PILOT – "January"

I agree. This is such a mainstay of the ‘Guilty Pleasures’ concept that I feel that my dislike of it counts as a kind of guilty displeasure. I think the slightly chipmunky vocals are partly to blame for this. There’s a clear McCartney influence in this – the harmonies and vocal blend (‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’) recall Linda as backing singer, the cutie-cute singing style (‘Jan-yew-air-ee’), even the guitar chops come syncopating in after half a minute or so recall the incongruous reggae feel Macca gives to ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ in the second verse – though the McCartney song it most resembles in feel, ‘Silly Love Songs’, postdates this by a year or so, so perhaps some influence came the other way. I also find the lyrics irritating in the same way some of Noel Gallagher’s lyrics irritate me: the scansion-filling nonsense is just slightly too obviously makeweight to be sastisfying on a pure-pop level. Go on, someone, persuade me this is good.

ISTR reading somewhere that Pilot were one of the first acts to suffer the albatross of being called The New Beatles, which certainly does seem ludicrous in retrospect.

As somebody not around at the time, I think they’re more remembered for ‘Magic’, which would seem to emphasise the already obvious fact that this would have been unlikely to top the chart in any other month.

‘Magic’ would have merited an 8 easy. This is one of their inferior numbers which got to No 1 almost by default. Still, that intro still seems screams first-year-at-school, emerging from toddlerhood, innocent 1975 for me.

I’m with Matthew H on this one – love the “Amarillo”-esque hook of the lead guitar intro, and it’s a decent song to boot, the sing-a-long qualities lifting it to at least an 8. When’s the Rowley and Crowley lynching party?

I think Pilot were not so much the “New Beatles”, more the “Old Rollers” – didn’t it emerge that they were the session musicians who actually played on some of the Bay City Rollers’ early hits?

I take the point about the lopsidedness between the verse and the hook – I always thought that “time, it’s a flyer” line was particularly contrived – but then many a song gets away with a verse that might seem just a way to mark time before the next chorus. The opening riff is what you think of when this song comes to mind, and for me it was a pleasure, and far from a guilty one. The follow-up, “Just a Smile”, sounded too close a retread, and the well dried up right there before they moved on to other projects.

Historical point of order: in Scotland “Just A Smile” was their first single release, before “Magic,” and a top ten hit.

I’m sure “January” is a much better song than “Lyin’ Eyes” – in fact, I bet all of Pilot’s songs are.

As a fellow Edinburghdonian (is that really the correct term?)i wish i liked this more but i’ll have to go with what seems to be common consentus- great intro and guitar, duff song.
In fact they seem to have been a bit forgotten about up here- i wasnt even aware they hailed from Edinburgh till today! I would have thought a city thats frankly a bit lacking in musical heroes would have big-upped their fleeting success a bit more – my campaign to get a Pilot memorial statue erected on Princes Street starts here!! (or maybe not.)

I pursue a minor side-career bigging up Win.

I don’t get paid or anything.

Hmmm. Time for a re-think.

That’s the Scots for you.

[Smiley face thing]

Incidentally, as far as Number Two Watch is concerned, “January” stopped the Glitter Band from having their only number one with “Goodbye My Love” and also ensured that the Carpenters had their second UK #2 with “Please Mr Postman.”

thanks to Marcello for the link to the Edinburgh musical heroes poll.
btw were the Proclaimers ommitted for political reasons or something?

Um, the Proclaimers were omitted because I hoped someone would do a Best of Fife thread to incorporate the Skids and Big Country and…um…er…

…and The Fence Collective in general! Thanks missus! 😉

Barbara D usefully had a hit in 1980 entitled “January February.” JUDGE DALE SEZ: “Good single.”

Our Book Club is MUCH better than theirs!

TOTP Watch: Pilot performed January on Top of the Pops on five occasions, only one of which survives in the archives. This is from the edition of the 2nd of January 1975, presented by Jimmy Saville. Also in the studio that week were Wizzard, The Wombles, Philip & Vanessa, Kenny, Mud and Pan’s People (interpreting ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’).

“Philip & Vanessa featuring the Top of the Pops Orchestra” for complete musical excellence.

I’m with Marcello. This is a song for days like today – brilliant blue sky, not a cloud in the sky and a fierce, uncompromising nip in the air. Wondrous, happy bouncy days. It’s one of those songs that always makes me feel happy – like the Alan Price version of Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear or Dexy’s Come on Eileen.

My Scotland was buzzing in 1974-78 – new sense of political self-confidence, Nats doing well, the national football team qualifying for the World Cup while England was at home twiddling its thumbs;-) Pilot are a genial part of the jigsaw of my then happiness, and for that I thank them.

The host album, Second Flight, is one I still play today and enjoy with a sort of comfort-blanket nostalgia, and I’m not quite sure whether this or Magic was my first-ever purchase from Itunes. In the canon of great Scots intros its up there with the famous saxophone riff from three years hence that heralds the intro of a certain record by my (post-amalgamation) school’s most famous alumnus.

Yeees, the dancing bear song. A happy, feelgood offering indeed. Of course what wasn’t mentioned in this delightful little ditty is the bit where Simon Smith brays the poor fucked-up creature with a massive stick when it stops dancing.

You never can tell with that Randy Newman.

Can I get away with a copy-and-paste reprint from this time three years ago, when “January” popped up on my annual Which Decade Is Tops For Pops Project (which by the most astonishing coincidence has just relaunched on my blog this very evening)?

“…once the “ooh, I remember this one!” thrill has faded, all you’re left with is a rather slight, anaemic confection; nicely turned in several respects, but with some shrill, jarring qualities which tend to jar ever more with repeated listens. It also loses points for disobeying Pop Law, by failing to rhyme fire (FYE-yah!) with desire (diz-EYE-yah!).”

(Sorry I’ve been away, folks. I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say about “Lonely This Christmas”, then the wind changed and I stayed that way…)

Sadly, Christ was unavailable for contractual reasons.

According to iMDB Philip & Vanessa were Canadian (!!!!!).

Surely now would be the ideal time for Marcello to capitalise on this interest and put his long-promised Alan Price essay online…

Oh, and Marcello. Don’t forget your other promised project, that thesis on Scottish boy soprano Neil Reid and his Bobby Goldsboro moment with the temptress that was Molly Weir…