Graham Parker – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Graham Parker – Hold Back The Night

I missed this song in Graham Parker’s discography. This is a good one and a cover of the Trammps song they released in 1975. The Trammps would later have some huge disco hits. This one was more Philly soul-sounding. Parker had already been bending R&B and soul into his own style with his first two albums, Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment.

It was released on the EP The Pink Parker in late ’77 (a live version was tacked onto the U.S. version of The Parkerilla in 1979). Graham’s version is raw and raucous, much more than the original. The Pink Parker peaked at #24 in the UK Charts and #58 on the Billboard 100 in 1977. He recorded this with his great backup band called The Rumour.

The Rumour would be Graham’s backing band for years. They also recorded their own albums separately and did three in all. They broke up in 1980 and then reformed and started to back Parker up again in 2011 and remain his backup band to this day.

The Pink Parker was an EP, and it basically functioned as a stealth single for Hold Back the Night. The track started getting serious airplay and attention.

Hold Back The Night

Hold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you baby

When you leftYou took the sunRight out of my skyYes you didWonder whyYou went awayAnd never told me why

When the sun go downThe moon is nearI’m scared to death‘Cause your face appear

Hold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you baby

LonelinessHolding meWhen I go to bed yes it isLike a characterIn a bookThat I have read

When the sun go downThe moon is nearI’m scared to death‘Cause your face appear

Hold it hold it hold it hold it

Hold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyI said hold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you baby

Hold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you babyHold back the nightTurn on the lightDon’t wanna dream about you baby

…

Graham Parker – Saturday Nite Is Dead

I’ve been listening to this era a lot recently and you will see something about it in a couple of weeks. This album was made by Graham Parker & The Rumour. His first album Howling Wind remains my favorite so far but this one (Squeezing Out Sparks) is catching up…the more I hear it the more I like it.

When he met the manager of Brinsley Schwarz. With ex-members of Brinsley Schwarz and ex-member Nick Lowe producing them…they made his debut album Howlin’ Wind in 1976. His band had a name at this point…The Rumour. The Rumour would be Graham’s backing band for years. They also recorded their own albums separately and did three in all. They broke up in 1980 and then reformed and started to back Parker up again in 2011 and remain his backup band to this day.

When I hear Parker, I can hear some Springsteen, Van Morrison, and Elvis Costello in his music. This song is straightforward, no-frills, traditional rock ‘n’ roll delivered at full steam ahead. You have The Rumour pumping this music out while Graham spits out the lyrics.

The song is on his fourth album Squeezing Out Sparks which was released in 1979. The album did well as it peaked at #40 on the Billboard Album Charts, #79 in Canada, and #18 in the UK. The album was helped out by the single Local Girls that got a lot of play on MTV but failed to chart.

Graham Parker: “In Squeezing Out Sparks I was kind of attempting a concept album about the suburbs of England, or at least trying to capture a vague approximation of suburban life. This idea succeeds in “Saturday Nite Is Dead” and “Local Girls” particularly well. I guess I drifted off the mark there for the rest of the record because the concept turned out to be a little confining for a whole album. I’m too restless to stick with such a narrow program”

Saturday Nite Is Dead

Everybody just looks ugly now information don’t compute
I draw a blank every time I think
The football crowd is going to give me a boot

And Saturday night is dead Saturday night is dead
It don’t matter what they say
You’ve got to use your own head some day
Saturday night is dead Saturday night is dead
Yeah it’s dead

The ultraviolet light hurts me so
It used to be my friend
I used to know a good place to go
But now it’s nothing like it was then

And Saturday night is dead
Saturday night is dead
It don’t matter what they say
I’m going to the funeral Sunday
Saturday night is dead
Saturday night is dead
Yeah it’s dead

It must have been murder it ain’t no accident
Oh no it means nothing to me
The clock goes tick tick tick in my head
Saturday is dead
Saturday is dead
See upcoming rock shows
Get tickets for your favorite artists

I look inside to find a place to hide
But there ain’t no place I know
It’s just as well that I’m stupefied
It makes it easy
It makes it easy to deliver the fatal blow

Deliver deliver deliver

CHORUS (FIRST VERSION)

Saturday night is dead REPEAT AND END

…

Graham Parker – Wake Up (Next to You)

I’ve been listening to a lot of Graham Parker since last May when I posted his debut album Howlin’ Wind. If I had to compare him with someone…it would be Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson but with a touch of Van Morrison and The Band sprinkled in here and there.

