05/05/2012

La Costa Brava




An earlier column wrote of Andalucia in Southern Spain. It is an evocative name in many ways, of Moorish architecture and olive groves and white villages or of Lorca and the Spanish Civil War. Think of some other areas not so far away, however – the ‘Costas’. Costa Brava, Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol, Costa Dorada. At face value they are simply descriptive terms: the Wild Coast, the White Coast, the  Coast of the Sun, the Golden Coast. To British ears, at least, however, they have become over the last 40 years as shorthand for a particular type of  holiday, involving  sun and getting sunburned on crowded beaches, sangria, cheap hotels,  union jack shorts, British bars and cafes serving chips galore and  British food. The ‘Costa’ notion extends further than the Spanish coast actually, to Ibiza and Tenerife, for example –and even to bungalows overlooking Torbay with twee ‘Costa Packet’ signs on their gate.

The best known pop song about the ‘Costas’, Y Viva Espana by Sylvia  - gracing karaoke machines for evermore - is a fitting accompaniment for the stereotype of the British holidaymaker in Spain: “I’m off to sunny Spain….I’m taking the Costa Brava plane”. It was a hit in 1974 at a time when cheap flights and mass tourism to Spain were well underway, enabling the song to be sung by plane passengers en route to Alicante . A time too when Franco, the fascist dictator of the 1930’s, was still in power and Jack Jones, the British trade union leader and veteran of the International Brigades, urged British tourists to ignore the song and boycott Spain.

 There are other songs in the same vein. There was the 1980 hit by Fantastique, Costa Blanca: “La, la, la, lalala lalala, Enjoy the sun, you forget your sorrow, La, la, la, lalala lalala, hear me say, hear me say, hear me sayayay, La, la, la, lalala lalala”. And there was a 1976 track, Costa Brava, by Peggy March. Her name is best known for the 1963 million seller, I Will Follow Him (itself a remake of Petula Clark’s Chariot) but here she is doing an oompah song in German! Now this is what I call a Costa song. It sounds not dissimilar to Chas 'n Dave’s Margate, which also has a reference to the Costa Brava- “You can keep the Costa Brava and all that palaver”. Maybe  oompah rhythms make everything sound similar though.

However, considering the popularity of the Spanish Costas for the British there are surprisingly few pop  songs about them. Perhaps the Costa Brava et al seem too ordinary and parochial for the reasons given above. The Kinks might have managed a non-mocking song about a holiday there and the Chas 'n Dave song above sees even the Costa Brava as too posh to entertain as a holiday jaunt. However, pop stars on the whole migrated like Tony Blair, as moths to a flame, to the rich and glamorous: it was to the Cote d’Azur that the Stones decamped during their tax exile . Mediterranean resorts meant, not the Costas but the sorts of resorts artfully scattered in the Peter Sarstedt hit, Where Do You Go To My Lovely, with its references to Juan-les-Pines and to the Aga Khan. (Like the film actor Kenneth More, Sarstedt signifies laughter in this song by actually saying ‘Ha Ha Ha.’ I also have a theory that some of his popularity at the time, 1969, came from  looking rather like Tariq Ali, the political activist then on the front page of newspapers leading anti-Vietnam War marches: it gave Sarstedt a bit of street credibility. It went wrong when both parties got confused themselves: Tariq Ali astounded  a committee meeting of the International Marxist Group by a burst of Frozen Orange Juice and Peter Sarstedt perplexed audiences by encoring with The Internationale)

Instead of writing songs about the place, however, pop acts were more likely to retire there when the hits stopped. Over the years you could find , for example, Mike Smith - voice of the Dave Clark 5 - living in southern Spain  or Beaky (of Dave Dee, Dozy etc) running a bar in Marbella or Roy Crewdson (of Freddie and the Dreamers) running a bar in Los Cristianos. You can also find those  who impersonate the names of yesteryear – outfits called The Drifters or Four Tops abound in the bars and clubs. A few years ago there was an act  in one of the Tenerife resorts pretending to be Crispian St Peters  ( 2 UK hits in 1966): there seems a certain lack of ambition here when the person in question was deciding who to impersonate.

