MIDGE URE – "If I Was"

It’s not very good, is it?

As with Boy George two years later, the success of this one appeared to be a sympathy vote from the British public for Good Bloke Midge. If it would have been 2005 he could have just gone into the jungle and the public could have voted to confirm that they thought he was a decent fellow, without having to buy a record to prove it.

The most vivid memory of this at the time was the Top Of The Pops performance, where the unlikely Midge careers were accompanied by suitable mimetic gestures – holding a rifle for a soldier, swimming for a sailor, etc.

i was saying on another thread that it’s very rare for me to properly dislike anything. this segment of 1985 is proving that it’s not impossible. ‘if i was’ is a wretched stink of a record. presumably midge (why “midge ure” by the way???? if nothing else he’s the worst-named pop star in history*) is aiming for the kind of slow burn grandeur he sort of nearly achieved on ‘no regrets’ but the lyrics are so wordily full of themselves that you just want to punch him. plus half of the couplets don’t even make sense “if i was a leader/on food of love from above i would feed her”**. is that what a leader does then? what it reminds me of most (whisper so rosie doesn’t hear) is that truly hateful sting song from the early nineties (i can’t remember what it’s called but by no means the worst lines went “she asked me if i am mouse or man/the mirror squeaked away i ran”) that tormented me seemingly every fifteen minutes during my first term at university and is to me the definitive sound of pre-Bannister radio one.

*ah. wiki reckons “midge is a phonetic reversal of his real name, jim”. erm, so that’s that cleared up. after a fashion.
**or maybe “hot” food from above!

I can only think of one #1 with a worse rhyming attempt than “I’ll keep you safe and warm, I will never leave you A LAWN”

Light Entertainment Watch: Midge Ure was always willing to appear on television;

CELEBRITY READY, STEADY, COOK: with Ainsley Harriott, Midge Ure, Toyah Willcox (2001)

FILTHY RICH AND CATFLAP: with John Wells, Midge Ure, John Bird, Robert Dougall, Gareth Milne, Michael Redfern (1987)

NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS: with Simon Amstell, Bill Bailey (Team Captain), Phill Jupitus (Team Captain), Romeo Stodart, Midge Ure, Nicholas Hoult, Russell Howard (2007)

THE O ZONE: with Charles and Eddie, Midge Ure, Take That (1993)

ORS 85: with Midge Ure, Chris Cross, The Thompson Twins, Bronski Beat, The Loft (1985)

POP QUIZ: with Dave Gilmour, Midge Ure, Ian Gillan, Phil Collins, Elkie Brooks, Barry Mason (1981)

POP QUIZ: with David Grant, Rick Parfitt, Cliff Richard, Barry Gibb, Midge Ure, Paula Yates (1981)

POP QUIZ: with Kevin Godley, Simon Kirke, Midge Ure, Alvin Stardust, Toyah Willcox, Stuart Coleman (1982)

POP QUIZ: with Midge Ure, Tracie, Paul Young, Bob Geldof, John Moss, Tom Bailey (1983)

POP QUIZ: with Roger Taylor, Limahl, Midge Ure, Dave Edmunds, Mari Wilson, Leee John (1983)

POP QUIZ: with Phil Collins, Elvis Costello, Huey Lewis, Midge Ure, Nick Lowe, John Martyn (1984)

A QUESTION OF POP: with Noddy Holder (Team Captain), Richie Neville, Carol Decker, Midge Ure, Claire Richards (2001)

RIVERSIDE: with Eddie and Sunshine, Mick Karn, Midge Ure (1983)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE: Midge Ure (2001)

THE TUBE: with Jools Holland, Paula Yates (Host, Except Number 11), Malcolm McLaren, Paul Shriek, Mark Hurst, Midge Ure, David Coverdale, Cosy Powell, Shalamar, Culture Club (1982)

THE TUBE: with Jools Holland, Paula Yates, The Damned, Del Fuegos, Muriel Gray, Midge Ure, Vince Clarke, Barry Ryan, Propaganda (1986)

WHISTLE TEST: with Long Ryders, Billy Idol, Midge Ure, Michael Ochs, Squeeze, John Parr (1985)

