Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Impossible Dream
"Good God, what the hell is this?" asked Mrs B.
"I downloaded it."
"You paid for this?"
"It's good."
"No it isn't," she replied, Cleese-like.
"They've put their own stamp on it, you see..."
"It's terrible."
"Well, they were very visual. The guitarist, he was done up like a clown and the bass player, he dressed like, well, something else, in a shiny futuristic suit thing, maybe he was a robot, or something...(you'll have to picture the scornful look that was being tossed in my direction)...and when he sings 'and I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more', you can really believe it."
"No, you can't."
"He's menacing."
"He's just not though, is he?"
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band embarked on the chorus.
"They sound like some rotten pub band."
"They do a great version of 'Next', you know the Jacques Brel song?"
What was that noise? Ah, just all hell breaking loose, nothing to worry about. We still laugh about the visit we enjoyed to the Brel Museum in Brussels. Well, one of us laughs, and it was evident at the time that only one of us was drawing any enjoyment from it. Later, a friend put together a Brel sampler CD which I only play when I'm pissed, actually, I haven't played it at all since I gave up smoking because Brel without a fag ain't quite the same.
They did some great stuff, The SAHB, and I've aired others from their canon without being run out of town on a rail or pelted with soft fruit, but is Mrs B right about Delilah? It's a pretty insignificant question, I know, but while I defended it, my resolve flagged pretty smartly as I came to realise how ridiculous I sounded. Like I was the same age as I was when the record came out. Fifteen all over again. The music transported me back there, but not necessarily in a good way.
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Several suitable phrases come to mind
that sum up what you just said, so eloquently.
It was of it's time + you had to be there
These days I am so not there I must have missed the free bus ride to wherever it is. But I try.
SAHB, and similarly Thin Lizzy, Dr Feelgood, etc would guarantee you a good time. Can you say the same about today's bands? Certainly if you are an age to enjoy them. If you are not you might as well be dad-dancing at a wedding reception...
I'm not so sure that SAHB's Delilah
is "of its time" at all. I think it stands up really well. The arch camp, the melodrama, the Grand Guignol, the knowing tongue in cheek performance. It may have been released in 1975 but it has timeless brilliance.
Dig out the video of the OGWT appearance...
...a cracking version of Delilah, complete with audience of showroom dummies.
In fact, as I'm watching it now, here it is:
it was released 7 years before i was born.
But i can still appreciate it (although i think Faith Healer is my favourite SAHB song). so it's not something you had to be there at the time to appreciate...
I remain in thrall to Delilah
At the 50th birthday of a friend, younger, clearly, he decided to instal some karaoke input. After sufficient lubrication of my vocal cords I was tempted to break my karaoke duck and took the mike. Delilah was the song, but none of your pamby-namby Tom Jones nonsense, tonight I was Alex Harvey. It went a dream, unsullied even by unwise attempts at "One I love"/REM and "Always on my mind"/Willie, not the PSB, to the extent I always now reprise at similar situations. Well, the opportunity arose once.
But, Phillip, here's the rub, it safely introduced Mrs Path to the works of SAHB, allowing me to just about get away with playing other works out loud. Mind you, she did have to ask me whether he was really singing what she thought he was, and was it either big or clever, during "Gang Bang"....
I may have told this story before....
....if so I apologise.
A few summers ago I was painting the shed in the garden....portable CD boombox blasting out SAHB. My 9 year old son was playing in the garden that afternoon. When my wife called us all in for dinner, she almost dropped the casserole dish as my son sang "there ain't nothing like a gang bang to blow your blues away".
If looks could kill etc. etc.
Or vice versa
I actually don't mind "Delilah" at all, but having introduced Mrs. Mickey to the delights of Brel a few years back, she even went as far as buying herself a compilation of Brel covers, but SAHB's version of "Next" was declared "a godawful racket" and left off the iPod accordingly. Ain't no pleasing some people...
SAHB Greatest hits...
...accompanied us on holiday a few years ago and proved very popular with the whole family. Mind you we did have to think pretty quickly when our eight year old started asking questions about the meaning of some of the lyrics to "Next"
"What's a brothel truck Daddy?"
"It's a soup wagon ,son"
etc etc
Love 'em dearly
I saw SAHB several times around their Next/Impossible Dream era, and still giggle at the memory of Alex punching his way through a graffiti-sprayed polysterene brick wall during "Framed", then stuffing his mouth full of bits of polystyrene foam from the wreckage, thus rendering his subsequent Brando-esque mumbling of the final verse even more unintelligible than usual!
They managed the trick of being hilarious, menacing and hard-rocking all at once, and I've never seen another band remotely like them before or since.
And their version of "Delilah" from the "Live" album is still a thing of wonder, for my money.