The song here from 2007, however, La Costa Brava by American indie outfit Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, gives a whole new perspective and suggests that the ‘Costa Brava’ described above is a specifically British notion. Maybe the USA and other European countries- except Germany - hear the words ‘Costa Brava’ as something different, perhaps as the glamorous stretch of coast of Salvador Dali and Ava Gardner still. It sounds an inviting and interesting place here, a place to find yourself and rejuvenate: “And down by the beach there's a small cafe, where we'll meet Lolo and Pablo and drink Moritz all day. So come on over to St Feliu 'cause it's somewhere I've been and I want to take you there.”

 It doesn’t take too long, of course, to get away from the neon lights and   English breakfasts, for you can hire  a car or take a bus or even just walk a few streets and travel to what seems another place and time. Or you can decide that the Costa Brava you see is a state of mind and find the right eyes to view it

38 comments:

  1. Ah-ha! I was wondering when you get to writing about that "particular type of holiday, involving sun and getting sunburned on crowded beaches, sangria, cheap hotels, union jack shorts, British bars and cafes serving chips galore and British food"! The least romantic image since you wrote about roundabouts - but a very necessary column to write, because for so many of us in England, it's (unfortunately) the only place 'out there in the world' we ever see!

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  2. I remember your column on Andalucia - that was one of my favorites, and inspired us to go there this past Spring. It was the most wonderful time - so THANK YOU Geoff!

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  3. It took me a while to get the ‘Costa Packet’ joke that the Torbay people are making (it costs a packet - a lot of money) - but I got there eventually!!:)

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  4. Hi Geoff - I didn't know about that piece of history, where Jack Jones urged British tourists to ignore the song and boycott Spain. Do you know if there WAS any kind of boycott - if his urging had any impact? This is really interesting!

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  5. I read Jack Jones' autobiography once - and recommend it, Geoff. It's out of print but you can still get used copies on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Union-Man-Autobiography-Jack-Jones/dp/0002171724

    Wonderful column!

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  6. Geoff - I know you have always been to the places you write about - but how did you end up in one of these Costas??? It's very generous of you to say that it's about finding "the right eyes to view it" but how did you decide to go there in the first place? I see you more as a Andalucia person:)

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  7. Your mention of the Jack Jones boycott reminded me of the protest moment in 1964 during the Eurovision song contest that year held in Portugal The debut of Portugal meant the presence of two fascist nations. Swedish singers boycotted the contest, and there was a stage-invasion after the Swiss entry: a man holding a banner baring the slogan "Boycott Franco & Salazar". Television cut to the scoreboard while the protester was removed..... Unfortunately in the 1970s a fire at the Danmarks Radio studios apparently destroyed the only visual copy the 1964 contest. As a consequence, this Eurovision, like that of 1956, exists only in audio form!

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  8. I found the audio - at 4.11 mins I think you can hear the kerfuffle as the Portuguese protester with the sign reading "Boycott Franco & Salazar" trespassed onto the stage!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF-29Jc1SgQ

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  9. Also, it was held in Copenhagen, not Portugal, in 1964, sorry for that typo!

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  10. That song by Fantastique, Costa Blanca (with its lyrics, “La, la, la, lalala lalala, Enjoy the sun, you forget your sorrow, La, la, la, lalala lalala, hear me say, hear me say, hear me sayayay, La, la, la, lalala lalala”) has to be the forerunner to Rebecca Black's recent song "Friday" - "Friday, Friday, Gettin' down on Friday, Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, Partyin', partyin' (Yeah), Partyin', partyin' (Yeah), Fun, fun, fun, fun, Lookin' forward to the weekend".

    If you listen to them more than once in quick succession, they blur into one torturous song.....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEQfgnjifts

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  11. Ha ha, good point Steve - who knew that Rebecca Black was so influenced by Dutch disco!

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  12. I had no idea that the singer of I Will Follow Him was the same singer as Costa Brava - very very weird!

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  13. Here's Y Viva Espana by Sylvia - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7aPp-4z-uw. You've got to admit, she gives it everything she's got in this performance!

