Phil Collins – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Genesis – I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

Turn on the lava lamps and sit back and relax to some music that has sitar sounds in it, and I’m always up for sitar. When you think of Genesis in the mid-1970s, you don’t immediately picture them as a singles band like the later incarnation. This was the Peter Gabriel era, long concept pieces that made up an album. However, as we will see, not everything was that simple.

This was on their 1973 album Selling England by the Pound, a quirky song that became their first charting single in the UK. The song is only about four minutes long (short by Genesis standards at the time), and it grooves along nicely. The band was almost embarrassed by a hit. Gabriel joked in later interviews that it was Genesis goes Top of the Pops, but the song showed that their long studio work could deliver something catchy and not be super long.

The lineup was Peter Gabriel (vocals, flute), Steve Hackett (guitars), Tony Banks (keyboards), Mike Rutherford (bass/guitars), and Phil Collins (drums/vocals). They were coming off the success of their last album Foxtrot, and there was pressure from their record company to deliver something more commercially accessible without ditching their progressive roots. That is a lot harder than it sounds. The sessions were long and argumentative. Genesis were perfectionists, which paid off with this album.

The song peaked at #21 on the UK Charts in 1974. The album Selling England by the Pound peaked at #3 on the UK Charts and #70 on the Billboard Album Charts. For me, it’s one of those tracks that feels like a bridge, still theatrical but also radio-friendly.

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

It’s one o’clock and time for lunch,When the sun beats down and I lie on the benchI can always hear them talk

There’s always been Ethel:“Jacob, wake up! You’ve got to tidy your room now.”And then Mister Lewis:“Isn’t it time that he was out on his own?”Over the garden wall, two little lovebirds – cuckoo to you!Keep them mowing blades sharp…

I know what I like, and I like what I know;getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show

Sunday night, Mr Farmer called, said:“Listen son, you’re wasting your time; there’s a future for youin the fire escape trade. Come up to town!”But I remebered a voice from the past;“Gambling only pays when you’re winning”– I had to thank old Miss Mort for schooling a failureKeep them mowing blades sharp…

I know what I like, and I like what I know;getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show

When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench,I can always hear them talk.Me, I’m just a lawnmower – you can tell me by the way I walk

…

George Harrison – Art Of Dying

I’ve been listening to All Things Must Pass recently and the songs are really consistent on that album.

Harrison wrote these lyrics while he was still a Beatle. He found it hard to get many of them on Beatles albums because there was only so much room. The good side is when The Beatles broke up, he had a backlog full of songs.

Phil Collins was brought in to play the congos on this song. He played for 90 minutes and got blisters on his fingers from playing them for so long. Unfortunately for Collins…his version didn’t make the cut. George Harrison had a great sense of humor and pranked Collins in later years.

Collins met Harrison several more times over the years, and the pair became friendly… friendly enough for Harrison to prank Collins. In 2001, shortly before Harrison’s death, he put out a remastered version of All Things Must Pass and around the same time sent Collins what he claimed was a version of the track on which he had played featuring the drummer’s missing Congas handiwork.

George had the percussionist Ray Cooper play out of time on the tape and that is what he sent to Collins. Phil later said: “I got a tape from George of the song that I played with the congas quite loud, I thought, Oh my god, this sounds terrible. In fact, it was a Harrison joke. He’d recorded [percussionist] Ray Cooper. [He said] said, ‘Play bad, I’m going to record it and send it to Phil.’ I couldn’t believe that a Beatle had actually spent that much time on a practical joke for me.” He did have a connection to the Beatles… As a kid, he was an extra in the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night but was edited out. Harrison did credit Collins on the 2001 remastered version of All Things Must Pass.

All the members of Derek and the Dominos played on this track and it was produced by Phil Spector.

George Harrison credits his first experience with LSD as being the doorway to his spiritual awakening and introduction to Hinduism. Harrison said that during the LSD trip, he thought of Yogis of the Himalayas running through his mind. He began to think about death and that is how this song came about.

George Harrison passed away on November 29, 2001 after a long battle with cancer. He was not afraid of death, as he believed it would take him to a better place. Before he passed, Paul and Ringo visited him and spent the day telling jokes and talking about times in Liverpool. He did tell Paul McCartney one to stop fighting with Yoko…that life was too short. Paul honored that wish and started to communicate with Yoko.

George Harrison: In the scriptures and in the Bhagavad Gita it says there’s never a time when you didn’t exist and will never be a time you cease to exist. The only thing that changes is our bodily conditioned soul comes in the body and we go from birth to death and it’s death how I look at it. It is like taking your suit off, you know the soul is in these three bodies and one body falls off.

Acoustic Demo

Art Of Dying

There’ll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you
As nothing in this life that I’ve been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying
Do you believe me?

There’ll come a time when all your hopes are fading
When things that seemed so very plain
Become an awful pain
Searching for the truth among the lying
And answered when you’ve learned the art of dying

But you’re still with me
But if you want it
Then you must find it
But when you have it
There’ll be no need for it

There’ll come a time when most of us return here
Brought back by our desire to be
A perfect entity
Living through a million years of crying
Until you’ve realized the Art of Dying
Do you believe me?

