Wonderful Life and before Essay #1 in the series The Music of Black (Colin Vearncombe) by Andrew Keeling 1. Background 2 2. Wider Background 3 3. The Early Music 4 Human Features 4 More Than The Sun 5 4. Wonderful Life - 1 6 5. Wonderful Life – 2 8 Wonderful Life 13 Everything’s Coming Up Roses 15 Paradise 16 Sweetest Smile 17 It’s Not You, Lady Jane 18 Hardly Star-Crossed Lovers 19 6. Coda 19 Musical Examples 21 Foreword I didn’t know much about Black (Colin Vearncombe) before wriDng this essay. Probably like many people I was aware of his mid-1980s hit, Wonderful Life although only through a television commercial. Although I’d played in Blackpool new wave ouPit Thruaglas Darkly, by the Dme Black came to prominence I’d decided to return to university in a part-Dme capacity to study for a music degree – knowing that the creaDve musical developments of the early 1980s had largely disappeared – eventually pursuing postgraduate degrees at the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester. The reason I menDon this, is that by the mid-1980s I was distanced from mainstream culture along with the nostalgia associated with the period. Paradoxically, this opened-up an objecDve approach where musical judgements could be made without being shrouded by subjecDve memories of music and period. By mid-2016, my daughter had invited my wife and I to leave the UK and live in Ireland, the same Dme as Colin Vearncombe died tragically in a car accident. LiXle did I know then that the songwriter also lived on the ‘emerald isle’. Then, in the summer of 2019, we decided to take a holiday in West Cork and chose the Sheep’s Head Peninsula as our desDnaDon. While there, we drove to Mizzen Head on the other side of the bay via Schull, the place Vearncombe had made his home although, again, this was something of which I was completely unaware. During 2020 I wrote about Liverpool band, Modern Eon and, through this connecDon Steve Baker and Karen Rainford of Nero Schwarz invited me to work on the present project. Although I don’t strictly adhere to the fatalisDc view of life, in this case there 1 were one too many ‘coincidences’ which became the main factor in my decision to accept their invitaDon. This, then, is the first in a series of essays which will explore Vearncombe’s music by steering a course through his development as a songwriter. I will use the names Black and Colin Vearncombe interchangeably beginning with a brief arDst background, then overviewing the 1980s and its music. Subsequently, I will look at Vearncombe’s earliest recorded output followed by songs from the Wonderful Life album exploring Vearncombe’s musical language. TradiDonal musical notaDon will be used to codify the music found in the musical examples secDon at the back of the essay. Musical definiDons may be found in either Eric Taylor – AB Guide to Music Theory (Associated Board, 2002) or, on the internet. This is as much of an educaDon for me as it might be for other people, and I hope it will be of interest for everyone. I would like to thank Steve Baker and Karen Rainford of Nero Schwarz. Thanks also to Mark Graham at Spaceward Records/PublicaDons. 1. Background The BriDsh singer-songwriter Collin Vearncombe was born in Liverpool in 1962, educated at Prescot Grammar School and studied Art at Liverpool Polytechnic. His earliest musical influence was Elvis Presley, aker seeing Jailhouse Rock on television. AdopDng the name Black, Vearncombe played his first gig on New Year’s Day, 1981, releasing the single Human Features (Rox Records) and was introduced to Peter Wylie of Wah! along with his manager Pete Fulwell. The result of the meeDng was Black’s second single, More Than the Sun for the Wonderful World Of label. With new musical partner, Dave ‘Dix’ Dickie, WEA Records showed interest releasing two singles, Hey Presto! followed by a newly recorded version of More Than The Sun. However, following this Black was dropped from the label. During the period which followed Vearncombe found himself homeless, staying where he could with friends. His first marriage collapsed, and he was also involved in two car crashes. It was this period, however, that spawned the song, Wonderful Life. Originally released on Ugly Man Records in 1986, the single reached No. 72 in the UK charts. As a result, Black was signed by A&M Records for a two-album deal. Two singles, Everything’s Coming Up Roses and Sweetest Smile, were released as calling cards, followed by a reworked version of Wonderful Life and an album of the same name. 2 2. Wider Background With the opDmism of the 1960s turning about-face into the pessimism of the 1970s, the 1980s introduced a dark objecDvity. J.G. Ballard’s High Rise, widely read at the Dme, epitomised the