In an interview, Parker revealed that the inspiration for the song came from his own personal experience. He was deeply in love with his wife at the time and wanted to express his love for her through his music. The song was written in just 20 minutes. He said he wanted to emulate Smokey Robinson on this song.

The song was released in 1985 and is the only Parker song to get into the Billboard Top 40. The song was on the album Steady Nerves. Parker wanted William Whittman as producer but his record company Electra did not like that choice. They went into the studio just to do a few tracks as a test and they sent Electra this track…and they approved Whittman.

Whittman was no slouch… As a producer and engineer his credits include Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, The Hooters, and The Outfield. He also played bass in the Cyndi Lauper Band, recording and touring internationally, and also serves as the Musical Director.

The song has a nice feel to it. It’s been covered by David Bowie and Elvis Costello just to name a few.

The song peaked at #39 on the Billboard 100 and #94 in Canada in 1985. Graham Parker didn’t use Rumour as his backing band on this one. His backing band on this album included Brinsley Schwarz, George Small, Kevin Jenkins, Mike Braun, and Huw Gower.

Wake Up (Next To You)

I can’t have no objection to the world outside
I don’t have no complaints against life’s one way ride
I know I’m sleeping with an angel and this devil’s in luck
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up

I’ve been dreaming for too long
I guess something’s always wrong unless I
Wake up next to you
I wanna wake up next to you

The summer’s left a spell on us, magic and gold
The tarmac’s cracked and shimmering up on the road
I know I’m walking with an angel down a hot avenue
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up

I’ve been dreaming for too long
I guess something’s always wrong unless I
Wake up next to you, I wanna wake up
Wake up next to you

You know what I’m gonna do
I’m gonna pick up the telephone right now
And I’m gonna call Information
And I’ll say to them

“Where is she right now?
‘Cause I want her and I need her”
And I wanna hear her say
“Hey, baby, wake up”

Wake up next to you, I’m wanna wake up
Wake up next to you

Where is she right now?
‘Cause I want her and I need her
And I wanna hear her say

Wake up, wake up, wake up
Gonna wake up, wake up, wake up
Gonna wake up, wake up, wake up
Gonna wake up, wake up, wake up

Graham Parker – Local Girls

I posted a Graham Parker album (Howlin’ Wind) a while back and it was the first time I’d heard it. This song…as soon as I heard it I remembered it. I remember MTV and Fridays playing this video in the 1980s.

This was on the album Squeezing Out Sparks released in 1979. The album peaked at #18 in the UK, #79 in Canada, and #40 on the Billboard 100. Parker had just left Mercury Records and this was his debut on Arista Records.

I’ve listened to Squeezing Out Sparks and there is not a weak song on the album. Parker had felt like Rumour had overplayed on his albums to this point. He told them they need to play like they were in a studio and not live. After that… once they were clicking, it only took 11 days to complete the album.

This album didn’t include horns that were on his albums up to this point. It was a no-frills approach that made it arguably his finest album. This song has everything you want. Smart writing, catchy hook, and Parker’s voice is on point.

Normally, Parker named his albums after song titles, although this time he toyed with calling it “The Basingstoke Canal” after a waterway connecting to the Thames River, about 30 miles from where he was born in the London area of Hackney…but he woke up one morning with a song on the album called You Can’t Be Too Strong going through his head with the lyric “I know it gets dark down by Luna Park/But everybody else is squeezing out a spark/That happened in the heat, somewhere in the dark.”

