"DTMA" Download Booklet

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EDSS 1030 The Songs Of PETE ATKIN&CLIVE JAMES

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Driving Through Mythical PA: What turned out to be my first LP on Project co-ordination – Val Jennings Fontana, Beware Of The Beautiful CD package – Jools at Mac Concept America Stranger, was recorded originally as demos CD mastering – Alchemy for the publishers Essex Music. Its Ephemera courtesy of the collections of Philips 6308 070, 1971. Re-issued on RCA commercial release had a lot to do with the Pete Atkin and Clive James SF 8386 in 1973 in a re-designed sleeve. enthusiasm of Kenny Everett, and it CD front cover main photo and strapline photo – received enough positive attention for Sophie Baker Essex to be interested in having me make Huge thanks – Pete Atkin, Clive James, another one. Simon Platz, Steve Birkill, Ronen Guha By now (1970) I was sharing a flat in and Caroline Cook Swiss Cottage with a bunch of other For everything (and we mean everything) relating to newcomers to London including Clive, who Pete Atkin’s works, visit www.peteatkin.com, but rented a room as his weekday London make sure you’ve got plenty of time to spend! writing base, so he and I had plenty of Then of course, you’ll want to visit regular contact for the to-and-fro of writing www.clivejames.com songs. We already had more than enough songs ready and waiting for a new album, Pete Atkin’s albums on the with more always on the go. For the new LP there was a big Edsel label: enough budget to allow me to use a bigger Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger…plus studio and more musicians, not big enough [EDSS 1029] to go mad – or even mildly eccentric in an Driving Through Mythical America endearing rock-and-roll kind of a way – but [EDSS 1030] big enough to make a difference to the A King At Nightfall…plus + The Road Lyrics – Clive James sound and feel of the recording, enough, Of Silk [2 CD] [EDSD 2028] Music and arrangements – Pete Atkin with luck, to make it sound more Secret Drinker + Live Libel Conducted by like a ‘proper’ record and less like a [2 CD] [EDSD 2029] Don Fraser set of demos. That first album had Visit www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk for the Produced by Don Paul been, accidentally and necessarily, Edsel catalogue and the many other fine labels that Engineered by all acoustic, and I’d since begun to make up the Demon Music Group. Roger Quested build up a bit of a following playing Tracks 1 – 11 licensed by Fly Records. Fly Records is a Recorded at Studio 1, acoustically mainly in folk clubs, so I division of Onward Music Ltd. p 2009 Onward Music Ltd Morgan Studios, did wonder idly if this might be my under licence to Demon Music Group Ltd. © 2009 Onward Willesden, London Bob-Dylan-goes-electric moment, Music Ltd/Demon Music Group Ltd. Track 12 issued under licence from Pete Atkin. Track 12 p & © 1969 Pete Atkin. NW10, in March 1971 but the truth is I don’t think anyone Marketed by Edsel Records, a division of the Demon Music 2 Original album design was that bothered, what with me Group Ltd, London, W1W 7TL. The Demon Music Group is by Pat Doyle not actually being Bob Dylan and all. a 2 entertain company. Manufactured in the EU.

