the blog quebecois

Not content with wrecking my own songs, I was determined to destroy others'.

The Beat (or as they were named in North America, The English Beat, due to an agreement with an American band that previously had The Beat as its name) was one of the finest ska or 2 Tone bands that sprang up in England in the late '70s. I don't recall them getting a lot of radio play here, apart from a couple of minor hits like "Mirror In The Bathroom" or maybe some of their (very good) covers of stuff like "Tears Of A Clown" or "Can't Get Used To Losing You."

Their third and final album, though, had a song on it I loved enough to the point that I took my guitar out and tried to learn it. So here I am on acoustic guitar and bass:

All in all, not bad; but it's such a pretty little pop song that it'd be difficult to mess it up too much. Not that I didn't try, of course: There's a second vocal on the original, contributed by Ranking Roger (the stage name of Roger Charlery). Trying to duplicate it caused me a few problems. Then there's the bass line that wanders off to la-la land before (miraculously) returning to the proper place. And the volume is too low in a couple of places. But apart from all that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

Two dozen other dirty lovers
Must be a sucker for it
Cry cry but I don't need my mother
Just hold my hand while I come to a decision on it.

Sooner or later your legs give way, you hit the ground
Save it for later don't run away and let me down.
Sooner or later you hit the deck you get found out
Save it for later don't run away and let me down, you let me down.

Black air and seven seas all rotten through
But what can you do?
I don't know how I'm meant to act with all of you lot
Sometimes I don't try
I just now now now now now now now now now now now
Now now now now now now now now now now now

Soomer or later your legs give way, you hit the ground
Save it for later don't run away and let me down.
Sooner or later you hit the deck you get found out
Save it for later don't run away and let me down
You runaway runaway and let me down.

Two dozen other stupid reasons
Why we should suffer for this
Don't bother trying to explain them
Just hold my hand while I come to a decision on it.

Sooner or later your legs give way, you hit the ground
Save it for later don't run away and let me down.
Sooner or later you'll hit the deck you'll get found out
Save it for later don't runaway and let me down, you let me down.
You run away run away runaway runaway runaway runaway
And let me down.

Actually, I had forgotten altogether recording this. It sounded pretty good, but I don't think I've heard the song for twenty years, so I did a search for it, thinking I might have missed an important part of it. Surprisingly, I turned up the original video. I say "surprisingly" because this was in late 1983, pretty well in the infancy of videos, and not every band was putting them out automatically. MTV was about two years old by then; Muchmusic wouldn't arrive for another year.

Singer-guitarist Dave Wakeling kicks things off -- RR is the black dude with the tamborine (not to mention the snappy fedora and white gloves). Fun video for a fun song.

Others have recorded it -- Pete Townshend does a version of it in his concerts, and Harvey Danger (who did the insanely-catchy "Flagpole Sitta") has a video of it too. And I've heard it on TV for about the last month, in a commercial for the upcoming (Sept. 3) release of Going The Distance with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. Oddly, the song isn't included (yet) on the official soundtrack, but I assume it's one of those last-minute lawyer squabbles.

Dave Wakeling is living in California these days and tours as The English Beat. Seems like a genuinely nice guy, too -- I can't find anything negative written about him anywhere.