Howard Jones – No One Is To Blame

You can feel the punishment, but you can’t commit the sin

You can probably count how many 80s ballads I like on one hand but… I liked this ballad when I heard it in the mid-80s. I could relate to it at the time and still can. The song was a hit, but Jones got a chilly reception from his American record company. He was told “I think it’s a B side” by an executive. It taught Jones to listen to himself and not the higher-ups.

There were two versions of this song. The original one was stripped down but the second had Phil Collins drumming and doing backups. I think it was a requirement in the 1980s to have Phil Collins on your record. This song was his biggest hit in the United States.

The song peaked at #4 on the Billboard 100, #12 in Canada, and #16 in the UK Charts in 1986. Howard Jones had 5 top twenty songs and 2 top ten songs in the 1980s. Altogether he had 11 songs in the top 100.

Howard Jones: “Well, I think we can all relate to the main theme of the song. But I was in San Francisco, and I was doing a promotion with the local record company guy, and we were crossing the street to go to the radio station, and he said to me, ‘Howard, what do you think of all the amazing women here in San Francisco?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, they’re great, they’re fantastic.’ And he said, ‘Well, you can look at the menu, but you don’t have to eat.’ And I’ve never actually heard anybody say that before. And so that was it, a good spark for a huge idea coming for a song.”

Howard Jones: “It was originally on the Dream Into Action album, and it’s quite stripped down. And I always thought I could probably get more out of the song. It was suggested I work with Phil, and I’d worked with Phil on the Prince’s Trust concerts here in England. And I’ve been in a band and so I knew Phil. So it was really great working with him. But I’ll tell you what, the fans all like the original version best.” I think it’s because it’s less slick and it’s got more emotion in it. Personally, I prefer the Phil Collins version. But I understand why they like the first one. On this tour when we’re playing the song, I play the original version. I don’t do the second one.”

The original version

No One Is To Blame

You can look at the menu, but you just can’t eat
You can feel the cushion, but you can’t have a seat
You can dip your foot in the pool, but you can’t have a swim
You can feel the punishment, but you can’t commit the sin

And you want her, and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
You can build a mansion, but you just can’t live in it
You’re the fastest runner but you’re not allowed to win
Some break the rules, and let you cut the cost
The insecurity is the thing that won’t get lost

And you want her, and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame

You can see the summit but you can’t reach it
It’s the last piece of the puzzle but you just can’t make it fit
Doctor says you’re cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain

And you want her, and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame

No one ever is to blame
No one ever is to blame

Miss O’Dell: Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton… by Chris O’Dell and Katherine Ketcham

I enjoyed this book immensely. It’s almost like a fantasy book. You are a fan and suddenly you get thrown into the world with The Beatles as friends and co-workers. You move from the Beatles to the Stones, CSNY, Bob Dylan and the list kept growing.

I will say this… as a Beatle fan, this book gave me insight that I never had before. Chris O’Dell happened to meet Derek Taylor (press officer of the Beatles) in Los Angeles in 1968…she worked for him for a few weeks in LA as a PA. He told her she should come over to London to check out the new company that The Beatles were starting called Apple. He didn’t promise her a job but she took a chance and sold her records and borrowed from her parents to go to London. She was like Alice down the rabbit hole, O’Dell stumbled upon a life even she could not have dreamed of.

She took a chance and went over and that started her career working at The Beatles record company Apple. It took her a few months to get hired full time but after the Beatle’s inner circle knew she could be trusted she was there. She met Paul on her very first day. She said all of them were extremely nice and made her feel welcome. She spent the first few months showing up at the office and making herself useful and securing her place. She was especially close to George as a friend and later Ringo as a little more.

After all was said and done…she had 3 songs written about her. Two by Leon Russell called Hummingbird, Pieces Apple Lady, and George Harrison’s Miss O’Dell. She was also the “Mystery Woman” on the Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street cover. She was in the Joni Mitchell song “Coyote” with the line He’s got another woman down the hall…the song about Sam Shepard who Chris O’Dell and Joni Mitchell were seeing. She ended up singing on the Hey Jude recording in the final Na Na chorus.

She was one of the first if not the first female tour manager in rock. The tours she worked on were The Rolling Stones, CSNY, Santana, Bob Dylan, Earth Wind and Fire, Jennifer Warnes, Fleetwood Mac, Linda Ronstadt, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, Echo and the Bunnymen, ELO, and more.

We also get a glimpse into the personalities of Bob Dylan, Jagger and Richards, CSNY (and the disfunction), Eric Clapton, and more.

Like all of us through life…she made some cringe-worthy decisions. I’m not trying to play it down but most of the time everything worked out in the end. She was in the right place at the right time and took advantage of that. She remains close friends with Pattie Harrison, Ringo Starr (her son’s Godfather), and many of her old famous acquaintances.