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11. Lady Of A Day 2.34 It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy Most of this 1970s albums, it’s always been the one A nicer girl, my lady of a day album was I’ve had the most enquiries about in all Recorded on 11th March 1971 recorded ‘as live’, the years of its unavailability. Maybe it’s Pete Atkin – vocals, piano, acoustic guitar Through screens of memory you leave me Smile on the screen behind i.e. with me something to do with these particular Chris Spedding – electric guitar singing and songs, or maybe it’s something to do Herbie Flowers – bass guitar And then the screen behind the screen behind the screen playing and all the with the terrific playing from a brilliant Kenny Clare – drums musicians, set of session musicians. Dennis Clift – trumpet But nothing alters what has been Nor do my eyes deceive me including the Leon Calvert – trumpet brass, etc., CJ: Despite the title, I don’t think that And so goodbye, my lady of a night Dai Davies – trombone playing in the Now let your head be clear and now your any of my lyrics for the songs on this Jim Wortley – bass trombone studio at the album were aimed at an American Richard Ihnatowicz – clarinet smile bright As hour by day by week by month by year same time, audience. They were aimed at what PA: This one’s a bit unusual harmonically, You dim but never wholly disappear instead of people elsewhere thought of America. at least in the accompanying chords. They’re On the curving path away from my delight overdubbing Partly because of the continuing all based, for what little it’s worth, on a some of them Vietnam disaster, America was in the whole-tone scale, i.e. F, G, A, B, D flat, and Bonus demo later. I think the news every day. Although Pete had E flat. I was just messing about really and I idea appealed to briefly toured the US with the Oxford liked the kind of uncertain, spacey, un- 12. Practical Man 2.31 me (probably something about ‘feel’), but I and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, I joined-up feeling which that gave. And the Recorded at City of London Recording Studio, seem to remember that doing it had quite a myself still hadn’t been there. But the shiny, unsentimental brass seemed right too. Osborn Street, London EC1 on 3rd February bit to do with cost: it was a way of avoiding imagery, far from feeling second-hand, 1969 seemed to be to CJ: The word “gay” was still available to those extra sessions of expensive be happening all be used without gender-based overtones in Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar studio time. around me. Later those days. Autres temps, autres moeurs, Steve Cook – bass It did mean I had to be well on I realised that PA: prepared, with full arrangements as we used to say at the milk bar across In common with most of the demos we were living from Kogarah railway station. Live long appended to “Beware Of The Beautiful worked out beforehand, parts written out and everything. There wasn’t time through the enough and your vocabulary will date you, Stranger”, this track comes from my second opening stages of but if you try to fix it up the repairs might privately pressed LP “The Party’s Moving to teach the musicians the songs and spend studio time working out what to what we now look more conspicuous than the damage. On” from 1969. Again I should apologise know as the “There’s a bar in far Mumbai…” for the sound quality because the original do. It wasn’t a huge orchestra, but the line-up was big enough, especially with global media And so goodbye, my lady of a day reel-to-reel tapes disappeared a long time hegemony and ago and this copy has been taken from one the horns, to need some kind of a Now let your step be long and now your laugh conductor in the studio, which couldn’t the 24-hour news be gay of the very few vinyl copies I can still lay cycle. hands on. be me if I was also going to be singing It’s only right that everything went wrong and playing, so Don Fraser came in to Pete Atkin and It couldn’t happen any other way All songs published by Onward Music Ltd, bring a bit of experience to that role. Clive James, 18 A thousand miles east, the lovers say except tracks 1, 2, 3 and 9 published by Although as far as I know the November/ 3 It’s written in the sky with stars that lead away Westminster Music Ltd. finished LP sold least well of all my December 2008

