05/11/2011

Wall Street Shuffle



One of the themes of this blog has been the associations that people bring with them in their notions of a particular place.  Some places, of course, have such a strong and automatic association already that it is almost impossible to get past that initial mental link. This is something more specific than thinking of Paris and springtime or London and fog: it’s where there is not much of the place in question left if the associated image was to be removed. Any song about the Los Angeles district called Hollywood, for example, is almost certainly going to be about bright lights, the quest for stardom, and possibly the world and people being left behind. New York’s Broadway is much longer than the theatre stretch but the rest of it is unlikely to linger long in the mind. Up until the 1980’s songs about London’s Soho were more  likely to reflect its seedy image of strip clubs, clip joints selling fake champagne at extortionate prices and prostitution rather than the Italian restaurants and churches there -  Al Stewart’s Old Compton Street or the Kinks’ Lola: “I met her in a club down in old Soho where they drink champagne that tastes just like cherry cola”

One such place is New York’s Wall Street, the name of a street that has also become something generic to signify the USA financial sector – Corporate America - in much the same way that the City has come to mean the UK’s financial sector as well as a geographical square mile of London. The image of Wall Street as something more than just a street in Manhattan goes back a long way in popular culture and was cemented by the 1987 film Wall Street and the ‘greed is good’ mantra. A  figure of speech to contrast with the equally symbolic ‘Main Street’.

The relationship of pop music and what Wall Street or the City signify has always been a rather ambiguous one. From the music industry’s point of view there has never been a problem in marketing rebellion - ‘The Revolution is on CBS’  was a shameless marketing campaign in the late 60’s, for example -  and the careers of artists such as the Stones and Alice Cooper have shown the compatibility of an image of anti-authority coupled with an astute accumulation of wealth. In the early days of pop, any notion of finance capitalism  hardly figured at all in songs, other than the occasional appearance of a Man in a Bowler Hat  from the City as a pompous figure of fun, as in Bernard Cribbins’ Hole in the Ground. (There is also an odd short British film from 1964 called The Peaches, in which the central character –an early Swinging London  free spirit who lived on peaches, played by Juliet Harmer of Adam Adamant fame  - is chased into the Thames by a phalanx of City gents in bowler hats). In fact, one of the first pop songs to explore the relationship of pop and capitalism was not a critique at all but the George Harrison-penned Taxman on the  Beatles' Revolver album, a whinge about paying too much tax under a Labour Government.

You can, however, see a shift over the years, also seen in records about Wall Street. Herb Alpert’s  innocuous Wall Street Rag from 1966   became McCarthy’s Tomorrow The Stock Exchange Will Be The Human Race from 1990  - “Arise the wealthy of the earth, arise you worthy men, our sun will rise when we have got the masses on the run” -  or Procol Harum’s Wall Street Blues from 2003  - “They said the market could never go down, they took your savings and then left town”.

The song here, however, Wall Street Shuffle by 10cc,is a prophetic one from decades ago,  a UK hit in 1974. 10cc came with a musical pedigree. Eric Stewart had been main man of Manchester’s The Mindbenders, achieving success first with Wayne Fontana in the early  years of the British beat boom and then on their own with hits such as Groovy Kind of Love. Graham Gouldman had written hits for the Yardbirds, Hollies and Herman’s Hermits. They were also one of those 70’s groups, like Roxy Music or Sparks, whose lyrics sometimes led listeners to think  ‘Too clever for their own good’.  A typical example was their 1975 hit, Life Is A Minestrone (“served up with parmesan cheese. Death is a cold lasagne, suspended in deep freeze”).


There is perhaps too much detachment in Wall Street Shuffle to make it a rallying cry for today but some of its lines still resonate down the years: “Let your money hustle.
Bet you'd sell your mother, you can buy another”. The last column was on St Pauls' Cathedral, current  site for Occupy London -  the New York counterpart is in Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street district. A few years ago, visiting Wall Street might have meant looking up at the glass and steel of the office skyscrapers whilst a picture of Michael Douglas playing Gordon Gekko floated involuntarily into your mind. Earlier this week, on a short visit to New York,  I stood in Zuccotti Park and looked across the sea of polythene tents there, the banners and anarchist flags ,at the drummers keeping up a background sound of rhythm, the mix of ages from children to grandmothers knitting.  Somehow the people dwarfed the buildings this time.

