If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

- George Washington

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Apropos of nothing in particular ...



Does anyone else remember Rare Bird and their 1969 song "Sympathy"?

It hardly featured in the UK playlists, but in continental Europe it was a very popular single and was played everywhere. In that year, I went for a trip to Lugano in Northern Italy with some friends, and you couldn't get away from it. Every café, every bar, every restaurant seemed to have it on a continuous loop. I was getting on for the ripe old age of 16, and the lyrics struck me as very profound (perhaps I matured late). I can remember them word-for-word today, and hear Steve Gould's powerful voice belting them out over a rather plodding but relentless descending bass line and power chords from the dual keyboards that were Rare Bird's trademark.

Now when you climb into your bed tonight
And when you lock and bolt the door
Just think of those out in the cold and dark
'cause there's not enough love to go round

And sympathy is what we need my friend
And sympathy is what we need
And sympathy is what we need my friend
'cause there's not enough love to go round

Now half the world hates the other half
And half the world has all the food
And half the world lies down and quietly starves
'cause there's not enough love to go round

And sympathy is what we need my friend
And sympathy is what we need
And sympathy is what we need my friend
'cause there's not enough love to go round.

In retrospect, the theme is pretty much Good King Wenceslas without the redemptive pine logs hither, but it was good at the time.

Not sure about the chick on the cover, though. She looks double-jointed.

UPDATE:

Thanks to commenter RFB, here's the video. I was at work when I posted, and Youtube is blocked there, so I didn't bother looking. But now I have. Pity we don't see more of the chicks at the end ...


6 comments:

  1. I remember Uriah Heep's rock version first but that's probably down to age, Marillion did a cover as well. Anyway here's the youtube links to all three; enjoy.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2x8oA5h5Jo&feature=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPyNdwfYDDo&feature=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSlYm6vl_SM&feature=related

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! No Youtube at work, so I didn't bother looking to see if the song was there. I didn't know the song had even been covered, so I will check those later. Good to see that I got the words pretty much right from memory, and the overall tone and paqce of the thing was exactly how I remembered it. I've just had a big nostalgia thing for the trip and the mates I was with - and the Italian girls we followed round, more in hope than expectation.

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  3. Have updated the post with a link to the TOTP video.

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  4. The Uriah Heep version wasn't a cover, but one of their own songs, written by Ken Hensley for the album "Firefly". Ironically, it's largely about being extremely unsympathetic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That was funnier when I wrote it, being surrounded by a highly ironic (and original) "RockAnorak" pseudo-html tag. However, I seem to have been outsmarted by the mighty Blogger filters...

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  6. Gotcha. You can't even use simple strikethrough tags in comments. I wonder if anyone understands the ^H^H^H thing anymore? Are there any UNIX geeks left?

    ReplyDelete

Comment is free, according to C P Scott, so go for it. Word verification is turned off for the time being. Play nicely.

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