Laurie Anderson being parodied by an ex-Coronation Street actor - it could only happen in 1981
Label: Red Bus
Year of Release: 1981
It's 1981, I'm eight years old, and I'm listening to the chart run-down on my parent's cheap transistor radio in the dining room. The top ten so far has brought me climbers from Shakin' Stevens, who has become a familiar feature by now, Elvis Costello, who really isn't my bag but is a familiar sound to my very young ears, The Jam, who I loved, and Altered Images who I recognise as one of my cousin's favourite bands.
This familiar, cosy, comfortable tea-time territory was then promptly shattered by Laurie Anderson's "O Superman", climbing sixteen places to the number two spot and clearly challenging Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin for next week's number one position (if I only I'd known that ex-members of Hatfield and the North being at number one was odd enough in itself). What I heard at that point wasn't recognisable as music to me, and felt both unnatural and slightly frightening. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" droned a continuous keyboard note as if it was all some kind of joke at my expense, while Anderson delivered what sounded like a desperate prayer down a busted vocoder.
"Mum, why is this number two?" I demanded.
"Because enough people bought it," she explained. (We'd had these conversations before. "Why is Lena Martell number one when she isn't any good, Mum?", "Why aren't ELO number one when they've clearly made the best record?" and "Are The Jam allowed to just go straight in at number one?" are all questions she's been asked and weathered with patience, explaining to me each and every time that the charts reflected sales, and if more people bought any given record in any particular week, then it would chart at number one, irrespective of other factors such as where it was in the charts the week before and, most especially, whether I liked it or not).
"But Mum, who would want to listen to this? It's just the same note over and over!"
"Well, enough people obviously did like it," she replied.
"Did people buy it thinking it was the Superman theme tune or something? Do you think it's gone to number two by mistake? Will it go down the charts again next week if everyone takes their copies back to Woolworths?"
I was getting angrier and angrier and needed reassurance that this injustice would be put right.
It wasn't just children who were perplexed and annoyed by the record, though. Adults were too. My Dad couldn't understand why anybody could be bothered with it, and DJs seemingly couldn't introduce it without mentioning how much it "divided opinion" in advance. In the years since my first hearing, I've grown to admire it but I'm actually still faintly afraid of the record; saying I "enjoy it" would be like claiming that I'm not still chilled to the bone by Anderson's murmurings of "Here come the planes", said in a threatening or foreboding rather than welcoming way, and of the tweeting birds amidst the electronic looping. Something in the single seems to be pointing with dread towards humankind's unhealthy relationship with mechanisation, and when planes finally smashed into the Twin Towers in 2001, "O Superman" was recalled by some listeners as a piece of prophecy. Well, they were American planes with American engines, after all.
In 1981, though, a lot of listeners reacted in a very hostile fashion to the single's unnatural place in the top three. Late night radio DJs such as John Peel had brought it to the attention of an enthusiastic niche audience who then bought it en masse, but most children, pensioners and Mums and Dads were just plain furious or confused. There had never been a major hit like this before, and there wouldn't be again.
In any other year, a record mocking or parodying Laurie Anderson really wouldn't have got further than the demo tape stage. Record companies would not have afforded the creators a contract. The weirdness of 1981 managed to afford ex-Coronation Street actor Chris Stanford - who had previously recorded a parody of Telly Savalas' version of "If" - the chance to get together with other musicians to take the song down a peg or two.
You can surely understand why I bought this. British ex-soap actors and Telly Savalas impersonators mocking Laurie Anderson is a culture clash which promises much, after all, but sadly it doesn't really deliver. The motley bunch on this record decide to cast themselves as pub herberts trying to chat Laurie Anderson up, while she "malfunctions" on a loop and fails to respond to their beery charms. Somewhere in that absurd concept is a half-decent joke waiting to be realised, but suffice to say having developed the theme, they have no real idea where to take it. "Oh what an 'orrible noise/ driving us mad!" they rant in the chorus instead, clearly hoping that by getting this off their chests somebody will give them money in agreement. They didn't, and this record sold considerably fewer copies than "O Superman".
The supposedly throwaway Michael Caine rap on the B-side is more successful, showing more invention, wordplay and creativity in one minute than the A-side manages in two and a half. Sometimes the old cliches aren't true - things often are much better on the B-side even, apparently, when the title of the B-side tells you they're not.
Having failed to be wooed by an ex-Corrie actor in his imaginary world, Laurie Anderson eventually went on to marry Lou Reed in the real one, and has had a long career as a respected and enduring avant-garde artist. "O Superman" is clearly, by accident rather than design, her most publicly visible work, but she remains an interesting and divisive figure. The feelings on mechanisation explored in that one freak hit have been fuel for numerous other artists since, not least Radiohead. If anything, she was just way ahead the curve and enough people understood to turn "O Superman" into a hit.
4 comments:
I still have my 7" vinyl of Laurie Anderson's O Superman, i was 18 in 1981. I thought the 'song' was brilliant then and still think it's great today.
You had ten years on me, though, and that's a huge difference. It was a bit too much for me to get my head around!
Nice memories there old chap.
Another here that still owns the Laurie Anderson single. (I was 16 in 1981) I think exactly the same as Martyn, it hasn't aged. A great song.
As to this parody though... sometimes you are lost for words which I am now. Apart from "Why?!"
Heh! In the end, the answer is usually "Because a record company enabled it" - but of course, that just provokes the question "Why?" yet again, in more incredulous tones.
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