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| Wings at the Speed of Sound... the sleeve was inescapable in record shops during 1976, and he album yielded the best song of the summer... |
For
those of a certain age, the current heatwave must be rekindling
memories of the last time the UK enjoyed such a prolonged spell of
hot, sunny weather. The heatwave of 1976 followed an unusually dry
winter and spring, and a drought was soon declared, with the public
urged to save water and the eventual appointment of a ‘Minister for
Drought’, Dennis Howell (Wikipedia’s entry on Howell claims,
risibly, that he was ‘ordered’ by Number 10 to perform a rain
dance on behalf of the nation).
May
1976 saw mostly dry weather extending from the Midlands southwards,
but it wasn’t until the end of June that the heatwave began in
earnest. Even then, it wasn’t unbroken sunshine for the whole of
the UK: my diary reports that it rained heavily in west Wales (where
we were holidaying) on 19 July, and there were scattered
thunderstorms around mid-month. But these events were mere blips in
the long-term weather pattern, which remained hot and sunny until the
very end of August.
Music
always has the power to evoke memories of a particular moment in
time, and there were plenty of chart hits that summer that would go
on to become recognised pop classics: Abba’s Dancing Queen,
Thin Lizzie’s The Boys Are Back in Town, Bryan Ferry’s
Let’s Stick Together and, with an unbroken six weeks at
number one, Elton John and Kiki Dee’s Don’t Go Breaking My
Heart, which attained the top spot on 3 July. Yet for me, none of
those singles truly evokes the spirit of the summer of ’76; they’ve
lost their power of association through endless replay on daytime
radio, compilations, and so forth. I’m more interested in those
tracks that can instantly conjur up the memory of blisteringly hot
days, parched lawns, curtains closed against the extreme heat and
light...
Two
of the first songs that lodged in my mind as being inextricably
linked to that summer are Peter Frampton’s Show Me The Way
and Wings’ Silly Love Songs, both of which were in the
charts at the end of June when the heatwave got started. Another
single from that same moment in time, then on its way down the
charts, was Robin Sarstedt’s nostalgic cover version of Hoagy
Carmichael’s My Resistance is Low. What’s notable about
this track, if not the other pair, is its rarity as an item on radio
playlists down the decades. The less one hears a particular track,
the more it retains its original association with the moment in time
at which it was first encountered. This phenomenon is especially true
of one of the songs that, even at the time, seemed to embody the very
essence of the long, hot summer of 1976: The Starland Vocal Band
(whoever they may have been), making their sole incursion on the UK
charts with the decidedly suggestive Afternoon Delight. The
track didn’t do notably well on the charts, reaching a top position
of just 18, but it clung on tenaciously to the lower reaches of the
20 and 30. I can’t have heard it that many times while it was out –
I dimly recollect a solitary appearance (via film) on Top of the
Pops – and when it finally exited the chart in mid October, it
vanished into an airplay oblivion that would last for decades. The
song was featured on the early 2000s themed compilation Guilty
Pleasures, and if ever there was a musical guilty pleasure then
Afternoon Delight was it (to say nothing of the guilty
pleasure to which the lyrics referred).
This
long absence goes some way to account for the reason why I associate
the song with that long, hot summer, but it’s not the entire
explanation. Even while it was still in the charts, Afternoon
Delight felt somehow like part of the zeitgeist. The lush
harmonies, 12-string guitar and synth washes just seemed like the way
summer ’76 ought to sound. Aged 15, I didn’t fully appreciate how
risqué the lyrics were; the
title (derived from a restaurant menu) subequently passed into the
language as shorthand for daytime sex, but the expression had never
been used in that sense prior to the record’s release: had it been
as familiar a term as it is now, the BBC might have found grounds to
take offence...
The
time it takes to record and release a single tends to mitigate
against topical cash-ins, and although one might expect the charts of
a long, hot summer to be packed with songs about heatwaves, love in
the sun, or whatever, this was largely not the case. In fact, there
appears to have been only one blatant musical attempt to cash in on
the 1976 heatwave, and it came in the form of Cockney Rebel’s
hastily-released cover version of The Beatles’ Here
Comes The Sun, which
entered the charts at the end of July, just in time to take advantage
of the last few weeks of warm, sunny weather. For me, though, it was
a failed attempt. I remember the track, but it seemed too calculated
a move, and although it still retains some dimly nostalgic
associations, its power is greatly diminished when compared with the
other songs I’ve mentioned here.
