's Bucks Fizz Show", so was actually never a member of the hit-making line-up! And the Sinfield song was 1981, so years before Van Day ever was on the scene).

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  32. You might also like his introduction in this Mac and Katie Kissoon clip too, Martha!
    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjhlvo_mac-katie-kissoon-the-two-of-us-1976_shortfilms

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  33. Oh yes, Peter Sinfield-King Crimson and Court of the Crimson King. I hadnt made the connection..

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  34. No worries, Geoff - I'll keep searching and will pass along any info I find about this modern Rip Van Winkle!

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  35. Nooooooooooooooooooo! I can't understand that either!!! And I even watched it twice, once when I was completely distracted by his clothes (that sparkling tank top is astonishing), then a second time to listen (and fail to understand) what he was saying. Someone could start a whole blog about this man, featuring videos and helpful translations!!

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  36. The (ambitious) Donovan lyrics are worth reading in full I think:

    The continent of Atlantis was an island
    Which lay before the great flood
    In the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
    So great an area of land, that from her western shores
    Those beautiful sailors journeyed to the South
    And the North Americas with ease
    In their ships with painted sails.
    To the east, Africa was a neighbor,
    Across a short strait of sea miles.

    The great Egyptian age is but a remnant
    Of the Atlantian culture.
    The antediluvian kings colonized the world;
    All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas
    In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.

    Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
    On board were the Twelve:
    The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist, the magician,
    And the other so-called Gods of our legends,
    Though Gods they were.
    And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind,
    Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new . . .
    Hail Atlantis!

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  37. Here is Flash and the Pan, Atlantis Calling - weird and interesting!! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sbNK7YTFFo

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  38. Beautiful!! - "ancient white temple pillars silhouetted against a blue sky, the smell of a lemon grove and wild thyme in the air, and the hot sun throwing spots of light reflecting off the dancing waves of the sea" - now THAT is Edenic!

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  39. And here is the actual song by Donovan, Atlantis, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leI7sfmipuI

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  40. I found the Shadows, Kon Tiki, in case anyone wants it! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRrISegvqpU

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  41. For good measure, here is the Shadows, Atlantis too! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VycZVyApqew. LOVE THE SHADOWS!

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  42. Geoff, you might enjoy The Cretan Runner, by George Psychoundakis, if you haven't read it already: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/08/cretan-runner-george-psychoundakis

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  43. Here is Shangri-La, by the Kinks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4DJ9YUYshE

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  44. Hey, you might enjoy my cover of Shangri-La - www.youtube.com/watch?v=W29B-aGlCYc
    palbolt

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  45. Toyah Willcox has a very 1980s version of Echo Beach too!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voe8fwVsFEI

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  46. Hello, thanks for including Echo Beach, this is a truly great blog, congratulations!

    Probably you know this already but it is about a working woman's dream of escaping the drudgery of office life. My father always said one reason he thought it was a hit is because it's nostalgic, and any song that has nostalgia in it hits a chord with people. And I think to some extent he's right.

    I was not aware of a real "Echo Beach" when I wrote the song. It is just somewhere where she would rather be.

    I actually came up with the idea of this kind of song while at work. Which was checking wallpaper for faults in the printing. My mind would drift away to other times - times in the past I would rather be living again. And then the actual name Echo Beach is from the song Hiroshima, mon Amour from 1977 by the band Ultravox - which is a reference to a vanished place:

    Somehow we drifted off too far
    Communicate like distant stars
    Splintered voices down the 'phone
    The sunlit dust, the smell of roses drifts, oh no
    Someone waits behind the door
    Hiroshima mon amour

    Riding inter-city trains
    Dressed in European grey
    Riding out to echo beach
    A million memories in the trees and sands, oh no
    How can I ever let them go?
    Hiroshima mon amour

    Meet beneath the autumn lake
    Where only echoes penetrate
    Walk through polaroids of the past
    Future's fused like shattered glass, the sun's so low
    Turns our silhouettes to gold
    Hiroshima mon amour

    And the map of one version of the single is of the Toronto Islands. The other map is of Chesil Beach in Dorset, as Geoff said.

    Mark (Gane)

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  47. Ha ha, funny reference to the Milton Keynes bus station. For those who aren't sure what Geoff is talking about, this is a desperate ex-Soviet Republic hellhole of a coach station on the edge of town, miles from anywhere except the M1, probably the first part of Milton Keynes many low budget travellers see. I really feel sorry for people moving to Milton Keynes and getting off here. Talk about a poor first impression...

    It did have a greasy spoon cafe (with friendly staff), that did the usual egg and chips kind of food, but this got wiped out by fire in April 2007 unfortunately.

    And the cleanliness of the toilets has been the subject of much debate in the local newspaper

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  48. Here's the brilliant Echo Beach, by Martha and the Muffins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWxUGStTj4

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  49. Weirdly, there is also a Shangri-La in Orange, Texas - some philanthropist built it as an azalea garden situated alongside a cypress-tupelo swamp, it's actually quite nice to visit!

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  50. I think Luton bus station is worse. Horrible place, they put ultraviolet lights in the loos so people couldn't find veins to inject.

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  51. Shangri-La is also mentioned in Patti Smith's song "1959".

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  52. It also seems like any independent nation that is somewhat isolated from the West ends up being called Shangri-La - previously Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Tuva, Mongolia, the Tocharian Tushara Kingdom of the Mahābhārata and the Han Dynasty outpost Dunhuang..........

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  53. And there is "Barbara (Shangri-la)", a song by The Stranglers on their album Suite XVI.

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  54. Kim has a song called "Shangri-La" on her album Teases & Dares from 1984. She wrote it herself, too.

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  55. Thanks for the background to Echo Beach, Mark-it is fascinating to hear how it came about.
    Elkie Brooks did a song called Shangri-La too

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  56. I was shocked a couple of years ago when I discovered that "Voyage To Atlantis" by The Isley Brothers is NOT A LOVE SONG. It's a break up song! It is about two lovers going their separate ways, with the words saying their eventual reunion is like a journey to "a paradise out beyond the sea." In the song, Ron is really telling his girl that this reunion will never happen. It's as unattainable as the "paradise" for which the song is named.

    I thought the song was about a man missing his woman. For years I have sang this song to women as if it were the love song of all love songs, and in reality I was telling them we are about to break up. Now I'm wondering how stupid do these women think I am?

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  57. Ha ha, we are a weird bunch who reply on this blog, aren't we? Geoff describes the idea of a fantasy / mystical land - either like Eden or a Greek island - and we debate which is worse, the loo at Milton Keynes bus station or the loo at Luton bus station. We have a knack of dragging Geoff from his poetry down to the gutter!!

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