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1. Sunlight Gate 3.47 Having played a classical guitar was a late, last flowering of my surrealist There’s a grand piano in the back of my Jag’ exclusively on Beware Of The Beautiful phase, whereas the waiters on the flaming Recorded on 11th March 1971 So I sang my song to the practical man Stranger, I’d now acquired a steel-string swords were just a stroke of Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar It sounded bad but she couldn’t hear jumbo, a Gibson SJN, to be my workhorse phantasmagorical comedy. But I would And the silent lights of town went streaming Chris Spedding – electric guitar guitar, which it remained for the next 25 hope to get the interrogation down to earth Herbie Flowers – bass guitar As if the car was a turtle dreaming years or so. But early in this first session I by pointing out that if the story line is The night was sad and she was nowhere near Kenny Clare – drums broke a string, and – I can hardly believe simple and strong enough then it can bear Dennis Clift – trumpet this now – I had brought no spares with any amount of rhetorical flash. ‘It’s a great idea’ said the practical man Leon Calvert – flugelhorn me, so what you hear me play here, if it As they brought in waiters on flaming swords Dai Davies – trombone What Pete says about the central character ‘You love this chick and it’s really magic matters, is Chris Spedding’s acoustic, is all too true, alas. We both dreamed of Jim Wortley – bass trombone which he’d brought along just in case. But she won’t play ball — that’s kind of tragic Richard Ihnatowicz – clarinet meeting the mogul who would try to corrupt Now how do we get this concept on the CJ: The Vietnam war was in the air like us, but he never showed up. boards?’ PA: Since my student days I’d been a huge smoke at the time, but really all the wars are Last night I drank with a practical man ‘I see it like this’ said the practical man fan of Duke Ellington’s music – still am – in the lyric. When I was very young, during Who seemed to think he knew me well As he chose a trout from the restaurant pool not least for the way his and Billy the Korean war, there was a famous photo He had no debts and he had no troubles ‘We change it round so she’s going frantic Strayhorn’s arrangements were written for a in Life magazine of a flight of F-80s heading All night long he kept setting up doubles To win the love of the last romantic collection of distinct, individual instrumental out of Japan for the short flight to the battle. And he asked me ‘What have you got to sell?’ And you’re the one, her wild creative fool’ voices rather than simply for, say, a trumpet Included in the picture was the free- ‘I’ll see you right’ said the practical man section, a trombone section, and a sax standing gate of a Shinto shrine. The photo So I thought it all over as the practical man ‘A boy like you should be living high section. And then there were Gil Evans’s stayed in my mind. Even today I find that Watched them slaughter the fatted calf All you do is get up and be funny arrangements for Miles Davis and on his images seen in childhood come back to I saw again her regretful smile And I’ll turn the laughs into folding money own records, which extended that idea, trigger an idea. Sweet to look at though it meant denial adding in the sound of some supposedly Can you name me anything that can’t buy?’ It was bound to hurt but I had to laugh non-jazz instruments like bass trombone, The heroes ride out through the Sunlight ‘So you deal in dreams’ said the practical man And that’s when I told the practical man flute, cor anglais, etc. A bit later I added the Gate ‘So does that mean you should be so coy? As he drank champagne from the Holy Grail great New Zealand composer and arranger And out of the sunset return I fixed one chap a show on telly There are some ideas you can’t play round Michael Gibbs to this pantheon. I never I have no idea how they spend their day Who limped like Byron and talked like Shelley with aspired to writing jazz myself, but this With a selfless act, or a grandstand play Through a ten-part epic on the fall of Troy’ Can’t let go of and you can’t give ground with arrangement was an (extremely modest) But high behind them the sky will burn ‘I’ll tell you what’ said the practical man ‘Cause when you die they’re what you’re attempt to recreate something like that kind In the glittering hour of return As he tapped the ash from a purple fag found with of instrumental atmosphere. The heroes ride out in unbroken ranks ‘Let’s head uptown for a meal somewhere There are just some songs that are not for I had written out a complete part for But with gaps in their number come back You can sing me something while we’re sale Chris Spedding, intended more as an I have no idea how they lose their men driving there indication of the kind of thing I would like To some new threat, or the same again from him than as a strict set of instructions, But they talk a long while near the weapon 4 but what he plays here is note-for-note stack 17 precisely what I wrote for him. In the clattering hour they come back

