Popsocks and Tank Tops
It's probably just me but I think there's something about the name "Gaye" that is very 1970s. Like "Jackie" or "Tracy" it reminds me of girls with long, centre-parted Susan Dey hair, wearing pop socks, a stripy tank top (note to American readers: in the UK a tank top is a sweater vest) and high-waisted Crimplene flares who listened to Radio Luxembourg in their bedrooms at night and dreamt about David Essex.
"Gaye" was also the only hit for Clifford T. Ward who is the epitome of the sensitive and mopey 70s singer-songwriter. It's a very pretty record but the lyrics are really soppy ("You're the tray of nice things I upset yesterday") and Ward sounds so wet it's almost twee – Gilbert O'Sullivan could probably beat him up.
These days, girls in England are given old-fashioned names with Victorian snob appeal like Olivia and Emily which lack the council estate glamour of a Gaye or Tracy. You wouldn't catch an "Olivia" having a snog in a bus shelter.
Download: Gaye - Clifford T. Ward (mp3)
Buy: "Home Thoughts From Abroad" (album)
Photo from the Paynes Cafe Royal Reunion website.
7 Comments:
Or turning up as the bass player in a punk band.. I'm thinking of the lovely Gaye Advert here, of course.
Thanks for this, Word magazine have just demolished Clifford in their Worst Singers of All Time as an "insipid, colourless maunderer" and yet we of a certain age (hello Lee!) will always remember this track in the way you say.
Watch your spelling though: CENTER-parted indeed!
Damn, I'll fix that. I always try to put my "English" hat on when writing for the blog.
'You wouldn't catch an "Olivia" having a snog in a bus shelter' - no, but Ruby (number 4, 2006) sounds like she might give it a go.
Aaahhh - Tank Tops (as in fondly remembered, not run for your life)! By my reckoning you must be 5? years my junior. if you are behind the camera you must have been very young when you took this. Fair play!
I was in general agreement with The Word on the best and worst singers - they acknowledged that they could have filled their best 20 with souls singers from the 60s, although in the end Candi Staton was the only female representative, yay! But I'm with Phil, no way should Clifford have been in the worst. His place should have been taken by Bob Dylan imho.
Ok, now I've read ALL the way to the end of this post. So I guess it wasn't you behind the camera. But how did you stumble across this page? Great stuff!
I found it when I was looking for some Northern Soul pictures for my old blog.
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