ROXY MUSIC – "Jealous Guy"

I’d rather it had been Pyjamarama but hey.

I had no idea Roxy Music ever covered that song.

However, I have always loved the Atom Heart version … from the LB album “Pop Artificielle”– it’s a perfect little synthesized gem whose warm and wholly computerized professional exterior reveals gives way to a modestly gorgeous pop song. Check it out.

You know what, I never liked this. It was too long, too pristine, and too bandwagony.

When Rox first started up, they were from somewhere else. This seemed to be a confession that they were ordinary. Like the rest of us, theye were sad about JLennon. Which is fair eneough, and many bands did covers of othere JL tracks around that time.

I suppose it was that situation that a song, overlooked at the time for ‘single’ status, eventually making the equilibrium jump into ubiquity.

And it seemed to be around forever. It wouldn’t surprise me if it outsold any of the other Lennon single that were out around that time.

I liked this a lot, and still do. I had no musical interest in Lennon, and his death didn’t inspire me to investigate beyond the posthumous hits. So, no baggage.

I’d loved Manifesto and Flesh and Blood (and only later really dug back into Roxy mk 1) so was receptive to this is the same way as the covers on the latter album. It’s a beautiful, pristine and modern single, albeit one that’s all about the stylings, and it’s stood the test of time far better than one would expect for something labelled ‘a tribute’. Also, as I recall, had a great b side, that eventually made it on to the Avalon album.

As others have said, I was taken aback when I eventually heard Lennon’s original. And not in a good way.

There’s a lot of good comments, which I’d agree with, on this thread already.

I would rather have seen Pyjamarama or the obvious Virginia Plain at number one, being more a fan of earlier Roxy, but I always felt that Dance Away, good as it was, rather spoiled Roxy. Everything after that was bland, predictable, anodyne, safe, smoothie-Ferry stuff. Maybe if Trash had been a bigger hit we may have seen some more variety in their later work.

I have no doubt that this was a cynical attempt to cash in (financially and emotionally) on Lennon-mania. Today, profits would probably go to charity, but back then it would have been a far more commercial decision.

It is a good version of the song, but it is Roxy sleepwalking. Yes you can see Ferry with his jacket slung over his shoulder, whistling nonchalantly. I always took the whistling to be a sort of “Hey-Ho, life goes on” sort of statement, indicating that he knew and accepted that part of his life was over. Or it could have been Ferry being a twat, which by now he was rather good at.

Like many here, I had never heard the original when this was a hit. When I finally did years later, it was a disappointment. Lennon’s version sounded needy… pleading. Where as Ferry’s, indeed, sounds like an apology after the relationship has ended. And yes, I’ve yet to hear a single that hasn’t been improved by whistling.

#2 Watch: A week of Adam & The Ants’ ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier’.

Oh God, a thought’s just struck me… Did anyone at the time think that Ferry was singing from the perspective of Mark Chapman?

I saw the video on a BBC 4 documentary a few weeks back, and Ferry looks particularly constipated. It’s a pristine clip, however, and this rendering is too. I think it packs a punch and the mannered playing just gives the impression this is a band ahead of the pack, still. Reminds me I need more Roxy than a lone Manifesto LP in my life.

Roxy’s later singles are a monument to widescreen production – multi-layered but with a space and clarity to the mix and balance of instruments that is breathtaking in its execution.

From “Dance Away” to “Take A Chance With Me”, the Mark II incarnation of the band, while dispensing with the edgier art-rock of first phase Roxy, delivered one sublime single after another. The performances, the arrangements and Ferry’s delivery are simply magnificent.

“Jealous Guy” is no exception. I didn’t know the Lennon original when this came out, and I’ve only heard it once since. Pristine and polished – if delivered with this much panache – can work on an emotional, as opposed to purely aesthetic, level. It’s the combination of the two that makes this such a moving record.

It doesn’t leave me cold; it doesn’t sound like a disinterested, cynical cash-in to me. It sounds like Ferry was deeply affected by Lennon’s death.
10.

‘More Than This’ is the karaoke song in ‘Lost In Translation’

I come down on both sides of this one, it is too shiny and pristine (that glassy, echoey piano at the start just screams 80s chrome disco pub to me) which makes it seem almost disconnected from the personal, emotional level of the song, but Ferry does sing it better than Lennon and any song with whistling on it gets points from me — though that makes me think of it as Bryan’s little tribute to Otis Redding too. Overall though, I think it’s a little too tasteful.