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verse proves that he could have And square across the wind the cats and The heroes return through the Sunset Gate game show). Right from the start it was composed the melodically appealing wingsails pull ahead But their faces are never the same obvious to me how much I was benefiting operas that so many famous modern Living their day as if it almost could be said I have no idea why their eyes go cold from their familiarity with each other. They opera composers patently couldn’t. In my The cemetery of home could somehow soon And the young among them already look old seemed to me to play with the fluency of a nightmares I still meet an angry fan who be left for dead But high behind them the sky’s aflame real band, rather than as a pick-up group of doesn’t realise that the “cats” are But the graveyard of tall ships is really here In the flickering hour of their fame musicians, however good they might have catamarans, and I have to reassure him Where the grass breaks up the driveway more been individually. that no animals were endangered in the each year 2. The Pearl-Driller 2.24 I remember watching TV in the Swiss creation of this lyric. And here is all these people have Recorded on 18th March 1971 Cottage flat one evening with Clive when a When you see what can’t be helped go by And everything they can’t believe Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano short documentary about the pearl With bloody murder in its eye The beach the poor men never reach Alan Parker – electric guitar business came on BBC2. The programme And the mouth of a man put on the rack The shore the rich men never leave Herbie Flowers – bass guitar emphasised the precise manual skill The voice of a man about to crack Between the headlands from the sea the Barry Morgan – drums required in order to drill the pearls for homing yachts of summer fill PA: This is the first of the tracks where I necklaces, and that this work was always When you see the litter of their lives done by women. I forget why, not that it The stupid children, bitter wives The night with shouts and falling sails and got to play with 75% of what was in effect then are still the Morgan Studios house band, who also matters. I don’t think any of the women in Your self-esteem in disarray the film was wearing a gold silk jacket. But You do your best to climb away The avenues wind up into the darkness of the constituted the instrumental line-up of Blue then our TV was black and white. From the streaming traffic of decay hill Mink (the missing 25% was Alan Where Time tonight might find the time to kill Hawkshaw who later consoled himself at CJ: For the suitably retarded male Believing if you will that all these sick hate missing out on my session by composing mentality, pretty female faces spark songs. days 10. Practical Man 3.08 Are just a kind of trick Fate plays the Countdown music for the Channel 4 Just for the record, however, the girl in Recorded on 23rd March 1971 question had a silver silk But still behind your shaded eyes Morgan Studios Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitars That mind-constricting thick weight stays building 2008 jacket, not a gold one, and Dave Bell – bass guitar only a madman would have When on the outskirts of the town Kenny Clare – drums gone with her anywhere. The Comes bumping cavernously down PA: I like to think that we were being at least consequence was a lyric Out of the brick gateways which now seems to me as From the faded mansion on the hill somewhat ironic even as early as when we wrote this. My guess is that if any practical arch as the Admiralty. I try to The out-of-date black Cadillac block it out by sticking my man had made us an even vaguely similar With the old man crumpled in the back finger in one ear while offer we’d have jumped up, saluted smartly, That Time has not yet found the time to kill listening to the music with the caved in, and sold out sharpish. As things other. But I still love, for all the Between the headlands to the sea the fleeing turned out, we’ve been able to hang on to a yachts of summer go wrong reasons, my idea of the lofty but unconvincing disdain for the very idea. White as a sheet and faster than the driven grip containing “the few good snow CJ: Were I to be grilled by a pedant about books that really count.” The 16 Like dolphins riding high and giant seabirds the imagery of this lyric, I might find myself grip would have had to be 5 flying low explaining that the car with a turtle’s mind bigger than a military kit-bag

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and would certainly have slowed down the be saleable – even if our saleability had Four students watched the soldiers load and pathetically long time to realise that of getaway. only ever been in our own imaginations aim course the main setting here is Sydney If you find me gone one day anyway. I was stunned by the ambition of And never tumbled they were on the spot harbour. Not that it matters. The song is And the sad songs left half-done this one when Clive handed me the lyric: Moose Molloy pulled ten years on a frame about home, the idea of home and the It won’t be alone that I’ve gone away four dreadful deaths and a confession of The dough was phoney and the car was hot reality of home, and we can all put our own But a long way that I’ve run failure to make sense of them. Not