I've just been leaping around in the kitchen in a manner deranged to the music of Sparks. Well, apart from my evening constitutional, I live a fairly sedentary existence, and we all need exercise, and, furthermore, I can't afford to go to the gym. And that's my excuse. I'm just grateful that there are still some places left in this country that are not fitted with CCTV and that no one came home from work early or anything.
The Sparks album – Kimono My House – was sent to me recently by a friend, with six other CDs. I realise I've come to it over thirty years late, but so far this is my favourite CD of the seven, and I've been playing it constantly. I don't really know much about Sparks, but I'll try and give my impression here in a really trite way – The Smiths crossed with Queen and Talking Heads. I can hear Morrissey's choirboy falsetto in Russell Mael's vocals, and there's a fair resemblance in the witty turn of lyrical phrase, too. I can also hear Queen's creamy guitar and light-opera melodies here. And I can sense David Byrne's nervous quirkiness in the stage presence of the brothers Ron and Russell. I know that Sparks are an influence in the case of Morrissey, and would not be surprised if the same were true of the other two bands mentioned.
Because of Russell's super-high-pitched vocals, it's not always easy to make out the lyrics, and I didn't have much idea what the songs were about until I looked up the lyrics online. At that point, many things fell into place. Certainly the first two songs on the album – This Town Ain't Big Enough For the Both of Us and Amateur Hour – are quite startlingly evocative depictions of awakening sexuality in adolescence, and all the competitiveness, excitement and humiliation that come with this. Reading the lyrics and then re-listening to the songs was like going back in a time-machine to a teenage that I'd almost forgotten, and not necessarily my own, since my own experience was more humiliation than excitement. Nonetheless, the lyrics were as familiar as if they were my own experience:
Zoo time is she and you time
The mammals are your favourite type, and you want her tonight
Heartbeat, increasing heartbeat
You hear the thunder of stampeding rhinos, elephants and tacky tigers
This town ain't big enough for both of us
And it ain't me who's gonna leave
Yes, I recognise the teenage panic of not knowing if you're going to be the one who gets the girl. This agony was to be expressed later in a somewhat more downbeat, but equally witty form in songs by The Smiths such as I Want the One I Can't Have:
On the day that your mentality
Decides to try to catch up with your biology
Come round …
'Cause I want the one I can't have
And it's driving me mad
It's all over, all over, all over my face…
And if you ever need self-validation
Just meet me in the alley by the Railway station.
The same theme, as I said, continues in Amateur Hour, and I have to say, I found the lyrics to this hilarious:
She can show you what you must do
To be more like people better than you
Amateur Hour goes on and on
When you turn pro, you know, she'll let you know.
I don't think the Mael brothers were actually teenagers when they wrote this, but the freshness of the expression suggests that they weren't writing entirely from the point of view of outside observers, and that maybe, even if it's buried, this teenage experience continues to be a vital part of us. Certainly, it still sounds vital to me, a thirtysomething old codger and curmudgeon. In recent years I have found music far less physically addictive than I used to and have tired somewhat of guitar bands who trade on the sheer energy of their performance. But I am listening to Sparks now in the way I haven't listened to music for a long time. I find myself really getting off on the energy of it. Just watch this YouTube clip of them performing This Town Ain't Big Enough…. I defy you not to get caught up in the wonderful rising tension of the whole thing:
Anyway, that's why I've been playing Sparks like a teenage guitar-addict recently. It also helps that the lyrics are actually witty, because then I can always fall back on the alibi of irony if I absolutely must. And wit in popular music is so rare, it's a real blessing when it comes; I'm never tempted to scorn it, in the manner of the jealous, as affectation. Some of it actually makes me laugh, which is no bad thing:
You mentioned Kant and I was shocked
You know, where I come from, none of the girls have such foul tongues.
Okay, so it's slightly laboured, but it's still funny. Or how about a verse from Talent Is an Asset, sung from the point of view of parents proprietorial over their little Albert Einstein:
Albert is smart, he's a genius
Watch Albert putter, an obvious genius
Someday he will reassess the world
And he'll still have time for lots of girls.
No? Please yourselves.
I'm going back to do some more dancing. When I turn pro, I'll let you know.
Sparks make a cameo appearance at the end of Rollercoaster; a 70’s thriller about a bomber who targets amusement parks. They’re the only good thing about the film.I prefer instrumental music; I find I don’t really listen to the words in songs, so lyrical witticisms are wasted on me. I think this is why I’ve never had much of an interest in Morrissey.
