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7 May 2017

Steve Elgin - Don't Leave Your Lover Lying Around (Dear)/ Seductress



Label: Dawn
Year of Release: 1974

Regular readers of this blog have probably gathered that I'm fascinated by the extreme camp edges of glam rock and seventies pop. Well, Simon Gitter certainly did, because back in February he actually dropped me a line to bring this record to my attention. "Have you heard this one before?" he asked - and no, I most certainly hadn't. 

"Don't Leave Your Lover Lying Around (Dear)" is so camp and flamboyant that it would possibly make the corpse of Joe Orton blush. Filled to the brim with pub piano riffs, flirtatious gay remarks, a leg-kicking knees-up "Ain't She Sweet" interlude and a distinctly unsettling feel, it's like some kind of early seventies pop pantomime. Its appearance on the Dawn imprint of Pye is particularly baffling, as the point of that label was to showcase the more hippyish and progressive of Pye's signings, and while this could be described as "progressive" in the societal sense of the word, it certainly isn't otherwise. This is pure novelty pop with a twist.

The B-side "Seductress" is much more conventional, though equally flamboyant and dramatic in places. 

As for Elgin, he hailed from Bath in Somerset but moved to London in the early seventies which is where he first graced the public with live performances. This was his only release (but what a release!) and I have no information on his whereabouts these days. 



6 comments:

Василий Канарейкин said...

Thank !

Docco said...

I think Elgin has lost his marbles!!

VanceMan said...

This reminds we so much of The Bee Jay's version of "My Boyfriend's Back" (https://www.discogs.com/Bee-Jays-My-Boyfriends-Back/release/3671309). You get the joke in the first 10 seconds and there's nowhere else for it to go, and the music isn't strong enough to carry the conceit.

Mister Pleasant said...

What a scream! I hear some Sparks-ish moments in the sung section but the Mael brothers never dared to cross over into such overt territory. Thanks for posting this.

dino said...

Steve sadly passed away in mid-2009, he was flamboyant and outrageous to the end and would be delighted to hear that he was still being listened to!

23 Daves said...

Dino - I'm so sorry to hear he's no longer with us, I would have loved a chance to chat to him about his career.

Seems to me that you're a lucky person to have known him.