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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
PUPPET ON A STRING
Sandie Shaw
1967
Available on: The Very Best of Sandie Shaw
EMI : 1999
[Buy It]
YOUR TIME IS GONNA COME
Sandie Shaw
Reviewing the Situation
Pye : 1969
[Buy It]
This time of year is bad for birthdays, for me. There are too many, and they come in from all directions: family, friends, new friends. Recently I almost forgot a birthday. I remembered just in time, if you count being reminded by the birthday person as "in time." I had mentally set the occasion a day later, and I was prepared, but good intentions mean next to nothing when it comes to forgetting or belating birthdays. Soon I'll have to contend with a bunch more, and I'm sure I'll drop at least one ball. Hazard of juggling.
The birthday I almost forgot was especially problematic, because it belonged to a person with whom I have had ongoing nontrivial interaction. Is that the right way to say it? What I mean by that is that it is a friend who is closer than an acquaintance but has on occasion been as far away as an enemy. What this has meant is frequent attempts to move closer (in times where there has been distance) or assess the reasons for the distance (in times when we are close). Plus, we didn't really let each other off the hook, ever: when there were feuds or fights or dustups, we mocked each other as we went through them, sometimes with songs. Once she thought I was talking too much during our phone calls and sent me a mix that included the New York Dolls' "Chatterbox" and the Monks' "Shut Up." Once I thought she was in a rut, down about everything, so I sent her a book called "Creating Optimism," which an online reviewer called "the worst self-help book I have ever read, and I have read many."
A few years ago, we were going through a strange patch where she decided that I was making her miserable, even though I was doing the exact same things I had done when I made her happy. The problem, she said, had to do with the fact that she was too tied up in the particulars of my life. When I was having trouble at work, or in my marriage, or with my writing, she would ask me tons of questions and offer tons of advice. But she felt like it was emptying out her own life. I absorbed her concerns and, because I was in an unhelpful frame of mind, sent her some songs about people who were too tied up in the particulars of other people's lives. It was harder to email songs then -- big attachments -- and it seemed like a major effort, and that combined with the fact that it was a few weeks away from her birthday made it seem like I was sending the songs as a present. She chose not to read the songs as clever or sadistic commentary on our situation, and they helped to restore our friendship. A lack of scrutiny had turned my cruel act into a kindness. It's knotty, I know. Make it a bow. Presents have bows.
One of the songs I sent was "Puppet On a String," which was recorded by Sandie Shaw in 1967. Thursday is Sandie Shaw's birthday, which I had almost forgotten -- or perhaps never knew -- until I saw it listed somewhere on a site that lists birthdays. Shaw's career started, in pop-music terms, well before "Puppet on a String." In 1964, she rose to fame in Britain with her version of Bachrach and David's "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me." She took the song to number one, where it stayed for nearly a month, and went on to put a dozen more songs in the British top twenty, including "Girl Don't Come," "Long Live Love" and "Nothing Comes Easy." Shaw branched out into fashion (a line of shoes) and television (a variety show called "The Sandie Shaw Supplement"), returning to pop music emphatically in 1967, with "Puppet On a String," which won the Eurovision song contest.
Shaw was born in 1947. She was a teenager for the first wave of her fame. As she got older, as the birthdays mounted, she got sick of pop music. Who wouldn't? She didn't like most of the songs, and hated some of them. She famously derided "Puppet on a String" as "sexist drivel" that "instinctively repelled" her. She was more right than she was wrong, which is why I included it in the set of songs I sent to my friend:I may win on the roundabout
Then I'll lose on the swings
In or out, there is never a doubt
Just who's pulling the strings
I'm all tied up to you
But where's it leading me to? In 1969, as Shaw's pop-star stock was fading, she recorded an album called "Reviewing the Situation," which included covers of songs by Bob Dylan ("Lay Lady Lay"), the Beatles ("Love Me Do"), the Rolling Stones ("Sympathy for the Devil"), and Dr. John ("Mama Roux"), along with a selection from the musical "Hair" ("Frank Mills"). Some were good, like "Mama Roux." Others, like "Sympathy For the Devil," verged on oddities. All were deeply felt, which didn't always make for good music, but always made for music that raised the issue of goodness. The album also included a version of a song that had just been recorded by a new British blues-rock group named Led Zeppelin. "Your Time Is Gonna Come" is generally acknowledged to be the first Zeppelin cover, and it's also one of the best. Shaw hangs back and then belts out. She is gentle where she needs to be, mysterious where she needs to be, and menacing where she needs to be. I'm probably understating how good a version this is. The way she handles the first few lines alone is revelatory:Lyin', cheatin', hurtin, that's all you seem to do
Messin' around with every girl in town
Puttin' me down for thinkin' of someone new
Always the same, playin' your game
Drive me insane, trouble's gonna come to you
One of these days, and it won't be long
You'll look for me, but, baby, I'll be gone And look at how efficiently she reverses gender, taking John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page's "Messin' around with every guy in town" and turning it on its ear. This is sexist drivel that instinctively attracts me.
I sent it to my friend whose birthday I almost forgot. She didn't answer right away, and I figured she was mad. The next day I got a message from her. It was a speechless message, but not silent: she said nothing but played "Your Time Is Gonna Come" in the background, loud. Then I sent her an email that said "You're welcome" and she sent me one that said "thank you." It was like we were winding time backwards.
But time goes forward for us all. In the seventies, Sandie Shaw became something of an eccentric, technically speaking -- her career lost its center and she focused variously on songwriting, a rock musical, marriage, Buddhism, and writing childrens' books. She returned to more active career management in the mid-eighties, raised her profile with the help of Morrissey, had a solo album on Rough Trade that's still in print, and rerecorded much of her early work. But for me, forever, she'll exist for her cover of "Your Time Is Gonna Come." Today, she's 62. Happy Birthday. And happy birthday to my friend. My birthday is later in the year, and I'm expecting some kind of payback. My time is gonna come.Labels: ben, folk-rock, pop
posted by Ben
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