I am more interested in intrumental music these days than I used to be. Lyrics were very important to me in my younger days. I find it impressive when someone can really make words and music work together to create an effective… er… effect that is more than the sum of the parts. That, to me, is what songwriting should mean. It doesn’t seem to happen with great regularity.But it is something of a surprise to me, when I am generally less and less enthralled with the youthism and egoism of most popular music, that I should suddenly feel like a teenager listening to pop music again.
I think everyone who grew up watching Top Of The Pops in the early 70s (like me) has a fondness for the brilliant music, witty lyrics and bizarre stage presence of Sparks. A few years ago I decided to check out some more of their albums and I’ve ended up buying all 20. Their latest one Hello Young Lovers is particularly good. I saw them play at Morrissey’s Meltdown festival where they played Kimono My House in its entirety followed by their (then) new album Lil’ Beethoven done in a sort of performance art style with projections and minor theatricals. I saw them again earlier this year at the London Forum where they played Hello Young Lovers in its entirety followed by a selection of their other classics. Their Lil’ Beethoven show is available on DVD and their latest show is also due for DVD release soon.
I wish I’d made it to that Meltdown festival. It sounds like there was some really interesting stuff happening there. I’ll have to see if my music supplier has more stuff by Sparks. He asked me for feedback.
By the way, I meant to ask, did you see any of the other events at the festival?
No, I’m afraid not. The official Sparks website is here:http://www.allsparks.com/home_l.phpand there’s some detailed info about their history at this site:http://graphikdesigns.free.fr/sparks-kimono-my-house.htmlBy the way, are you a fan of Scott Walker (another Meltdown host)? On Halloween I attended the world premiere of the excellent new documentary SCOTT WALKER: 30 CENTURY MAN at the NFT. I noticed it was co-produced by the BBC so it’ll probably be on TV before too long, though I believe it’s also getting a cinema release early next year.
Thanks for the links.Scott Walker is someone I’m aware of, and for some reason his name keeps cropping up in my life, so I’m sure I am destined to be listening to his music. In fact, I might mention him to the person who sent me Sparks.
偶的英文不太好，但是你知道cctv就会点中文喽！很喜欢你的blog，但是，看不太懂，hoho^_____^飘过~~踩踩！！
你好CFI. 謝謝你給我来我的blog.対不起, 我不知道CCTV在英文zenme説.I’m afraid I’m running out of Chinese characters, as I still only have the Japanese software, but here’s a picture of CCTV:
啊，这样啊，我不知道你说的CCTV是电视台啊，还是上面的摄像头啊……不过用摄像头来比喻cctv么，呵呵，似乎vvtv没小报那么无孔不入吧，cctv在我的印象里一直似乎很自大的，非大事不报……
Hello CFI. I’m afraid to admit it, but I’m having trouble reading your last comment. Actually, at least half the problem is that the characters don’t seem to be coming out. On my computer I get ??? instead of some of the characters, and on this laptope I am getting little squares. It looks like this:”啊，这样啊，我不知道你说的CCTV是电视台啊，还是上面的摄像头啊……不过用摄像头来比喻cctv么，呵呵，似乎vvtv没小报那么无孔不入吧，cctv在我的印象里一直似乎很自大的，非大事不报……”I wonder if you could give me the Pinyin? Duibuqi, wo yong yingwen xie le. Keshi, wo de zhongwen bu tai hao. Wo yao xuexi.
oh~i thinked you were chinese.where are you from?my english is also not well,and i am learning it.
Well, I’m very flattered to hear that, although it’s hard to believe that my poor attempts at Mandarin did not betray me as non-native. I’m from (and resident in) England. If you have any questions about any of the English I use in this blog, please don’t hesitate to ask. After all, I am – or was – an English teacher, so I’m used to explaining the language.
a~haha~you are a teacher~it’s good!i like my english teacher when i am in a senior high school……
Keir writes:I remember Kimono My House fondly because my dad had it on tape when I was a kid and I bought the album secondhand in my teens. Did you know that the first letter the young Morrissey wrote to the NME was in praise of Kimono My House?
“Did you know that the first letter the young Morrissey wrote to the NME was in praise of Kimono My House?”I think I’d heard something to that effect.In fact, I think it’s featured here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3x0LoWr_io