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  14. Costa Brava / palaver - surely one of the most inspired rhymes in pop music.....!:)

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  15. I think you are on to something with the idea that oompah songs are best used to indicate the jolly, trashy, boozy image of sunburned Brits on party beaches, whether Costa Brava or Margate! Brass bands suggest the brashness of these holidays somehow. One of those moments where sound matches place........

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  16. Would it have been great if the Kinks did a non-mocking song about a vacation there - I would have listened to that!

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  17. Thats an interesting point about Portugal and the 1964 Eurovision. In 1974 the Portuguese entry in the Eurovision contest that year was the signal for the communist revolution against the Government!
    It was a family holiday on the coast south of Barcelona, Martha..

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  18. Geoff - this didn't really happen did it???? "Tariq Ali astounded a committee meeting of the International Marxist Group by a burst of Frozen Orange Juice and Peter Sarstedt perplexed audiences by encoring with The Internationale" - I can't tell if you are joking!!!!!!

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  19. He's definitely joking, Belle:)

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  20. It was a flight of fancy, I admit!

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  21. Yes, that it is one of my favourite moments in history - the airing (at 10:55 pm on April 24) by 'Emissores Associados de Lisboa' of the song E Depois do Adeus by Paulo de Carvalho, Portugal's entry in the April 6 Eurovision Song Contest, which alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup!

    Someone needs to write a good cultural history of the Eurovision Song Contest that includes all these details!

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  22. I agree with Sam - there is this book, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Europe-Popular-Politics-Eurovision/dp/0754658791, but it's not a cultural history, rather a collection of essays on things like gender, camp, nationalism in the contest.....

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  23. Peter Sarstedt really does look like Tariq Ali doesn't he?:)

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  24. Here is the Peter Sarstedt song Where Do You Go To My Lovely - I've never been able to understand what he is really singing about though..... "he bought you a racehorse for breakfast and you ate it just for fun"?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE89OeM5nmU

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  25. I love that Sarstedt signifies laughter in that song by actually saying ‘Ha Ha Ha’ - it's like he is an early version of text messages / emails where people write this. You almost expect him to add "LOL":)

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  26. Ha ha yes - this isn't very ambitious, but maybe all the other acts were taken!! "there was an act in one of the Tenerife resorts pretending to be Crispian St Peters"

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  27. Geoff, I think that in the US we definitely hear the words ‘Costa Brava’ as something different - totally glamorous, possibly a version of Cannes, far more like this song by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists..... But then, we're far less likely to have been there than a British person so it's fantasy!

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  28. I think Ted Leo is the most underrated American rock artist around. Also, props to the longtime Pharmacists drummer Chris Wilson. With a minimal kit, Wilson churns out some excellent drum patterns, throwing in some dropped beats and succinct fills. He is one of the most accomplished drummers around.

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  29. I hadn't heard the song you posted - by Ted Leo - or anything by him at all, but it's a great song! Highly melodic rhythm guitar line, great vocal melody, and that harmony vocals at the end......

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  30. Contrary to popular opinion, I thought that whole album was great - Living With The Living from 2007. The song "A Bottle of Buckie" is an interesting song about places, too. To my knowledge Ted Leo is from the USA, but this song's lyrical content suggests that he must have some Scottish roots! There are lyrical references to Govan Hill, the banks of the Clyde, "neds" and of course, Buckfast. Very strange, but it's a fine song, and a surefire hit north of the border!

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  31. A misheard lyric, Eva - but more interesting than the real one!

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  32. Hmmm, I think Ted Leo might have ripped off the 2004 song by Yellowcard called "Ocean Avenue" - do these songs not sound strangely familiar to you?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fLbfzCqWw

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  33. I think la costa brava sounds like a really, really good foo fighters song!

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  34. I was on holiday in Can picafort 1975/76 there was a holiday song out then in spanish which we all danced to in a line sort of? it had some words like ...a ban a be a bo e be !!! crazy i know but this is all i remember singing ha any ideas?

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  35. Its not Una Paloma Blanca, is it? That was pretty much everywhere then..

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  37. I have just spotted your comment above, Mariana-thats a nice thing to say and I am glad you liked Andalucia.

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