#24: The Magic Piper (Of Love) : Edwyn Collins (Setanta Records, SET 041, 1997)
Many thanks for the particularly lovely comments last Sunday, and if you are one of those readers who settles down to read/listen with a coffee in hand, then I hope you enjoy today’s instalment.
One of the biggest movies in 1997 was Austin Powers : International Man Of Mystery, starring the Canadian comic actor Mike Myers, a parody mainly of the James Bond spy films, but also of the entire hip/swinging/hippy 60s pop culture. The film opened in May, and anyone going along on the back of the rave reviews (and myself and Rachel will admit to being two such paying customers) would probably have been very surprised to hear, if you paid close attention, a familiar voice singing an entirely new song over the closing credits, albeit it was one of those times when the song plays as out takes from the film are played on screen, and the music is kind of incidental.
The credits continued to roll and eventually reach the part where the music is listed. The Magic Piper (Of Love). Written by Edwyn Collins. Performed by Edwyn Collins. Courtesy of Setanta Records.
Well, well, well.
The soundtrack album to the film was released around the same time, and The Magic Piper (Of Love) is its opening track. I resisted the temptation to buy the soundtrack in the hope that the song would either get a single release and/or appear on Edwyn’s next solo album, a hope that, happily was soon realised, being released at the end of July 1997 on 2 x CDs and 12″ vinyl.
CD1
mp3: Edwyn Collins – The Magic Piper (Of Love)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – More Than You Bargained For
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Red Menace
mp3: Edwyn Collins – It Takes A Little Time
CD2
mp3: Edwyn Collins – The Magic Piper (Of Love)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Who Is It?
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Who Is It? (Halterbacked By The Victorian Spaceman)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Welwyn Garden City
Six new songs plus a remix, so it kind of felt as if Xmas had arrived in the middle of summer.
The Magic Piper (Of Love) is a fun number, maybe a wee bit silly to some, given that it does have that 60s lounge music feel, complete with a flute (and it is a real flute, not one whose sound was created in the studio using a keyboard and technology). I’m not going to claim it is anything close to being Edwyn’s best single, but it has a soft spot among fans, given it did provide him with just the second Top 40 hit of his career, coming in at #32 before falling away.
More Than You Bargained For is a fairly straightforward pop song, one which seems to rely solely on the classic vocals, guitars, bass and drums. It’s actually one of those songs, when you realise a few years later it hasn’t ever appeared on an album, you come to think of it as being wasted purely as a b-side.
Red Menace is a curious one. It has a retro feel to it, and it reminds me of the sort of music that accompanied American cop shows from the 70s, complete with sound effects such as wailing sirens.
It Takes A Little Time is another that has a bit of a throwback sound, particularly across its chorus. The lyric is the sort which Edwyn has churned out a few times over the decades – it might sound as if it is about personal relationships, but it could just as easily be his reflections on a career in the music industry, during which he has taken more than his share of hard knocks.
There’s two versions of Who Is It? The first is a minimalist sort of song, heavily reliant on synths to set the mood and tempo. It acts as a fine reminder that it has always been impossible to pigeon-hole Edwyn Collins. The second version sees the reappearance of The Victorian Spaceman, aka Sebastian Lewsley, last given a specific credit for his radical remix of A Girl Like You as one of the b-sides on If You Could Love Me back in 1995. As you’d expect, it’s full of studio gimmickry, and includes a number of uncredited dialogue samples along the way. Very much something to be hidden away on a b-side.
Finally, we have Welwyn Garden City. I have no idea why Edwyn chose to use the name of a smallish town in the south-east of England, some 20 miles from London, as the three-word chorus of this funky, spaced-out piece of electronica, co-written with Sean Reed, someone who has long been involved with Edwyn and is still very much part of the support network in the studio and out on the road.
Oh, and I almost forgot that there was a slightly extended version of the single included on the 12″ vinyl. It’s roughly a minute longer thanks to its outro:-
mp3: Edwyn Collins – The Magic Piper (Of Love) (extended version)
The 12″ b-sides consisted of the Macrame Mix by Youth take on A Girl Like You (as featured a couple of weeks back as a previous extra track on a CD) along Welwyn Garden City.
A couple of weeks after The Magic Piper (Of Love) had enjoyed its very brief stay in the singles chart, Edwyn’s fourth studio LP was released, from which another single was lifted. And if you think the b-sides this week were a bit on the strange side……..
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 