Graham Parker: “‘Local Girls,’ of course, refers to the girls in my/your hometown, not the girls in someone else’s town. … The idea for ‘Local’ is from remembering what it was like to be a boy at home, looking out the window, seeing a rather toothsome piece stroll by, nose in the air perhaps, down the quiet semi-detached suburban street, and knowing that she probably already (at 13/14 years of age) fancies herself as an army wife (I grew up next door to an army camp and the squaddies were always stealing the girlfolk) and is going to look upon your feeble advances with some disdain. It’s a fairly typical the-object-of-ones-desire-is-always-out-of-reach-type song, just about 30 times better and more pregnant with meaning/detail than pretty much anyone else on the planet could even begin to aspire to, is all”

Graham Parker: “It wasn’t until I’d done all my Hippie traveling and being a freak and all that, and got back and lived with my parents and started to absorb all influence of my earlier years. I just pushed myself out in the world, got to London and met the right people, including Dave Robinson, who became my manager. He put the band the Rumour around me. So that was basically the beginnings of my career. I was just basically what I consider to be a successful singer/songwriter/musician by the time I came to write Squeezing Out Sparks. It was very inspired times for me, and that’s what resulted in that album.”

Local Girls

Sit by my window and look outside, wonder why the sun don’t shine on me
What’s wrong with you, you stupid child, don’t you think that I’m the one
You’re waiting to see?
Don’t talk too much ’cause she falls for the suckers, makes her feel
Everything is secure
Don’t ever leave a footprint on the floor

Don’t bother with the local girls, don’t bother with the local girls
They don’t bother me

She’s probably half-wit, she must be straight,
Or bound to have a mother who knows nothing but hate
Don’t want to love her, I’d rather knock her down
Standing at the bus stop where she waits each morning
So isolated that she thinks that the army is the place where a man ought to be
Don’t bother with them, they don’t bother me

Don’t bother with the local girls, don’t bother with the local girls
They don’t bother me

They got the walk, they got the talk, right down without a flaw
At 6:00 I got to stop my dreaming at the counter of the store

Don’t bother with the local girls, don’t bother with the local girls
They don’t bother me

Without a doubt I got to intercept, must be time someone ran and shouted in
Their head
You look all right in the cheap print dress,
But every time you swish it ’round you make me disappear
I’m aware of exactly what I’m doing, making everything a mystery
Don’t bother with it, it don’t bother me

Graham Parker – I Want You Back

CB sent me a link to this song. Never did I think in a million years this was the Jackson 5 song that he covered when I saw the title. This cover knocked me out…it’s a mature cover version of the song…and that is no disrespect to the others but I like the way Parker takes this cover.

Parker released this non-album song in 1979. It managed to peak at #103 on the Billboard 100. This one to me must have come out of left field for Graham Parker fans in 1979.

The more I get into Parker’s songs…I don’t understand why he wasn’t played more. He compares to Elvis Costello pretty well. Apparently, radio only had room for one quirky, bespectacled, British pub rocker (Costello).

His record label Mercury Records has been blamed by many for not getting behind Parker and pushing his records. Parker thought the same as he said: “their promotion’s so lame, they could never take it to the real ball game.” He did eventually sign with Arista and Squeezing Out Sparks was the first album on that label for him.

He released this song and on the flip side of the single was a song called Mercury Poisoning. A clear jab at his former label. He didn’t include Mercury Poisoning on the album because he didn’t think it fit. “Sometimes some of the little throwaway things that take a few minutes to write, you just don’t think that they really have the integrity. I mean, ‘Mercury Poisoning’ is a bit of fun and all that, but I didn’t think it had the integrity to be on Squeezing Out Sparks.”

Arista saw that the single was popular so they began to include a free “Mercury Poisoning” single with every purchase of the Squeezing Out Sparks album in the UK. It was also the flip side to Local Girls in America.

The original version is of course by a young Jackson 5. It was written by a team of Motown writers called The Corporation. The head of the label, Berry Gordy, was one of the writers. They were based in California, unlike most Motown writers who were in the Detroit offices.

Michael Jackson reminded Berry Gordy of Frankie Lymon, another teenage star. Gordy helped write this as if he was writing for Lymon. The song was originally envisioned as a vehicle for Gladys Knight but Berry saw it as a way to break the Jacksons into the charts. They released it in 1969.