36 comments:

  1. I really like the song you posted Geoff - and if the Occupy movement needed an anthem, this should be on the short-list!

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  2. Oooh, you mentioned Al Stewart’s Old Compton Street Blues, one of my favorite songs. For another London song by him, there is 'Soho' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ryNmfQ3j0

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  3. There you are! I missed your column last week. Little did we know it was because you were on your travels, gathering more songs and places to write about! I love this column - thank you Geoff!

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  4. Great photo of the protests - love the Bank of America logo in the background!

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  5. You may like my song Jump You Fuckers (A Song for Wall Street). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TYezSrzUUs

    Gene

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  6. Here is my recent song about the occupation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9NxX8C3WPA

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  7. Readers may like my "Wall Street Spirit":
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iQeK8MTol8

    Dan
    ps - love the column, which was forwarded to our Occupy listserve

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  8. This is an interesting Occupy Wall Street song too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QTfNEDgusQ

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  9. An interesting article about the music of this protest movement....: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/arts/music/occupy-wall-street-protest-lacks-an-anthem.html

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  10. For another song about Wall Street, there is Big D and The Kids Table – “It’s Raining Zombies on Wall Streets” - they sing about eating Rush Limbaugh when they are zombies:)

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  11. And there is Filthy Thieving Bastards – “A Killing on Wall Street”

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  12. Come listen to the live and current sounds of the OWS movement:
    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Wall-Street-Protest-Songs/150954684944248?sk=wall

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  13. Also Chaos UK with their “Wall Street Crash”

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  14. How about, The Skatalites – “Wall Street Shuffle”

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  15. The Occupy movement doesn't have the first set of people to hang out in public parks. This classic from U.K. mods Small Faces came out in 1967 and chronicled their adventures skipping school to hang out in Itchycoo Park (an East London green space so named for its stinging nettles) where they got high and cried because everything was "all too beautiful."
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzcF0v1eOE

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  16. With reference to your mention of the CBS marketing campaign, I felt the need to post Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGaRtqrlGy8

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  17. Here's the Greed is Good moment in Wall Street that Geoff referenced! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8y6DJAeolo

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  18. I am glad you mentioned the line The Revolution is on CBS, as I always thought I imagined those advertisements in Rolling Stone! Hard to believe. They were in Melody Maker too. Huge double-page advertisements. The industrialization of protest music!

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  19. Got to post the Kinks’ Lola, it's so good!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVXmMMSo47s

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  20. Here's Procol Harum’s Wall Street Blues - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmYH1tqZwRs - an excellent and honest song.

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  21. Ah, those whining Beatles.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maz9ddxEQnM

    My local post office used to play this over their own audio system for the long lines of last-minute tax filers on April 15 each year!

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  22. I sort of loved the song Life Is A Minestrone that you mentioned, Geoff. Had never heard of it - or the band 10cc - but looked it up and here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kaSlhCIV78

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  23. I remember that short film, The Peaches! At the end, she gives up on eating peaches and turns to pickled onions instead!

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  24. The very brilliant Hole in the Ground by Bernard Cribbins - and check out the fact that Hitler is standing with his bicycle in this video at 0.7 mins to 0.18 mins, the guy on the left!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGk4AKOwJbc

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  25. I have never met anyone who has seen the Peaches! Yes, she does take to pickled onions-I think it was symbolic!

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  26. Good point about the Stones. Only two of them--bassist Bill Wyman, the son of a bricklayer, and drummer Charlie Watts, the son of a lorry driver--came from working-class backgrounds, and both were improving their day-job lots dramatically by the time they joined the Stones. The other three, the group's spiritual nucleus through the scuffling days, were in it strictly for the art. Lead guitarist Keith Richard, although he grew up fairly poor, revolted against his parents' genteel middle-class pretensions; rhythm guitarist and all-purpose eclectic Brian Jones came from a musical family headed by an aeronautical engineer and wandered the Continent after leaving a posh school; and Mick himself, the son of a medium-successful educator, did not quit the London School of Economics until after the band became a going proposition in 1963. This is not to say the Stones were rich kids; only Brian qualified as what Americans would call upper middle-class. Nor is it to underestimate the dreariness of the London suburbs or the rigidity of the English class hierarchy. But due partly to their own posturing, the Stones are often perceived as working class, and that is a major distortion. Mick had always been into money,

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  27. Yes, in 2006, I think, the London Times gave a free download of the film, which is only 15 minutes long, as part of its coverage of the Cannes Film Festival (the film won at Cannes in 1964). So I downloaded and watched it then. If I can figure out how to upload it onto Youtube, I'll do so and forward the link.