WOGAN: with Anthony Burgess, Marvin Mitchell, Midge Ure, June Whitfield (1985)

WOGAN: with Richard Briers, Albert Finney, Telly Savalas, Midge Ure (1986)

WOGAN: with Geoffrey Boycott, Frances Edmonds, George Martin, Midge Ure (1987)

WOGAN: with Michael Cockerell, Peter Marsh, Denise Morse, Martin Morse, Professor Laurie Taylor, Midge Ure (1988)

WOGAN: with Yvonne Gibson, Trevor Goodwin, Ron Lacey, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Kay McLennon, Midge Ure, Mike Yarwood (1988)

WOGAN: with Julian Russel, Midge Ure, Michael Wood, Millo Jovovich (1991)

i dunno, i’m coming round to hot food…

i have only a vague memory of this – I had to watch the video to realise I was confusing it with another (possibly an Ultravox) song. I’m happy to say that it has already faded from my consciousness.
My only thought on the video when watching MUs sad dance moves was to ask myself “Did Elvis swivel his hips for this?’
I quite like the sleeve though.

As already mentioned, Ure’s only solo number one was largely achieved as a result of immense post-Live Aid goodwill, and although the song is superficially another list song (“If I was a painter,” “If I was a poet,” etc.) it isn’t hard to deduct a few good-natured sideways jibes at Geldof in such lines as “If I was a stronger man/Carrying the weight of popular demand” or especially “If I was a kinder man/Dishing up love for a hungry world.” Ure was and remains respected as the quiet backroom boy who got on with facilitating the actual Band/Live Aid work while Geldof roared and bellowed in the foreground, and both his humility and good humour come through strongly here. Though worlds away from the diseased howls of side two of Ultravox’s Rage In Eden (from which Ure’s Ultravox subsequently and noticeably backed away), “If I Was,” though a minor work, is thoughtfully and intelligently assembled and executed. Bassist Mark King, on loan from Level 42, wisely kept his lines simple, even though they are largely cribbed from the bassline of the Jacksons’ “Can You Feel It?” and Ure as arranger and producer is sufficiently astute to vary his backing from verse to verse and chorus to chorus, from the bountiful bounce of the chorus itself to the vague humming threat of the “Come here my baby” sequence.

The reason it works so well in a 1985 context is that Ure retains the sonic fullness which he learned from Conny Plank at the Vienna mixing desk, so “If I Was” provides a refreshingly full reminder of the sublime richness of New Pop production at its (1981-2) peak amidst the blustering bigness of its 1985 peers. There have been rare occasions on Popular when I’ve been taken aback by liking a record about which I felt I would be at best politely indifferent, and I’m pleasingly surprised at how well “If I Was” has endured.

Ah, thanks

I’ll try and upload it elsewhere and link it…

I’m an unrepentant Ultravox fan so I look on this favourably without thinking it’s all that fantastic.

Midge actually wrote very little of this song according to his autobiography. Danny Mitchell of support act The Messengers gave it to him almost fully-formed and he just polished it up a bit so it’s possible there were even worse lyrics in the original version.

I do agree with punctum and Billy that it did seem to be a pat on the back from the public for his Band Aid work. Midge himself seemed surprised to find himself back on top of the pile and when you consider how rapidly his career declined from this point it does seem like a going away present. “The Gift” disappeared from the LP charts quickly and follow-up single “That Certain Smile” didn’t make the Top 20. Then his last LP with Ultravox “U-Vox” (or U-Bend as he retrospectively calls it) wasn’t very successful.Two years later he came up with “Answers To Nothing” an LP which drowned in a sea of portentous lyrics and too many guest stars, produced no hits and that was more or less it. The book says Chrysalis were trying to market him as a new Peter Gabriel or Sting but that was never going to happen. Besides Ultravox never being as popular as Genesis or The Police as a launching pad, he was just too much of an artisan lacking real creative inspiration.

Not a classic by a long chalk, but again I can’t work myself into the apoplexy of some of those above. Punctum’s quite right about Midge being respected as the backroom boy behind Band Aid (not least by Geldof, who’s always given him full credit for the record): each did what suited their talents, although in the 20th anniversary documentary Ure came across as a well-briefed advocate for what had been done since their initiatives.

