Actor and newspaper columnist makes bid for pop stardom
Label: Decca
Year of Release: 1967
There really aren't a lot of pop records out there about fairness and common sense and gentlemanly values. To state the perfectly bleeding obvious, ever since rock decided to do its own brand of particular stuff around the clock, popular music has been primarily about romance or rebellion. Even if a performer or group are miffed off with the current state of society, this will normally be expressed as a call to arms rather than a series of gentle complaints sent to music.
Godfrey Winn chose 1967 of all years to step forward and buck this dominant trend. He was a regular actor, who by this point had starred in "Billy Liar" (as a DJ) and "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery", but he also earned a more regular living from being a newspaper columnist for the Daily Express. "I Pass" is essentially a middle-of-the-road column set to music wherein Winn waxes lyrically about good old-fashioned British values. While he does so, backing vocalists trill, coo and b'dum around him. "The fair way is called the square way!", "The gentle are called sentimental!" he complains in plummy tones. "The age of science sees no alliance between mind and soul!" It sounds like he's singing from his notebook of possible future column ideas.
It's a truly odd record which, if nothing else, goes to prove that most newspaper columnists have always been a sanctimonious and overly nostalgic bunch, and have never veered enormously from their handful of pet topics over the decades ("So what's the point of them?" you may well ask, and I'd be inclined to agree). The contents of this disc aren't particularly controversial, but could have been written by any greying hack at any point between hip and swinging 1967 and today. It doesn't matter whether you agree with what Winn is saying or not, it's still questionable whether the record needs to exist. It's like listening to some telephone hold music while your aged Auntie complains in the background about how rude people are in supermarkets nowadays.
