CHAPTER 42

 

#59: EDWYN COLLINS

 

"A Girl Like You"

 

from the album Gorgeous George

 

Released: July 1994

 

 

This is a song of anger disguised as ecstasy. It is not remotely fluffy or bouncy, even if the rhythm section drags a clever millisecond behind the beat. If anything the record's soundscan is more incrementally ominous than "uplifting." The rhythm is hammered into the mould of a battering ram. We are suspended on the perpetual verge of a breakthrough and uprising. The singer, who gives the best recorded impersonation of Iggy Pop there is, and who sounds like he spent sixteen years preparing to give or offer us this performance, tells of how this glad irruption into his somnolent life has thrust him towards renewal of purpose. At times, when he's crawling and bleeding on raw knees, the words sound cut and paste from some godawful hair metal stalwart, and when he cites the Devil you're sent right back to Robert Johnson. He sings the adverbs "metaphorically" and "allegorically" as if he'd just invented the words - and how dare everyone for not coming up wih that idea before now - and cements them into lurid scripture with his never-more emphatic "KNOW."

The four descending, in both key and volume, "never"s indicate a shift from personal to political, and it is here where the singer underscores both metaphor and allegory by complaining about the decline of society and the complete inability of a pub crammed with "protest singers" to affect or change anything. But then the "YOU" has come along, and you realise that he's been singing about a revolution all the time. The backing singers enter a trance loop of "Yeah, it's alright" as the music, which has been increasing in intensity in preparation for a Sonic Youth-style aural overspill, is finally detonated by the guitar, which began the song as a Peter Frampton tribute and ends up in Lee Ranaldo noiseland, like an angry wasp blowing up the planet. The Ascension is complete.

Edwyn Collins came from Dundee to Glasgow in the late seventies and formed a band called Orange Juice which went with benign violence against every accepted rule of what a "pop group" should do or be. In the Glasgow of the late seventies and early eighties, which was still crawling from the wreckage heritage of Alex Harvey and No Mean City, this was provocative, and the band duly eluded endless forays of thrown beer bottles and glasses with accompanying homophobic commentary.

When the clouds cleared in the not-so-early eighties, Orange Juice were revealed as not so much of a way ahead, but a friendly if subtly savage alternate way to proceed. Their first album may have been praised, retrospectively, by the (at the time of writing) Leader of the Opposition but received terrible reviews at the time. Blandout production, not as good as the Peel session versions, what do they think they're doing messing with Al Green (I actually thought in late 1981, and was not alone in thinking, when I listened to their single of "L.O.V.E. (Love)," that Collins and the then almost-chart-topping Clare Grogan might be a post-punk Donny and Marie Osmond)? In addition Haircut One Hundred came along with similar ideas, a horn section and a bigger promotional budget, and walked into the middle of the band's room.

By the time Orange Juice put out their second album, later in 1982, most had forgotten they existed and underplayed them. While the critics were napping, the title track of that album leapt into the top ten, right next to "Don't Talk To Me About Love" by a suddenly-resurrected Altered Images, and they received nods with accompanying grudges.

So it was that when "A Girl Like You" first appeared in the summer of 1994, few people took any real notice; oh here's Edwyn again, doing his cuddly/grouchy indie thing, thank you and which way to The Good Mixer? Even when the song was released as a single at the end of that year, it took six months and a lot of re-promotion to become a hit.

And yet the song became more than just "a hit." Rod Stewart recognised a soul song when he heard one and covered it on stage. Pete Waterman declared "A Girl Like You" the best pop single of the last ten years. Len Barry's people noticed the "1-2-3" drum loop a long time later and an agreement was reached.

As a record "A Girl Like You" is magnificently scummy. Once past the "1-2-3" loop, the drumming is patiently primitive, and it was no surprise to find that the drummer was Paul Cook, once of the Sex Pistols (this is SUCH a punk song, one of the greatest). Vic Godard (with Sean Read) formed the backing Greek chorus. The vibraphonic tinkles automatically reroute us to the Wigan Casino, but overall this is a markedly Scottish protest - or liberation - song. Iggy Pop was indeed suggested as a candidate to cover the song, but Collins got there, along with everywhere else, first. Here he exudes a bruised elegance he had not previously demonstrated. That "YOU"? He's asking - demanding - US to come along, smash the social contract and begin anew. Simply thrilling lingers.