This is not a kiss-and-tell book and she doesn’t trash people which made me happy. The only person to come out of this book bad at all is Eric Clapton who was admittedly jealous of Pattie and Chris’s friendship. After the Stones tour, she got into drugs really bad but managed to quit them only to start up again. She, later on, became a drug counselor and helped people.

This book is for more than just Beatle fans…it gives you what life was like on the road in the 1970s. Some of the highlights in the book for me were:

How the Apple Office worked including the Hell’s Angels visitors
How even the biggest stars had deep insecurities
Bob Dylan forgot his harmonicas before the Isle of Wight concert and Chris O’Dell arrived by helicopter to give them to him.
Keith Richards sending her to pick up a “package” in LA in the middle of a tour
Reading about David Crosby’s complaints of no “cross ventilation in his hotel room”
When Roger Taylor of Queen realized that she was Miss O’Dell from George’s song.
Insight into Pattie Boyd and Maureen Starkey who is hardly covered in Beatles books
Reading about how Bangledesh started and how George got his musician friends to participate.
Being on the roof during Get Back brief concert

Chris O’Dell: I think being a Beatle became very difficult for them. They had a different set of problems than the Stones and CSN&Y. They didn’t tour that much, they couldn’t go out of their hotel rooms, and they lived in a bubble. I think breaking up for them, and I can only guess, was a relief and very difficult at the same time.

Chris O’Dell: It was like being let go in Disneyland. That’s what it felt like. It’s like here are the keys to Disneyland, go and enjoy yourself. And I was constantly aware that I was watching history in the making and that was exciting. So every day had some, or certainly every week, had something, a twist to it that made it really exciting

Chris O’Dell now: I am happily remarried to a wonderful man who supports me and accepts me as I am. My twenty-three-year-old son is amazing and gives me some credibility as a parent! I have a private practice in Tucson, specializing in addiction and mental health counseling. My two dogs are happy and life is just better than I would have expected.

Excerpt from the book: On being in a room with Mick and Keith before the 72 tour.

“Listen to this fucking article in Rolling Stone about Harrison’s Bangladesh concert,” Keith said. He started reading from the article.
“The Concert for Bangladesh is rock reaching for its manhood.” Keith raised an eyebrow. “Under the leadership of George Harrison, a group of rock musicians recognized, in a deliberate, self-conscious, and professional way, that they have responsibilities, and went about dealing with them seriously.”
Keith looked at Mick and then at me. “Do you believe this shit? But wait, it gets better. Harrison is “a man with a sense of his own worth, his own role in the place of things… with a few parallels among his peers.”
“Bollocks.” Keith laughed, tossing the magazine on the coffee table. “What a fucking load of shit.”
I knew that Keith wasn’t really amused. He could be terribly insecure.
What a paradox Keith was- a sweet sensitive soul who wrote songs about needing love to be happy and yet he lived his life as if he couldn’t give a shit about anything.
But at that moment I wasn’t too interested in Keith’s feelings. I sat at the far end of the sofa, my legs and arms crossed, smoking a cigarette and drinking my Scotch and Coke as if it were straight Coke. I was pissed. Sure, I knew they were just being competitive, but I couldn’t stand listening to them make fun of George. I wanted to jump into the conversation and tell them to leave him alone. But what could I do? I worked for the Stones now, not the Beatles. This is weird, I know, and particularly strange in the context of the Stone’s remarkable longevity, but at that moment I had a sinking feeling that I was beginning my climb down the ladder. I’d started at the very top with the Beatles and now I was on the rung below. I found myself thinking at that moment that the Stones were sometimes a little too raw, too raunchy, too negative. I liked their music, and I liked each of them individually, but if I had to choose, the Beatles would win.
“You know,” I said, trying to smile but having a hard time of it,
“George is my friend.”
Mick looked over at me as if he had forgotten I was there. “Oh yeah, Chris, you’re a Beatle person, aren’t you? Sorry about that”
We let it go, then, but after I dropped Mick at his house and headed home through the dark canyons, I felt a sudden, intense longing to see Pattie and George. Mick was right. When it came right down to it, I was a Beatle person.”

Miss O’Dell

I’m the only one down here
Who’s got nothing to say
About the war
Or the rice
That keeps going astray on its way to Bombay.
That smog that keeps polluting up our shores
Is boring me to tears.
Why don’t you call me, Miss O’Dell?

I’m the only one down here
Who’s got nothing to fear
From the waves
Or the rice
That keeps rolling on right up to my front porch.
The record player’s broken on the floor,
And Ben, he can’t restore it.
Miss O’Dell.

I can tell you
Nothing new
Has happened since I last saw you.

I’m the only one down here
Who’s got nothing to say
About the hip
Or the dope
Or the cat with most hope to fill the Fillmore.
That pushing, shoving, ringing on my bell
Is not for me tonight.
Why don’t you call me, Miss O’Dell?

Why don’t you call me, Miss O’Dell?