your They were driving through mythical America personal gloss on that. everyday chart material. I’ll be gone with the girl in the gold silk jacket Henry Ford paid seven bucks a day It’s the only song on this album with It was a challenge to set, that’s for The girl with the pearl-driller’s hands Rockwell did the covers on the Post one of those Broadway-style introductory sure. It certainly couldn’t afford to be verses before the song itself breaks out, If I fly the coop some time FDR set up the TVA elegiac. It had to drive. And each story had And the stars rode silver trains from coast to but in this case I treated the verse musically And take nothing but a grip to have a strong shape, so the tune for almost as a song in its own right, with a With the few good books that really count coast each verse is a kind of continuous middle eight and everything. It’s a necessary trip Four students blinked at ordinary skies composition, with no repetitions until it gets There’s another example here of the I’ll be gone with the girl in the gold silk jacket to the tagline chorus – a repetition which I But the sunlight came from thousands of motels kind of problem I caused by mucking up a The girl with the pearl-driller’s hands confess I manufactured. line on the take, the kind of problem even I probably shouldn’t draw attention to A highway through the night was in their eyes If one day you think me lost And waiting at the roadblock Orson Welles the genius of Roger Quested was unable I’ll be thinking with each kiss it, but there’s a fluff in the vocal. The reason to solve on No Dice. I messed up on the They were driving through mythical America That the wrecked man has been found at last I’ve had to live with it all these years is that line “The cemetery of home could I waited too long for this the track is 100% as we performed it, me Four students never guessed that they were somehow soon be left for dead” too badly singing and playing the piano along with through to even think of leaving it uncorrected. So I I’ll be gone with the girl in the gold silk jacket the other guys, and it is indeed the only Their history had them covered like a gun re-recorded just that line, but since once The girl with the pearl-driller’s hands take. Once again I’d written out detailed It hit them like a bolt out of the blue again I had been simultaneously singing parts for everyone. We ran through the intro 3. 6.02 Too quick to grasp and far too late to run and playing, the re-taken vocal includes No Dice and the first verse to get a balance, the Recorded on 18th March 1971 They crashed and died together in the sun none of the spilled-over sound of the piano, right tempo, the feel of it, and someone – I hence the markedly different sound quality Pete Atkin – vocals, piano think it was Herbie – said “Let’s go straight They were driving through mythical America on that line. We hoped that it might be Alan Parker – electric guitar for one, shall we?” So we did. They played Herbie Flowers – bass guitar the intro as I’d written it and then we were 9. The Faded Mansion On taken as a deliberate and deucedly clever Barry Morgan – drums acoustic effect. Well, I’ve blown that now. off, the remainder of my written fiddly bits The Hill 4.33 PA: With hindsight, this song probably triumphantly ignored. It was one of the CJ: As I remember it, I was the one who Recorded on 25th March 1971 marks the point at which we put aside the most exciting musical experiences I’ve ever said that the noticeably different quality of idea that we were or should be trying to had. It’s some kind of miracle that I made it Pete Atkin – vocals, electric piano the dropped-in line would register as write songs for other singers to sing. By through to the end of the take with only that Dave Bell – bass guitar deliberate because it was too blatant to be now I seemed to have at least some kind of one stumble. But because I was singing Barry Morgan – drums taken any other way. I’m not here to recording future, so that our songs now live at the piano, and the piano mikes had PA: When we were writing this, my head embarrass Pete with flattery, but I wish 6 had an outlet, and we could therefore feel inevitably picked up too much of the vocal just happened to have been full of images there were more critics who would, 15 free to try something other than what might and the band, it wasn’t possible to ‘drop in’ from Raymond Chandler, and it took me a because I think the way he set the long

