Short, snappy northern singalong-an-Esso-advert
Label: Bell
Year of Release: 1972
The Platters version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" was one of my Dad's favourite singles, frequently spun and gently sung along to, although in retrospect I do wonder how much he just enjoyed the OTT melodrama of it. There was always the faint trace of a smile around his face as he listened to the record as if he loved the way they were milking the whole 'big boys don't cry' situation. "Tears?" The Platters seem to be saying. "No my friend, these aren't tears, it's just this club is so damn smoky. We should go somewhere different in future". "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" pushes the scenario to such an extent that it could almost become a comedy sketch about men in denial.
There's a long history of songs for men who are incapable of being honest about their emotions, from "Smoke" to "I'm Not In Love" to "Words" by FR David and God knows what else in between. All tend to slather the emotional repression with thick, treacly arrangements which almost over-emote, and it's long been a source of fascination to me the way these tracks demonstrate the expressive limitations of the average man by pushing the melodrama to the max. "This is my outlet, and I'll scream within the walls of it if it stops me going completely mad", seemed to be the message of the singers.
"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" ended up getting a second, somewhat trivial wind in the early seventies, though, when it became used in adverts for Esso Blue paraffin, led by a mysterious everyman character called Joe. "They asked me how I knew/ It was Esso Blue/ I of course replied/ with lesser grades one buys/ smoke gets in your eyes" ran the tune afresh, and the subject subsequently moved itself on to more blokeish practical matters which everyone probably felt more comfortable with.
This led to the release of two new versions of the track, one reggae take by Blue Haze which managed to peek into the Top 40 briefly in 1972, and... this. An utterly baffling take very similar to one which appears on the end of an Esso flexidisc. In it, a northern character called UK Joe appears to be leading a bar or club filled with people in a sing-a-long lasting just over a minute-and-a-half. The crowd sing competently after his shouted cues and the band behind him blast out their best forties Vera Lynn arrangements, but it's hard to understand how anybody would have needed to own it. It's a burst of music, a jingle, a brief idea to raise a slight smile and little more. It's a truly unimaginable A-side, but here we are, discussing it as such.
The B-side "Deadwood Central" is more substantial in terms of ideas and length, but isn't really worth writing home to your family about either.
The man behind UK Joe, or UK Jones to use his more common pseudonym, was Mike Berry. And no, not the Mike Berry who scored hits in the sixties, but the man who worked as a songwriter and producer in the seventies, leading work on records such as the marvellous "You Better Run" by Boots, Back Street Band's "This Ain't The Road" and Berni Flint's short-lived recording career. A jobbing music industry type, he clearly saw the path towards a hit once the Esso ads stuck in the public consciousness, but this wasn't substantial enough to excite the masses and it's no wonder that Blue Haze took the majority of the readies.
As for the amassed crowd of singers, who the hell knows? But if you did perform on this disc, get in touch.
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