Strangely, Ferry on his own is one of the greatest interpreters of other peoples songs (like ‘The In Crowd’ ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’) but with Roxy he usually screwed them up, their version of ‘In The Midnight Hour’ is a real blot on the otherwise great ‘Flesh and Blood’

Lee, good point on Ferry as solo artist. I think he’s a terrific interpreter of other people’s songs. I love his version of the Everly Brothers “Price of Love” too. An absolute stonker.

“Midnight Hour” most definitely not Roxy’s finest moment, but I find “Flesh and Blood” very patchy.

Roxy Mk 2 may well have done something that is unique in pop: reconnecting with their original, now adult, fans, thereby pulling off a comeback that extended further than mere nostalgia. I can’t think of any other group who have managed anything comparable, except maybe modern-day Take That.

The only version that I heard of Roxy doing this song was on a 5 or 6 track , recorded live, mini-Lp called ” The High Road ” , which was from a live show in Scotland ( duh ! ). Is this the same track or was there a studio version ?

If you don’t like Roxy covers – do not go near Ferry’s “Dylanesque’ , it’s painful.

Have to say I prefer the Lennon version of this – the Roxy version is far from terrible but it sounds slightly strained somehow, as if the band as a whole haven’t quite decided whether or not to play the cover straight or not. I’ve never heard Manifesto or Flesh and (sorry, ‘+’) Blood but I’ve got a lot of time for Avalon which – along with Steely Dan’s Aja – is one of my favourite albums for airless, ultra-sleek production. (5) for this anyhow.

I’d never interpreted the song as “whistling in the dark” before reading Tom’s entry, but it does fit the performance very well. I’d always heard the song as the rather insincere confession of a lounge lizard, perhaps because of Bryan’s persona. Despite/because of this I prefer it to the original, which is perhaps too straightforward, too sincere.

I haven’t heard the other late Roxy covers mentioned – I’m more familiar with early Roxy. I do think Ferry’s early covers of standards like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” are truly painful to listen to. “Hard Rain” is an odd one – I like listening to it despite it having a extraordinarily baffling mismatch of lyrics and music.

Some attitudes towards John Lennon on here seem a bit nonsensical one day posters are criticising him for making the ‘grand gesture’ with ‘Imagine’ and a few days later moaning about the fact that his version of this is whining and self-pitying when surely it’d show sensitivity to think such a soul-bearing admission of weakness to be a major point in favour of Lennon’s original.

PS I also enjoy Roxy Music and like this version too – not hearing the Lennon one till years later.

Yes couldn’t agree more….a perfect choice and use of a sample…what a pity there was never a chance in a million that it was going to ever get cleared…

Suave-n-Sophist Roxy Mark II didn’t connect with me at all until Avalon came along the following year, at which point it all somehow fell into place… but my revisionism never stretched as far as “Jealous Guy”.

I saw Ferry perform this a few years ago, as part of a maddeningly offhand, lacklustre, just-another-day-at-the-office solo show. It was as if the life-draining embalming fluid contained in this recording had seeped out and infected all of his other material. My least favourite Roxy track.

Billy @ 40: These Foolish Things is about as indestructible as a song can get, I reckon. Just about everybody who has ever taken it on has made a good fist of it. It featured on a tape associated with the music section of my Popular Culture OU course. First professor of Music Richard Middleton – not a gifted singer I’d say – plays and sings it exactly as published in the sheet music, and then Billie Holiday makes it soar. Magnificent.

My favourite version of “These Foolish Things”: Ella Fitzgerald, who else? It was also used to tear-jerking effect in a 1990 French film of the same name (original title Daddy Nostalgie), starring Dirk Bogarde and Jane Birkin as father and daughter.

John Peel Watch: From a live review (‘John Peel Catches The Ferry To Oblivion’, The Observer, 22 January 1989);

“A low point was reached with an oafish reading of ‘Jealous Guy’, a song which in John Lennon’s original is built on a tangle of anger and regret and here had neither.”

It’s a shame this wasn’t the single that kept Vienna at no.2, as that would be payback for Ultravox’s walloping great steal of Both Ends Burning on Hiroshima Mon Amour. I can’t believe this has only just been pointed out to me – it’s basically a cover version (right down to the squeaky sax) with new lyrics.

Well, so we were! From memory, the whistling got faded pretty rapidly by dj’s at the time. And the contemporary copy I bought was the truncated version on K-Tel’s Chartbusters ’81. Short on the whistle is how I recall it.