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shooting four students dead and injuring novel by Raymond Chandler. There is a retake of the fluffed line, and I decided to The front went down, we all got set to go nine more. The impact of this was nothing Eddie Prue won’t do. Pete’s live with it, for better or worse. If only I’d But the whole routine was just too bloody predictably enormous and not just on melody, I think, irresistibly evokes a long screwed up more badly, we’d have had to slow young people, amongst whom we still car-ride through many states to an go again. What kind of splinters hit me, steel or coral I just don’t know counted ourselves. appointment that would be better not kept. CJ: Pete is quite right to say that this song Yesterday was oh so long ago – so very long Clive’s resulting lyric was one of the Four students in the usual light of day marks the point at which we started to go ago first of several through the years where he Set out to speak their minds about the war for broke. I had already done lyrics with a juxtaposes images and ideas from different Unaware that Eddie Prue was on the way multiple time-frame but in this one I cut the We hit the secret trails towards thin air times in history, rather as W.H. Auden had Things had to snap before they knew the time-frames together without any linking Aware we’d never live to tell the story done in The Fall Of Rome. The song also score material at all. so that the discontinuity And at the last deep lake before the snow represents a view or an idea of America They were driving through mythical America became part of the subject. I could explain We rigged the slings, chipped out the water- gained from the outside; Clive had never stair A Rooney-Garland show was in the barn each scene if I was held at gunpoint, but been to America when he wrote this. the drama is meant to depend, in each Swung out the holy gold and let it go Fields was at the Pussycat Cafe It sank so far it didn’t even glow CJ: As Kafka and the young Brecht both No-one had even heard of Herman Kahn episode, on the listener’s being forced to proved, the imaginary America, the one you guess, and not having enough time to And if the priest died too to share our glory And Jersey Joe was eager for the fray I just don’t know haven’t been to, can be even more figure it out because the music will not let Yesterday was oh so long ago – so very long powerful in the mind than the reality. The Four students had to take it in their stride up. One thing, however, I should make And couldn’t feel the road beneath the wheels ago Kent State disaster created, in my mind, a clear: the linguistic trigger was those two Of the car they didn’t know they rode inside vortex of centripetal energy that pulled magnificent lines by Louis MacNeice about Yesterday we finished with the ditch Across the set and through the cardboard second-hand vignettes together with such the ancient world: “It was all so We stacked our spades and knelt in groups of hills force that they fused, as if a junk-pile had unimaginably different/ And all so long ago.” seven melted. I don’t quite know how it happened They were driving through mythical America Our hands were wired by an NCO and I certainly never did anything quite like I tried hard to be useful, but no dice With a fluent-from-long-practice loop and They sold their Studebaker Golden Hawk With no spit left I couldn’t soften leather it again, but I remain proud that younger And bought a Nash Ambassador Saloon hitch people still see something definite in it With these old hands I couldn’t even sew No dice – there was nothing left to throw Bogart said “Even the dead can talk” So yesterday they left me on the ice when all I remember is sitting around in a And suddenly the coats were all raccoon A bump against your neck and down you go trance. My daughter Claerwen used the I could barely lift my head to watch them go And if I kept my peace or cried to heaven Four students never knew that this was it title for one of the abstract paintings in her The sky was white, my eyes grew full of snow I just don’t know There isn’t much a target needs to know first exhibition, and when I asked her why, What thing reached me first, bears or the Yesterday was oh so long ago – so very long Already Babyface had made the hit she said something along the lines of “Dad, weather ago And Rosebud was upended in the snow I just don’t know you don’t understand your own words.” The Yesterday from midnight until dawn Yesterday was oh so long ago – so very long names of the cars are all wrong but that They were driving through mythical America I lay remembering my lost endeavour ago was because my memory had played me Gatsby floated broken in the pool The love song that would capture how things tricks. Such details were far harder to The Kansas City Seven found a groove I saw across our path through the lagoon flow check up on in at a time, now hard to Barrymore and Lombard played the fool Thick shrubberies of hail collide and quarrel The one song that refuses to be born 14 imagine, before Google existed. The And Cheetah slowly taught John Wayne to Sudden trees of shellburst hump and blow For I have tried a thousand times or so 7 gangster Eddie Prue is a figure of evil in a move Our LVT turned through the reef too soon To link the ways men die with how they grow

