Tag: Slade In Flame

I’ve become a fan of this band. I only heard them second-hand through Quiet Riot in the 80s until they finally had a couple of hits in the 1980s with Runaway and My Oh My. This song was a bit of a departure from the high-octane songs they had been releasing. They veered off the formula on purpose with this song.

I love watching old Slade videos on youtube. They were a lot of fun to listen to and watch. Slade was a hard-rocking glam band that somehow never made it in America until the 1980s. Their golden period was in the early to mid-seventies in the UK. Noddy’s voice is extremely strong and the melodic structure of their songs is very catchy but not in a bad way.

Slade was at the height of its success and their manager Chas Chandler suggested they make a movie. So they made a movie called Slade In Flame. The movie itself got good reviews and so did the soundtrack. BBC film critic Mark Kermode called it the “Citizen Kane of rock musicals.” I’ve never watched this film but I am going to now.

This was the first single to be taken from the soundtrack. The movie follows the history of a fictitious group in the early 1970s called Flame who were played by the members of Slade.

Singer Noddy Holder wrote the song after a long period of touring when he was thinking of home. He was looking out of a hotel window overlooking the Mississippi river with Slade’s manager Chas Chandler. The singer was thinking how far the band had come when a big paddle riverboat came down the river, all lit up. Holder had mentioned to Chandler that he saw the yellow lights go down the Mississippi …Chandler seeing the inspiration asked him to write something about it and he wrote Far Far Away with bass player Jim Lea.

The song peaked at #2 in the UK in 1974.

I found this description about the movie. A pretty gritty story of the formation of Flame, a fictional band played by the four members of Slade. In the movie, Flame were to hit the big time quickly, only to be hit by violence, and off-stage legal and financial battles, eventually leading them to split. It’s a hard-hitting look at the less glamorous side of the music biz.

Far Far Away

I’ve seen the yellow lights go down the Mississippi
I’ve seen the bridges of the world and they’re for real
I’ve had a red light of the wrist
Without me even gettin’ kissed
It still seems so unreal

I’ve seen the morning in the mountains of Alaska
I’ve seen the sunset in the east and in the west
I’ve sang the glory that was Rome
And passed the hound-dog singer’s home
It still seems for the best

And I’m far, far away
With my head up in the clouds
And I’m far, far away
With my feet down in the crowds
Lettin’ loose around the world
But the call of home is loud
Still is loud

I’ve seen the Paris lights from high upon Montmartre
And felt the silence hanging low in No-Man’s-Land
And all those spanish nights were fine
It wasn’t only from the wine
It still seems all in hand

And I’m far, far away
With my head up in the clouds
And I’m far, far away
With my feet down in the crowds
Lettin’ loose around the world
But the call of home is loud
Still is loud

I’ve seen the yellow lights go down the Mississippi
The grand Bahama island stories carry on
And all those arigato smiles
Stay in your memory for a while
There still seems more to come

And I’m far, far away
With my head up in the clouds
And I’m far, far away
With my feet down in the crowds
Lettin’ loose around the world
But the call of home is loud
Still is loud

And I’m far, far away
With my head up in the clouds
And I’m far, far away
With my feet down in the crowds
And I’m far, far away
But the sound of home is loud
Still is loud