The
Isley Brothers were far removed from the effects of the British
heatwave, yet their late summer single Harvest
for the World (its
release clearly timed with the season in mind) feels much more a
product of the ‘76 summer than Steve Harley’s cash-in. It’s
arguably a better song in any case (I’ve never been a huge fan of
Here Comes The Sun,
even in its original incarnation), and it slotted neatly into the
zeitgeist in much the same way that Afternoon
Delight had done –
albeit with considerably greater chart success.
As
previously mentioned, the number one slot was effectively annexed for
the summer of ’76 by the pairing of Elton John and Kiki Dee with
Don’t Go Breaking My
Heart, a song whose
Philly soul aspirations somehow left me cold (and not in the welcome
way that a summer breeze or an ice cream might have done). In fact, I
soon tired of hearing it, and its mooring at number one began to feel
as relentless as the heat baking the British landscape. It’s never
been far from the average oldies playlist ever since, and,
accordingly, any nostalgic power it might have evoked merely by
association has long since dwindled to naught for me. In fact, it was
the song kept off the top spot by Elton and Kiki’s endeavours
that then, as now, felt to me like the absolute essence of that
memorable hot summer.
The
first piano chord is enough to evoke that Pavlovian response: a warm,
B flat major seventh that feels like the door opening on a sun-soaked
landscape. Not so much Let’Em
In as let ’em out
into the sunshine... It was, of course, Macca’s big single of the
summer, following hard on the heels of the aforementioned Silly
Love Songs, both
tracks culled from the album Wings
at the Speed of Sound,
which had been released in March of the same year.
Macca
had managed the same summer association thing (for me, at any rate), the
previous year, when the single Listen
to What the Man Said
coincided with a long spell of hot weather that would probably have
lingered in the popular imagination had it not been eclipsed by the
heatwave of ’76. But Let’Em
In, with its lazy,
somnolent rhythm, somehow felt like the musical equivalent of the
heady summer weather, the production conjuring up images of a small
marching band flagging as it parades down a blindingly bright street
in the relentless heat. Let’Em
In charted on 7
August, reached number 2 on the 28th
(where it remained for three weeks), and finally slipped out of the
top 40 in October. If I had to pick one single to stand for the
summer of 1976, this would be the one.
I’d venture to
suggest it’s not Paul McCartney’s greatest ever composition, an
opinion which I sure few would disagree with, although it does manage
to embody a uniquely soulful sound which Macca would never recapture,
and it was hugely popular at the time, on both sides of the Atlantic.
I’ve no idea whether anyone else felt the same way about it as I
did, but after weeks of relentless heat, a slow, plodding tune like
this just seemed to fit.
Sadly,
the same will not be true of the summer of 2018, whether or not it
eventually takes its place in the record books. Pop music, as I’ve
stated elsewhere (and will go on stating) has been a spent cultural
force for nigh on two decades now. There’s nowhere left to go that
hasn’t already been thoroughly explored by earlier and more
talent-led endeavours, no seam of undiscovered gold waiting to be
mined. Who can remember the charts of a decade ago? Not me, that’s
for sure. When did you last see a retrospective of the 2000s pop
scene on TV? Maybe, for those still coming to the ruins of pop music
for the first time, there are singles amongst today’s crop of dross
that will lodge in their memories the way the music of the 60s and
70s has lodged in those of my generation. But frankly, I think the
memory of a ginger semi-bearded prat playing crap ballads on a
rubbish toy guitar is one that will be best, and ultimately,
forgotten. History will eclipse his like, for the greats of the past
will continue to cast their shadow over all who follow in their
footsteps. Did you ever hear of a kid who was mad about the mammalian
life of the Pleistocene period? Thought not. But all kids love
dinosaurs, ensuring that dinosaurs will be popular forever. And, like
the dinosaurs (very much like them in some cases), the artists and
songs that emerged in the first few decades of pop music continue to
loom larger in the memory than anything that came after.
Those
of us who remember the summer of 1976 will most likely not be around
when the next long, hot summer rolls into view, such events tending
to occur only once every forty or fifty years. But I can say without
fear of contradiction that, however distant in time that next
peerless summer might be, it’ll be the hits of 1976 that people
look back to, and not the dismal efforts of 2018.