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But no dice, and if I’ll do it ever What tells you that I count the days between which I couldn’t play, got into my mind as Long fingernails that tap a brittle rhythm on a I just don’t know Except my nothing-caring air of ease? the ideal accompaniment for singing, which glass Yesterday was oh so long ago When clouds black out the moon that moves I couldn’t do either. On the Benny Around his neck a ribbon with a little silver the tide Goodman small group tracks, Charlie hook 4. The Flowers And What tells you there’s a river in the dark Christian’s guitar sang all by itself. I was Like some military order second class The Wine 2.07 Except the streetlights on the other side? fascinated, although it had not yet occurred You can read him like an open book to me that Les Paul’s guitar on “How High From the hands that spend their lives creating Recorded on 23rd March 1971 Another night I book a taxi door to door the Moon” would one day take over from tension Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitars Has been and gone Charlie Christian’s as my personal ideal of From the wrists that have a lean and hungry Dave Bell – bass guitar I have never loved you more how the instrument should sound. Not even Eyes that have a mean and angry look Kenny Clare – drums See you anon Ry Cooder could beat that. It was the A guitar is a thief in the night PA: This sad little scenario has turned out flamenco guitar that led me to Lorca’s That robs you of sleep through the wall 5. to be one of our most successful songs – Where Have They All poetry, rather than the other way around. In A guitar is a thin box of light successful in the attention it has drawn Gone? 2.33 Carlos Saura’s Carmen, one of my favourite Throwing reflections that rise and fall from other singers, at any rate. For me it’s Recorded on 16th March 1971 movies, Paco Peña’s flamenco guitar A guitar reminds you of death and taxes that image of the streetlights across the Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano knocked me out along with the dancing. A Charlie Christian outplaying the saxes river that keeps bringing me back to it. Chris Spedding – electric guitar thousand years later, I hosted a fund-raising The beginners’ call and the very last call of all CJ: Val Doonican sounded winningly Dave Bell – bass guitar concert at the Festival Hall. Paco was one smooth when he covered this one, but you Kenny Clare – drums of the guest artists, and as he worked his 8. Driving Through Mythical can imagine my delight when I discovered Alan Wakeman – tenor sax magic I realised that I had forecast the America 5.33 moment in a lyric I had written long ago. that his writers had rewritten the lyrics of Don Fay – tenor sax Recorded on 16th March 1971 the bridge section in order to Richard Ihnatowicz – baritone sax A guitar is a thief in the night Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar accommodate Val’s own ideas of what PA: If you ever wondered what happened to That robs you of sleep through the wall Chris Spedding – electric guitar A guitar is a thin box of light might be poignant. In my own mind, The Master Of The Revels, then here’s your Dave Bell – bass guitar Throwing reflections that rise and fall however, the ringing of the cash register answer. If you didn’t, then it’s in the nature Kenny Clare – drums It reminds you of Memphis or maybe Majorca drowned out any yelps of pain. of the character to tell you anyway. Actually, Clive Baker – trumpet, flugelhorn Big Bill Broonzy or Garcia Lorca Another night I’ve been to visit you and him Alan Wakeman – tenor sax, flute it’s another one of those stories where you A truck going north or a cab to the Festival Comes to an end Don Fay get the set-up and the aftermath but you Hall – tenor sax, bass clarinet Switch on the hallway light have to work out the middle bit for yourself. Richard Ihnatowicz – baritone sax, Farewell a friend And the man who plays the guitar for life clarinet CJ: I still love the way Pete made the Tests his thumbs on a slender knife Another night I bring the flowers and the wine music move along with the pulse of a party Forever caresses a frigid wife PA: On May 4th, 1970, at Kent State Has slipped away that never ends, but this is a lyric that His fingers travel on strings and frets University in Ohio, there was a peaceful There were only three to dine demonstrates all too clearly why it is wise Like a gambler’s moving to cover bets student protest at the recent Nixon- And two to stay never to revisit a theme except from a Remembering what his brain forgets announced U.S. invasion of Cambodia. The 8 When you fix the dates for tête-à-têtes like different angle. The narrator is the Master of While his brain remembers the fears and Ohio National Guard were called out and in 13 these the Revels all over again, only this time in debts their unwarranted panic they ended up

