McGoohan’s Blues – some reminiscences.
Seeing Roy perform McGoohan’s Blues in Leeds, along with that excellent ensemble, had quite a profound effect on me. I’ve seen Roy perform it many times down the years but never quite like that. He had brought out the musicality of the song in a way that I had not believed possible. It was beautiful and amazingly that did not detract from the power of the lyrics. I would not have thought that was possible.
It took me on a journey.
McGoohan’s Blues was the second ‘epic’ song Roy had created (The first being Circle on Come Out Fighting Ghenghis Smith). While Circle had really resonated with me (coming out while I was still at school struggling with school authorities and parental expectations) McGoohan’s blew my head off. I had never heard a song anywhere near as powerful. Every line was a barbed attack on the society that I was busy wrestling with. It was like looking into my own head and finding someone else was putting into words the thoughts that were busy crashing against my skull.
I was fortunate to be in the audience when Roy first introduced the song into his set. For me it exploded. I sat there mesmerised, trying to absorb and come to terms with the content. There was so much of it to assimilate and think about.
Back then I was catching up to two or three Roy gigs a week. So I got to hear it again and again.
Roy was in his angst-filled mid-twenties and at his most powerful. He used to spit it out with great venom. He’d pound the hell out of that guitar and pour all the passion and fury into it. It felt as if he’d collected all his frustrations with society and its hypocritical nature into one great poem, put it to music and vented his spleen. It contained everything – the greed, the deceit, the bureaucracy, the pointlessness, the two-faced nastiness, the whole controlling system – and he poured it out coated with vitriol while realising the utter futility of opposing the great social project.
We waited anxiously for the much anticipated album FolkJokeOpus. McGoohan’s Blues was the centre-piece but another really strong live stalwart was She’s The One.
I rushed home with it and put it on. Somehow it was disappointing. It seemed to lack the intensity of his live performance.
I’m playing it now. It’s great. But somehow I always craved for a perfect live rendition like the intensity of those early expositions. In my mind I can still see Roy pouring the whole of his spirit into that song.
Over the years I’ve heard many great performances of that brilliant song but somehow they always seem to fall short of those early versions. They leave me slightly unsatisfied.
I have thought a lot about it. I suspect it is me. I suspect that the impact of hearing that song for the first time can’t really be matched. It lives in my mind like an immaculate, unattainable thing of perfection. It probably was never any better than the later live performances – but the fanfare that I’m forcing through my teeth answers never. I still lust after the sheer intensity of those very first performances. If only those early gigs had been recorded – all we have is the Les Cousins of a little later.
I’m playing the FolkJokeOpus version right now. I’m enjoying it but I still feel that it is second best. It is lacking. I always felt that the last section with the other instruments coming in never really worked. They did not feel in sympathy with the song.
Which brings me back to the performance in Leeds.
What is obvious is that Roy, as a performer now in his late seventies, cannot really hope to match the energy of that young Harper. But by utilising the musicianship of those brilliant musicians and not going for outright power, he brought out something special, something more in the song. Unlike in the earlier recording, the ensemble augmented the song and made it all the greater. They brought a different intensity to it. They brought the song to life in a way I had not heard before.
You know – I think it was the equal of those early renditions. It brought the song back to life for me and gave me goose-bumps all over again.
It’s a shame that songs don’t ever seem to change society. Nothing has changed. It’s just as pertinent now as it ever was – if not more so.
As Simon Cowell awards marks, Ma’s favourite Pop Star is still forcing a grin and then we turn over for ‘Give Away Cash’. Ho hum. The plastic, destructive society continues to go on devouring the world and trivialising life.