THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF MAGAZINE (6)

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (VS 328) : Released March 1980 on 7″ 

I really don’t know what I’d have made of the next Magazine single if my first awareness of it had been in March 1980….especially if, in some strange way I had come to the band via the stupendous A Song From Under The Floorboards just two months previously.

I’d have looked at the sleeve and label and spotted that the song’s composers were Sly Stone and Sylvester Stewart and immediately realised it was a cover version.  Not that I knew the song, nor indeed did I know all that much about Sly and The Family Stone other than they had written and recorded, sometime back in the 60s, the stomping Dance To The Music which had long been a staple of the ‘golden hour’ segments on daytime and weekend Radio 1.

It’s fair to say that I’d have been intrigued.

But the thing is, my knowledge of the song comes from its inclusion on The Correct Use of Soap, as Track 2 on Side 2 of the album.  And from the outset, I loved it, without thinking at all to compare it to the original.  Indeed, if it wasn’t for the writing credits, then I’d have been prepared to argue that it was a Magazine original, albeit one that John McGeoch likely had little to do with.   It’s all about the Barry Adamson bass lines, John Doyle‘s effortless drum patterns and Dave Formula‘s hypnotic sounding keyboard, but also a tip of the hat to the backing vocals offered up by Laura Teresa.

mp3: Magazine – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

If you don’t mind, I’m going to briefly diverge to try and explain why Magazine had a female backing vocalist on their final two albums.

Howard Devoto met Laura Teresa in California in the summer of 1979, while the band was touring Secondhand Daylight. They fell in love almost immediately.  She soon followed him back to the UK and was soon present at the recordings of The Correct Use of Soap, with Devoto thinking that some of the songs would benefit from having backing vocals.  I’m assuming that Martin Hannett, being a control-freak, concurred, and it turned out that Laura Teresa had the voice they were all looking for.  She’s important on the funky cover version, but she turned out to be essential on the ballad that seemed to come out of leftfield.

mp3: Magazine – You Never Knew Me

Songs that are a million miles away from Shot By Both Sides….and yet the difference in time is just over two years.

Back to the single featured today…….and here’s its b-side.

mp3: Magazine – The Book

As I said back in November 2020, some songs are great short stories.

This man is at the door of Hell…somehow it seems to be his destination after a life of subtle stubbornness. He doesn’t expect to find himself waking up out of a dream…he doesn’t expect to pinch himself and wake up and that kind of thing…in fact, the thought of that happening makes him smile. He’s just mildly surprised to find himself there at the door of Hell.

To all accounts, the kindly old man who is the doorman (and who conceivably reminds him of his father) is sat reading a book…but he gets up smartly and without time for either of them to feel that they’re standing on ceremony says, “Hold my book for a minute, would you, while I get the door open!” (Presumably, you know, you need two hands to open the door.) For some reason, the old man doesn’t just put his book down on the chair.

It all happens quite quickly…he finds that he’s made a decision and is already holding the old man’s book…as just about anybody else would have, But it seems a bit curious because…in however small a way you like to consider it…it is as if he’s helping himself enter Hell…the path of least resistance. Of course, at the same time he suddenly thinks..Even as he finally grips the book…”This is my chance for a reprieve…the final test…the straw which will tip the good deeds over the bad.”

Next thing he knows, they have exchanged opinions on the book and he has handed it back to the old man and is being shown into Hell.

 

 

 

 

JC