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When the spoilers send you sliding down the As Birnam wood comes close to Dunsinane hippy apparel, which never looked good on speculation and literary sleuthery on the drain I have brought them all the plunder of the anyone. I placed the word “shindig” in just Midnight Voices Forum at The sky was full of London all around the international jets the right spot, though. Sometimes a little www.peteatkin.com. Its origin was tracked tilting wing An envelope of sugar and two hundred satisfaction like that is the most you get to down to the French poet Gérard de Nerval, I could have hooked a street out like a pearl cigarettes take away. I should add, for purposes of but it was a question I had never bothered and diamond string So I know now that my quest was not in vain defence against self-libel, that nobody at to ask myself. As an other-worldly image to But I think my fingers couldn’t stand the strain And to the ruined tower came the Prince of any party organized by me was ever in contrast with the harsh realities in each And to the ruined tower came the Prince of Aquitaine danger from anything except the lemonade verse, it seemed to me to work just fine Aquitaine running out. wherever the idea may have come from. In the continental terminal the maxi-coats 7. Thief In The Night 2.39 I used to be a permanent MC It did occur to me much, much later look rich Recorded on 25th March 1971 The spinning central figure of the fun that the verses are perhaps in the wrong It’d take a better eye than mine to even fault a Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar The heavy action took its cue from me order in story-telling terms, that the second stitch Dave Bell – bass guitar Who else could make things run? and third verses should be switched The simple hair is golden as the grain around. That’s how I do it these days, as Barry Morgan – drums For I threw parties once upon a time While in Piccadilly Circus hunkered down and well as quite a bit slower – but it doesn’t PA: A few metaphorical eyebrows were That started out with everybody tight neon-lit matter much. There are kids with ancient faces who are raised recently when I re-recorded this And ended only just this side of crime praying for a hit song without a guitar on the track at all, but So wasn’t that my right? CJ: I’d like to be able to say that I was But tonight the only free one is the rain it’s a song about the guitar, from the point I had the leisure problem taped reading Nerval at the time, but actually I picked up the reference from The Waste And to the ruined tower came the Prince of of view of the guy on the other side of the With my huge capacity for absorbing pleasure Aquitaine wall, who is not altogether necessarily in Time wasn’t killed so much as raped Land. I figured that if Eliot had pinched it love with the sound, not while he’s trying to I had its measure once, I could pinch it again. In those days I The highway lights of sodium are cut and set could recite almost all of Eliot’s poetry by get to sleep anyway. And the shindig kept a rhythm night to night like gems heart and his phrases were crawling The small mystery of the ‘ribbon with a With people turning up and turning on They run like this in whisperlines until they around in my brains like radioactive bugs. reach the Thames little silver hook’ is a strong clue to the fact They used to call it strictly out of sight Their afterimage wealthy in the brain that when Clive wrote this I was playing a So where have they all gone? Pete was right about the necessity to Beneath the bridge’s footway in the shelter of classical guitar. In order to play it standing switch the order of the narrative. His future the stair up, instead of a conventional guitar strap I 6. The Prince Of expertise as a radio producer was already A cripple plays harmonica for pennies from used to use the said ribbon, which hung coming in to play. He was born with a sure the air down behind and under the guitar with the Aquitaine 4.18 instinct for narrative, as I noticed when I While the river proffers answers to his pain hook thingie latched on to the soundhole at Recorded on 18th March 1971 first heard him sing one of his early Footlights And to the ruined tower came the Prince of the front. It didn’t do too much good to the Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar numbers “Ballad of an Upstairs Window” Aquitaine varnish, as I recall. Alan Parker – electric guitar and resolved to barge in on his act. CJ: Back in Sydney in the 1950s I had a Herbie Flowers – bass guitar I flew home into the city after dark and in the In idle docks they’re due now to be running Barry Morgan – drums out of meths Big Bill Broonzy album and spent a lot of clear 12 Their eyes inside the darkness like a latterday time wondering what it would be like to PA: The refrain about the Prince and the With a seat beside the window and the usual 9 Macbeth’s play the guitar while singing. The guitar, ruined tower gave rise to a good deal of thrill of fear

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EDSS 1030 The Songs Of PETE ATKIN&CLIVE JAMES

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