Status Quo – Down Down

Sometimes a simple cool guitar tone draws me in and this one does. I’ve only posted one Status Quo song and that was their only big hit in America…Pictures of Matchstick Men. I started to listen to their catalog and they were a very good rock and roll boogie band. Some of their songs sound similar but they are a lot of fun. One thing that no one could accuse them of…being pretentious.

They were one of those bands that were huge in the UK but didn’t get played much here. Along with Slade, Faces,  T Rex, and others. I’ve talked to some bloggers about it and found that lead guitarist Francis Rossi brought up a good point. He said “Our manager told us we needed management in the U.S. When the idea was presented to me back in about 1971, I didn’t realize the importance of having representation in the States and rejected the suggestion. Unfortunately, what that meant was that whilst we were getting support and promotion during the time we spent in America, we had nobody working for us at all when we weren’t there. I think that happened to a degree for Slade and the Faces as well.

This song was written by Francis Rossi with their road manager and part-time harmonica player Bob Young. The song peaked at #1 in the UK in 1974. It was on the album On The Level which peaked at #1 on the UK Charts in 1975. It’s hard to believe but this is their only #1 hit with all the songs they released.

Rossi wrote the song in Los Angeles while the band was out “exercising their pencils” but he wrote this at a bar next door when Bob Young came by and helped him. They stole a little of the rhythm of the intro from their own song…the hit Pictures of Matchstick Men.

Francis Rossi: “We were in Los Angeles staying in this terrible little travel lodge on Sunset Boulevard, which the time seemed by heaven. Traditionally, I would stay in a room boring and most people would be out. I was sitting with a guitar with a G tuning just messing around with the thing. And I got the entire (thing).”

“Most music you sit on acoustic guitar and you try do harden it up somehow. These things at the time you don’t realize they’re going to be wherever they turn out to be. It was enjoyable to make it. It was quite thunderous at the time and the record. People kept asking me how we’ve got so much bass on the record. But I have no idea why we have so much bass on the record. But people love it, still do.”

Down Down

Get down deeper and downDown down deeper and downDown down deeper and downGet down deeper and down

I want all the world to seeTo see you’re laughing, and you’re laughing at meI can take it all from youAgain again again againAgain again again and deeper and down

Get down deeper and downDown down deeper and downDown down deeper and downGet down deeper and down

I have all the ways you seeTo keep you guessing, stop your messing with meYou’ll be back to find your wayAgain again again againAgain-gain-gain-gain deeper and down

Down down deeper and downGet down

Get down deeper and downDown down deeper and downDown down deeper and downGet down deeper and down

I have found you out you seeI know what you’re doing, what you’re doing to meI’ll keep on and say to youAgain again again againAgain-gain-gain-gain deeper and down

Down down deeper and downGet down

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

35 thoughts on “Status Quo – Down Down”

  1. They got terrible stick from the music snobs (mainly prog fans I’m sorry to say) for being simply 3 chord wonders … not that I ever understood what that meant. To me, three was better than one, if anything. And in fact three more than I could ever produce!

    You quote in this piece, two of the four bands I really regret not seeing. No, five.

    Quo and The Faces are definitely ones I should have made the effort / found the cash for.

    😀

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    1. I like what I’ve heard so far. I hear the same about AC/DC but yet here they are still going.
      The Faces would have been an exciting bunch to see…having a full bar on stage at one time.

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  2. Pingback: Status Quo – Down Down – MobsterTiger

  3. Nothing worse than musical snobbery, is there? Quo were great. I love the singles Caroline, Down Down, Paper Plane, Mean Girl, Mystery Song, Rockin’ All Over The World, Break The Rules and many more……

    My mind-numbingly boring bit of personal trivia for today is that in a previous life I was, like Sting, a teacher, and a school I taught at had Quo’s Francis Rossi as their most famous ex-pupil. While I’m on the subject, I taught the niece of Chris Difford from Squeeze at the time he was at his most successful. A good job I didn’t give her a detention otherwise I would have been up the junction!

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    1. I like that they just did their music with no flash …they did have some good singles.
      Hey that is pretty cool. My son is teaching right now for his Masters. I like the Squeeze word play!

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    1. They are an odd case because they drew well over here as did Humble Pie…but never sold a ton of records.

      Like

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    1. Oh yea…I just went down to the last 10…it slowed the page from loading. My indexes are hard enough to keep up with and I’m a few weeks behind on just that.

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  6. Read about these guys a lot in the European mags. I remember buying Knebworth 1990 on CD and they along with a bunch of others had a few live songs on there. They sounded good.

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  7. A new one to me. Having that lack of management in N.America surely didn’t help, but this one I couldn’t quite envision working as a hit here in that time period anyway. The singer has a good voice and the guitar tone is good, but it’s just a bit monotonous and a bit too loud to be a pop song… your AC/DC comparison seems a good one. But, to their credit obviously they had a whole lot of devoted fans there, so they probably were doing alright and weren’t crushed – I would presume- by not having #1s here.

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      1. true enough. ‘Picutres of Matchstick Men’ is very cool and at least got them SOME notice in Canada, but I don’t think it was very big per se. But I did like that song a lot

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  10. Seems my comment I made from the mobile app didn’t make it. Another talented group I knew just a little about. I guess I recall that I don’t recall hearing a lot of their music back then. Which sort of echo’s what you are saying, not a lot happened for them in Canada.

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  13. I love both, Status Quo’s psychedelic “Pictures of Matchstick Men” and their boogie rock that made them really popular in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. It’s simple and, yes, repetitive but fun music.

    I must have listened to Quo’s cover of John Fogerty’s “Rockin’ All Over the World” like a 100 times, but I’m still not tired of it – it’s just feel-good music!

    I imagine it must have been fun to see them live during the heyday!

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  14. To me there is the first iteration poppy ‘Pictures Of Matchstick Men’ and ‘Ice In The Sun’ period, then the later harder rocking ‘Down Down’ etc. To me the later version is basic prototypical teen rock- but there ain’t nothing wrong with that! Another group that did better hereabouts than the States, for the standard ‘part of the British Empire’ reason.

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  15. This is good music! The lead singer’s voice reminds me of Stephen Stills, and I think they have a CSN sound to them. It’s a pity they didn’t have the support they needed in the US to break through. Great driving guitar and as one of them quoted a fabulous bassline going on.

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  17. I don’t know why, Max, but my local five and dime store sold several Status Quo 45s during the 70s. It could be that the store ended up with records the bigger stores didn’t want. Or that the store manager had a good taste in music when he ordered from the record catalog. Either way, his name was Bill, and he turned me on to some good music I likely never would have heard if I went by what was on the AM radio. He used to call them obscure jems. I always liked that description.

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    1. That is really cool…he must have liked British music….that is funny because our dime store is where I bought my first Kinks single…it was there out of nowhere.
      Obscure gems here…hits over there.

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  18. There are times when nothing but Status Quo will do… If I had to pick a favourite song it would be ‘Caroline’, which was the first one I ever heard from my Dad.

    How good does this version sound, 50-odd years into their career:

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    1. Yes and I almost did that one because while researching I re-found your top ten Status Quo songs…that one, this one , or the Fogerty cover but I do like Caroline a lot.

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