Elton John | Take It Easy

I always like to keep abreast of current events so a mere four days after Valentine’s Day I thought I’d play a selection of love songs. It’s good to have your finger on the pulse, I think. To be honest the day rather passed me by, as it always does, as I don’t have a significant other. Or even an insignificant one, come to that, but it gives me a good excuse to play some nice tunes for you – three of them from artists making their debut for me.

Where else could I start? It just has to be this:

Yes, I know I have played that before and it is an obvious starting point for this set, but it is such a momentous song and I still enjoy it after all this time. In 1967 twenty five countries around the world came together for the first ever synchronised live tv broadcast, Our World, for which the UK’s contribution was a new song especially recorded for the event by The Beatles at Abbey Road studios: All You Need Is Love. This was released as a single on 7 July, a fortnight after the broadcast, and went to #1 in a dozen or so countries, including, of course, the US and the UK. It was also included on the US album release of Magical Mystery Tour later in the year. John, who wrote it, said that he deliberately went for something simple that would get the message across to many countries, and it is still relevant today – perhaps even more so, in some ways.

And now for something completely different, by someone of whom I’m betting you have never heard. I haven’t played anything by her before, so this is a first for both of us. This is Kat Parsons:

A bit twee, perhaps, but it is incredibly cute and the sentiments in the song are great. Kat Parsons is a little difficult to pin down, as there don’t appear to be any recent pieces of information about her. The Wikipedia page about her hasn’t been updated since early 2012 and her own website appears to be of similar vintage. What I do know is that Love Changes Everything was released in 2012 on an EP called Oh! with three other tracks. I don’t recall how I found her but from the dates I’m guessing that it was from Noisetrade, in the days when I was using the site to find new music. We still follow each other on Twitter but as she hasn’t posted there since 2015 I think that may be down to inertia on her part! I have what I think is the full set of her recordings in my Apple Music library: an album from 2005 and several EPs from 2010 to 2012, after which she seems to have disappeared, apart from the occasional email. A pity, as I rather liked her: she was fun, as you can see from this video.

A more familiar song is next, another that I have always loved:

That is an early video of Joan Armatrading playing Love And Affection. It is a little grainy, reflecting the fact that it is just a year shy of being fifty years old – a terrifying thought! The track was first released on Joan’s eponymous third album in September 1976: this was the one that first gave her success, peaking at #12 in the UK and #67 in the US. The song was released as a single the following month and reached #10 in the UK. I bought the album, which still sounds lovely to this day – it also includes the song Down To Zero, which you may know.

I’m going back slightly further for my next tune. I have played this before but as that was just over four years ago I think it deserves another airing:

That was Elton John with Love Song, which was included on his Tumbleweed Connection album.This is something of a rarity, as it wasn’t written by him and Bernie Taupin. It is a simply beautiful song, made even more so by the background sounds of the surf and happy children’s voices. It was written by Lesley Duncan, who plays the guitar and provides the harmony vocals. and remained the only song on one of his albums not written by him until his eleventh album, Blue Moves, in 1976. Tumbleweed Connection was released in October 1970 – his second album of the year (and third in total), following on from Elton John in April. If the movie Rocketman is to be believed, Elton and Bernie had written a huge number of songs together before his career took off, and wanted to record as many as possible. This was a concept album, based around country and western/Americana themes, and reached #2 here in the UK and #5 in the US. It is still my favourite of all of his albums – I bought it at the time and played it to bits. Lesley Duncan was much in demand as a songwriter and session singer around that time, notably for Dusty Springfield and Pink Floyd, as well as Elton. Despite this song being covered more than 150 times – including by David Bowie – her solo career never took off and after marriage she moved to the Isle of Mull and lived a happy life, mostly known locally as a gardener, until her passing in 2010.

Another grainy video to close with – sorry! This one also goes back quite a way:

Paul Young released Love Of The Common People as a single in January 1983, and it reached the dizzy heights of #102 in the UK. It was then included on his debut album, No Parlez, which was released in July 1983 and peaked at #1 in the UK, selling more than 1.2m copies here (4x Platinum). The album was also a big hit in Europe, reaching #1 in several other countries, and also made #79 in the US. The first successful track from it was Wherever I Lay My Hat – a UK #1 – after which this was re-released, reaching #2 in late 1983, whilst making #45 in the US. We had the album – my then wife thought he was great – but I have to admit that it was played a lot and I really liked it too. This track was written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins, and was originally a hit for Nicky Thomas, who took a reggae version to #9 in the UK in 1970. And a final note: backing vocals were provided, as you can see in the video, by Kim Lesley and Marilyn ‘Maz’ Roberts, known collectively as the Fabulous Wealthy Tarts!

I said that would be the last, but I can’t resist throwing in another to close out today. If you missed it in Sunday’s post, or even if you didn’t, this is a reprise of a lovely song I played then: