I have only just joined the forum. I did so because I have recently been listening to my old
Cockney Rebel recordings.
To first put my cards on the table, I have worked as a professional songwriter and composer and producer for over twenty years.
The first record I ever purchased was Judy Teen. It was one of those "tingle factor" moments and, as it transpired, genuinely life changing for the little 11 year old that I was.
I subsequently bought the two available albums, for the grand sum of £2.50 each and I was hooked.
Everything from the music, the band's image through to the very typeface struck me as the absolute epitome of a great cavernous world of cool out there of which I had to be a part.
My devotion began to wane and although I purchased Timeless Flight and Love's a Prima Donna, the Pistols began to call on my now teenage attention.
So for many years my Rebel records remained untouched.
I bought the CDs when they emerged, but possibly for reasons of sentiment.
However, in the last few months, and for no particular reason the song "Mirror Freak" started going round and round in my head.
This NEVER usually happens to me, I do music for living and when am not in the studio I try to escape from music.
Accordingly I put on the The Human Menagerie to investigate the source of my torment.
My God, Mirror freak is a work of art.
Hearing it now with the benefit of so many years in the studio I am astonished at the arrangement: Hammond sustained throughout, Fender Rhodes, the amazing violin riff and the Drum part, which is genius.
The lyrics and vocal intonations depict an atmosphere of immense darkness and style.
Usually when you re-visit the tastes of your younger years it is at best amusing, at worst embarrassing.
Not in this case.
So I wondered how the rest of the stuff sounded like after so many years.
Mr Soft must be one of the most brilliant pop songs of all time, the arrangement is again
amazing. The fast vibrato Hammond part, the cow bell. The piano which sounds like the Beatles one in Abbey Rd 2 (although I believe the track was recorded at Air).
Where did the creative confidence to sing in such an amazing manner come from?
What about Judy Teen?
Once again the arrangement is out of this world, the riff on tracked violin through a delay
is amazing.
But the salient point of Steve Harley's genius seems to me to be his lyrical scanning. I am unaware of any precedent for this poetic use and bending of pronunciations.
Here and in the arrangements we observe a true originality which is astonishing.
I could go on and on with my analysis, but I think, and hope, the point is made.