The song’s OK if not great, the lyrics are clunky and most of all you wanted someone like John Cleese’s Roman soldier in The Life of Brian to bash him over the head and go “WERE, Ure, if I WERE… write it out a hundred times.”

Another facet of the modern world started to fall into place the day this reached number one. The chart was announced on 1 October 1985, and that very afternoon Opposition leader Neil Kinnock made his famous speech at the Labour conference denouncing left-wing Labour councils, which so angered Derek Hatton. The birth of New Labour right there, arguably…

#13 punctum,good to find someone else who appreciates “Rage In Eden”. It was one of a number of LPs released in the wake of Joy Division’s “Closer” which seemed to echo its existential bleakness and melancholy – OMD’s “Organisation”, Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Crocodiles”, Teardrop Explodes “Wilder”, The Cure’s “Faith”, U2’s “October” and New Order’s “Movement” (ironically by far the least impressive). While “Ghost Town” expressed the external anger of 1981 it was these LPs that caught the internal mood.

He was in the Rich Kids!

Haha, terrific review – except that I’ll need to go and hear the thing now!

I’d have thought the worst line in “Your Song” was the one about sitting on the roof and kicking “off some moss” and it making him “quite cross” which forget just in the song but along with Squeeze “Up The Junction”‘s “…telly/nappies smelly”, Adrian Gurvitz “gonna write a classic gonna write it in an attic” and the Specials “Too Much Too Young”‘s “spread some manure in your bed of roses” (well isn’t that want roses want to make them grow?)must be 4 of the worst lines in the history of pop…

I still remember this song being a big event for a few weeks. After watching the video again I liked the song as much as I did at the time. It’s ok. Strange clobber worn by Midge and that 80s pop style of doing up the top button without a tie. I don’t think I’ve ever met an ‘Ultravox fan’ in my life though (could probably say the same for U2 since about 1993)

@#38. Your observation makes me think about what a very particular construction a #1-record, and #1-watching really is, and how it (deliberately) makes the sort of thought you want us to have rather difficult.

Compare with the movie box-office-watching culture that’s sprung up in the last 15 years or so (before that only movie execs followed this stuff). Although people do have some sense of what, say, the #3 movie in the land is, what they really care about and know most about is how much money’s being made. Something can open as the #1 movie but everyone can know that that was just a slow week, or that the movie in question had a huge budget and that *this* level of performance for *that* film makes it a friggin’ disaster (lots of people *will* now lose their jobs). The upshot is that people (god knows why if they’re not in the biz. really) have their eye on cumulative box office, per-screen averages, that sort of thing. Whether something makes it to #1 on a given day or week is treated as an epiphenomenon of no interest whatsoever. (There will never be a Popular-like review of #1 movies.)

A #1-record by way of contrast (& perhaps especially in the UK) has always been the most mystified state of chart feeling. One can be quite sure if one has it or not, but not of what it is that one has just had. Is it just a fortunate parting of the waves, or is it really a #1? Is it just the ejaculation of particular die-hard supporters and assorted record company low-lifes, or are you #1? Is it just involuntary fan-boy and -girl contractions? Or is one *having* a #1? Thank you, and good-night.

Ultravox/Midge Ure neither combination charted much in the U.S., and this didn’t either, and after revisiting it I think we got this one right. One of those bands/artists that was big over there but not over here. I have some stray Ultravox singles on 80’s comps, and the only way I remember them is having seen this and the bands songs on MTV back in the day. I keep meaning to buy an Ultravox compilation though.

I liked it – I’d completely forgotten about it until now, but it was one of those songs I remember from when it came out. I was eight, but the chorus was memorable and the lyrics were about soldiers and sailors and other boys things, even if I didn’t understand what the song actually meant. I still think it holds up as a good piece of pop.
Tom is right though, it is so 1985, but there is nothing wrong with that. Wouldn’t it be harder to be nostalgic if everything sounded ageless…

Midge in a very creditable joint 781st place, incidentally.

Thanks for the link to everyhit Izzy. A useful site to check what the competition to the songs on Popular actually were.