new, futurisDc vision of reality characterised as a kind of dystopian urbanisaDon felt parDcularly in northern ciDes such as Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. It was more an imagined, ficDonal future widely promoted and celebrated through the media and in poliDcal circles. With the background of the AIDS virus, the vehement anD-Tory/Thatcher feeling and the threat of nuclear holocaust, the musical movement known as new wave grew out of the punk rock period at the back end of the 1970s. From 1979 onwards, new wave would encapsulate much of this new futurism, as psychedelia and progressive rock had reflected the ‘60s and ‘70s respecDvely. Bands such as Joy Division, A Certain RaDo and Duru Column would be closely idenDfied with Manchester, whereas Echo and the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Wah! Heat and Modern Eon were homegrown Liverpool acts performing at local club venue, Eric’s. As an age which saw the invenDon of the earliest home computers, inexpensive synthesizers were also developed played by the likes of Billie Currie of Ultravox, and John Foxx on his post-Ultravox solo debut, MetamaDc. The age of machines had arrived, superseding the likes of those heard during the 1970s in bands such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Hawkwind and Tonto’s Expanding Head Band. As the 1980s wore on the first CD player was developed in Japan and the launch of the Microsok word- processor, the launch of the Space ShuXle, the first mobile phone, the Sinclair C5 car and so on went together with the Falklands War, airline hi-jackings, the Chernobyl nuclear explosion and the Hungerford massacre. This was a decade of decisive change which may be termed pivotal in terms of the approaching technological revoluDon of the 1990s known as the InformaDon Age. As well as the events which formed the backdrop to Colin Vearncombe’s early music, he would have been aware of new acts such as The Human League, The Stranglers, Haircut 100, The Smiths, Eurythmics, New Order and Orange Juice; along with the gradual stylisaDon of the early new wave into the mainstream in the music of Tears for Fears, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. It could be argued stylisaDon had begun even earlier with the new romanDc movement encapsulated by Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. New wave musical language such as guitar harmonics (U2 – I Will Follow; The Comsat Angels – Independence Day) and the tribal drumming style iniDated by punk and then broadened by Brian Eno and David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, was assimilated into the mainstream (Peter Gabriel – Biko; Siouxie and the Banshees – Spellbound) to eventually transform in new ways on such mid-‘80s songs as U2’s Pride and The Police’s Every Breath You Take. The lead-bass lines technique of Joy Division’s Peter Hook would even reappear in the parallel vocal and bass octaves of Berlin’s Take My Breath Away. Bands like The Cure, The Cocteau Twins and The Comsat Angels would intelligently make the crossover into the 3 mainstream although maintaining a link with alternaDve music while many other new wave bands disappeared along with its subculture. Yet, in turn, this would give rise to new indie ‘scenes’ such as the Goths. The music videos of MTV would become as important as the music itself. For example, there was Robert Palmer’s more direct rock approach in Addicted to Love now made completely memorable by its unforgeXable visuals. In America the reinvenDon of Michael Jackson, largely through Beat It and especially Thriller, Diana Ross and Cher would cross musical and cultural boundaries keeping pace with newer arDsts such as Whitney Houston, Prince and Madonna. Even contemporary classical music would become more approachable during the decade with works by minimalist composers Steve Reich and Phillip Glass and the ‘holy- minimalists’ Arvo Part and John Tavener becoming widely known through television. As the 1980s wore on the acid house-fuelled raves of Manchester’s Hacienda club unleashed the city’s house and rave scenes. Epitomised by The Happy Mondays and heard in the music of Joy Division survivors, New Order, in Dme it would develop into the ‘Madchester’ scene of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with its creaDon of a northern style neo-psychedelia. ArDsts such as David Sylvian, formerly of Japan, would find a foothold in the style for a while along with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp as heard on their album, The First Day (Virgin, 1993). A more band-centric cultural dynamic was adopted by the ‘Madchester’ scene influenced by US bands such as The 13th Floor Elevators while maintaining a connecDon with The Smiths.