Johnny And Mary - Robert Palmer

Robert Palmer cut a slick line in synthesised blue-eyed soul. Seemingly sponsored by Burton's menswear, he looked like the kind of gent who kept a comb in his back pocket... Unusual, as men with combs in their back pockets are generally called Ray and smoke the little cigars they buy from Threshers.

Palmer was Pop's Best Dressed Man in 1985. No mean feat when you consider how fierce the competition was for the title that year (yet again, linen-loving duo Darryl Hall and John Oates left empty-handed).

Throughout his career Palmer was often ridiculed for dressing like an Estate Agent (the sort of Estate Agent that's selling a mythical broom cupboard for a mythical quarter of a million in some London evening paper page-filler), but given that every other pop star in 1985 dressed like a dragged-up, Scottish piper in Pierrot make-up, maybe this was a compliment.

Johnny and Mary seems to be about gender roles in modern relationships... or something; English singers have never been comfortable with this kind of street-level narrative material. When Bruce Springsteen sings about the Highway Patrolman and his wayward brother Frankie "taking turns dancing with Maria while the band played the night of the Johnstown Flood", the characters seem to live outside the song. They breathe as progeny of the American literary tradition of faded men and women living lives of dust bowl desperation.

When Robert Palmer sings 'Johnny's always running around, trying to find certainty' and 'Mary says he changes his mind more than a woman', his delivery doesn't recall John Steinbeck or Tennessee Williams so much as Martin Jarvis reading a double page lifestyle feature from the Daily Mail... something about women's body shapes or the mythical £250,000 broom cupboard in Mayfair.

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The Son Of Hickory Holler's Tramp - O.C. Smith

Hickory Holler? Some sort of Brambly Hedge New Town? Home to anthropomorphic families of squirrels, moles and sneaky weasels? Maybe the Tramp is old Mister Badger? Cherry red snout, tipsy on applenut wine, the lid of his scuffed top hat flapping in the warm woodland breeze?

Wrong. Hickory Holler's Tramp is a tale of hardship, rural poverty and yo' Momma being a hooker...

'Oh, the path was deep and wide with footsteps leading to our cabin, above the door their burned a scarlet lamp. And late at night a hand would knock and there would stand a stranger. Yes, I'm the son of Hickory Holler's tramp.'

Yes, his Momma was a woman of ill-repute, running a bawdy house in the woods because she 'Promised fourteen children "I swear you'll never see a hungry day."'

'When Mamma sacrificed her pride the neighbours started talking. But we were much too young too understand the things they said. All we really cared about was Momma's chicken dumplings and a goodnight kiss before we went to bed."

Given her occupation, I hope she washed her hands before preparing that particular sticks-to-the-ribs Southern delicacy.

'Last Summer Momma passed away and left the ones who loved her. Each and every one is more than grateful for their birth. And each Sunday she receives a big bouquet of fourteen roses with a card that reads 'The Greatest Mom on Earth'.

A rose each? That won't break the bank. And everyone gives their Momma that card (usually with an anthropomorphic family of squirrels on the front). And she's dead, it's a bit late for cards. A bloody rose each and a card?! Not much really. Not after Momma 'sacrificed her pride' five times a night for twenty five years.

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Manifesto & Book News

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

Sticky apple and a balloon



> Martin Lampen (latest book news, contact details and other stuff)

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