I Want You Back

Ohh-oh-oh-oh, let me tell you now, uh-huh, uh-uh-uh

When I had you to myself I didn’t want you around
Those pretty faces always make me stand up in a crowd
Someone picked you from the bunch, and that was all it took
And now it’s much too late for me to take a second look

Oh baby, give me one more chance
Won’t you please let me back in your heart
Oh darling, I was blind to let you go
Now that I see you in his arms
Oh I do now
Oh-oh baby
Oh I do now
Oh-oh baby

Tried to live without your love, one of those sleepless nights
But that just shows you, girl, that I know wrong from right
And every street you walk down, I leave tear stains on the ground
Following you girl, I can feel you all around, let me tell you now

Oh baby, give me one more chance
Won’t you please let me back in your heart
Oh darling, I was blind to let you go
But now that I see you in his arms
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
You’re all I want
You’re all I want
You’re all I need
Ah yeah, one more chance
Won’t you please let me back in your heart
Oh darling, I must have been blind to let you go
Now that I see you in his arms

Graham Parker – Howlin’ Wind

CB and I have been talking and when that happens… some cool music is discussed. This is an artist I should have checked out long long ago.

Graham Parker is someone I’ve heard of …but never actually heard. I’ve lived with this album for a week or so. What I’ve heard is some smooth groove music that Parker contrasts with his intense lyrics. I hear a little punk influence in the lyrics and voice. If I had to compare him with someone…it would be Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson but with a touch of Van Morrison and The Band sprinkled in on this album.

A little more about Graham Parker…after that, I’ll get on about the album. This is an extremely condensed beginning for Graham up until the debut album.

Graham Parker was born in East London in 1950 and was the right age to catch The Beatles when they hit. He and his friends had a band that adopted the haircuts, sweaters, and boots but they never really learned how to play their instruments. He did a guitar and started learning it. Later on, when he was around 15 he started to listen to soul music, Motown, ska, and especially Otis Redding.

He started to improve on guitar and played bars and clubs. He even appeared on a television show in Gibraltar and played a few of his own songs. After that, he was asked to join a psychedelic band named Pegasus. He soon tired of that music and started to concentrate on R&B songs like The Midnight Hour. He then met the manager of Brinsley Schwarz. With ex-members of Brinsley Schwarz and ex-member Nick Lowe producing them…they made his debut album Howlin’ Wind. His band had a name at this point…The Rumour.

The album is great. There is not a bad song on it. The second side rocks a little more than the first so it evens it out. I hear rock, reggae, rockabilly, R&B, Soul, rock, and a touch of jazz in spots. His voice is so damn convincing…you automatically take notice as he sneers his way through it. He can get raspy and then stay smooth. There is a variety on this album…he was not stuck on one style…he spread it about and his debut album is balanced and wonderful. It was a perfect marriage between Parker and The Rumour. Also, I have to give Nick Lowe some credit. He keeps it sparse…no studio tricks just straight-ahead music.

I’ve mentioned Van Morrison and I have to say Springsteen also. If you like those artists…you should like this Graham Parker album. Don’t get me wrong…he doesn’t copy them…he has his own original thing going on but it has some of the feel of those artists. I’ve listened to this album at home, in the car, and at work. It kept getting better as I was going through it.

Give this album a shot.

“White Honey” – 3:33
“Nothin’s Gonna Pull Us Apart” – 3:21
“Silly Thing” – 2:51
“Gypsy Blood” – 4:37
“Between You and Me” – 2:25
“Back to Schooldays” – 2:54
“Soul Shoes” – 3:13
“Lady Doctor” – 2:5
“You’ve Got to Be Kidding” – 3:30
“Howlin’ Wind” – 3:58
“Not If It Pleases Me” – 3:12
“Don’t Ask Me Questions” – 5:38

Graham Parker: “When I’m writing, I don’t write angry or think angry, so I appreciate that you noticed this, and thank you, sadly, all critics see or hear is anger. Not me, though. ‘With a little humor, always with a little humor.’”

Graham Parker: “I’ve always tried to be playful, starting with Howlin’ Wind, not dumb, not goofy, but playful. I’m a fan of humor. People have always thought I was pissed off, but really, I was just joking around. They don’t get it or they’re not hearing me. I have always loved to tickle people.”