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  28. Thanks for the reminder that, contrary to what some people think, Wall Street is not a metaphor, but a real street; it runs from Broadway to South Street along the East River in Manhattan. As you point out, the area is an imposing neighborhood of huge Gilded Age skyscrapers with gigantic marble facades, all pillars and gables. You get the feeling that you have to be at least an archangel just to be walking there. It is not a warm place. While the impressive buildings dwarf the humans scurrying about in their shadows, the trash and mess blowing around leaves you with the impression of a lack of soul. Very little matters here except who can make who rich and to how many zeroes. No children laugh and play, no dogs are walked, no street bands perform. Sinister black limousines roll by in an endless stream, like gleaming sharks, their windows so black that they might as well be hearses. The signs say "no standing any time." As if you would dare think such a thing!

    It is the capital of greed to some, but also undeniably the heart of all commerce, wealth, and prosperity, to at least North America, if not the world. So 10cc's 1974 hit "The Wall Street Shuffle" isn't all about condemning the business world; beneath it is a note or two of awe at these strangely powerful people and the control they have over so many. And for just a few lines, the tune even picks up and becomes a jaunty inspiration, all about needing a yen to make a mark and the luck to make a buck. But make no mistake, this is also the place where you'd "sell your mother, you can buy another."

    Unlike some bands who write songs about places they've never even been, 10cc actually got the idea for "The Wall Street Shuffle" when they drove through the place. The tone of the song matches the character of the place, and most certainly the place as it's perceived in our age, with so many Americans disgusted with these stuffed suits and the power games they play.

    It is uncanny that this song was made in 1974. But then, 25 years from now, it will probably be topical yet again.

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  29. Here are the great lyrics to the song Geoff posted:

    Do the Wall Street shuffle
    Hear the money rustle
    Watch the greenbacks tumble
    Feel the Sterling crumble

    You need a yen to make a mark
    If you wanna make money
    You need the luck to make a buck
    If you wanna be Getty, Rothschild
    You've gotta be cool on Wall Street

    You've gotta be cool on Wall Street
    When your index is low
    Dow Jones ain't got time for the bums
    They wind up on skid row with holes in their pockets
    They plead with you, buddy can you spare the dime
    But you ain't got the time
    Doin' the....
    Doin' the....

    Oh, Howard Hughes
    Did your money make you better?
    Are you waiting for the hour
    When you can screw me?
    'Cos you're big enough

    To do the Wall Street Shuffle
    Let your money hustle
    Bet you'd sell your mother
    You can buy another

    Doin' the....
    Doin' the....

    You buy and sell
    You wheel and deal
    But you're living on instinct
    You get a tip
    You follow it
    And you make a big killing

    On Wall Street

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  30. This is a pretty cool feature in the New Yorker about songs that could be part of the Occupy soundtrack: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-songs.html

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  31. I’m surprised more radios are not playing the track by 10cc these days.

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  32. I shot a video that used this song! About the currency Occupy Wall Street movement: http://vimeo.com/30264254

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  33. I can recall being asked which bands I liked by someone much older when I was 14 and being congratulated for mentioning 10cc.

    Back in 1974 the singles charts, which were all I had access to, were pretty uninspiring. So 10cc stood out for their tunes and literate lyrics.

    Looking back this is not such a surprise because the band's members had all been around in the great days of the 1960s. (1974 sounds very close to the sixties now: to me then it felt a world away). Eric Stewart had been one of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders and Graham Gouldman wrote such sixties favourites as For Your Love (for The Yardbirds), No Milk Today (for Herman's Hermits) and Bust Stop and Look Through Any Window (for The Hollies).

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  34. Love this band - heard them play on a beach in Holland in 1993!

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  35. Thanks for this column, and it was interesting to read all the comments too. It is funny how topical the song seems now. It came specifically from the time or the environment of when we were writing.

    For another idea for a song about a place, what about the idea of the bus stop? There is the song I wrote for the Hollies called Bus Stop.

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  36. Thanks for comments. I had thought of Bus Stop -but it would need to be a particular bus stop I had visited!

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