LEO SAYER – "When I Need You"

Again, there’s that crucial breach here: I’ve only ever responded to this as a neat record, rather than it ever really encouraging any kind of emotional response of making me feel any more loving. Wheras ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ does at least encourage me to dance, albeit in a rather half-hearted way…

I suppose that you could say that the most interesting thing about it is that the music is miasmic in intention, while the lyrics are a clear declaration of love.

The 1997 hit cover version by Hollyoaks star Will Mellors was a regretable enterprise.

With characteristic contrarianism, I’m going to talk a bit here about “Orchard Road,” Sayer’s last non-reissued/non-remixed UK hit single, Top 20 in the spring of 1983. The story goes that he and producer Alan Tarney were in the studio one night; Tarney started doodling around with a synth riff, Sayer picked up on it immediately and started improvising a lyric and melody. The theme was returning, somewhat frightened, somewhat expectant, to his wife; alas, he had done her wrong, gone off with a fan and it hadn’t worked out, but she took him back. And so he tells the tale, cautiously ringing her up, stammering and um-ing and ah-ing, and then his astonishment and delight at her acceptance; the end of the song sees him driving the long road back to her street, her door, her heart. Apart from a few minor harmony vocal overdubs, the song was performed and recorded as live, and although Sayer and Tarney essentially had what was a demo, they decided to put it out as a single anyway, unmixed.

I mention it here because it seems the great bookend to the long-distance pining for his wife which was the emotional basis for “When I Need You”; he was away in L.A. making it big in the States (“You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” having gone one position better on Billboard than it had done at home) but felt like making his next album a record of interpretations rather than having to write all the songs again. Thus “When I Need You” was composed by Albert Hammond and Carole Bayer Sager and really it was custom built for a number one single; after three number twos the general feeling was that Leo was long overdue for a domestic chart topper, and this was it.

Both songs are very patient and spacious, with huge chasms between voice, keyboard and drums (or drum machine) only intermittently filled in (on “WINY”) by an actual band, including that saxophone. So “WINY” is a thoroughly professional performance and Leo does it superb service; but compared to the Brit mini-movies of “Long Tall Glasses” or “Moonlighting” it seemed a little anonymous, a little lounge bar, as if to say, well he’s still there, but now there’s that distance which marks off the real star from his consumers (“miles and miles of empty space in between us”). But he turns up on TOTP anyway, swaying from side to side with matey hands squeezed tightly into pockets, being a Thoroughly Good Bloke, so ultimately he’ll win through. Yet “Orchard Road” seems to me the more significant song in the long run, since it represents his unabashed spirit coming through again, becoming visible once more; ten years down the road and I’m still a clown, he seems to say, but I’m forgiven and I probably wouldn’t have changed the journey even if I’d known what milestones were approaching.

I personally find that “WINY” signified the end of Leo Sayer as a “fun” act, liked or at least tolerated by just about everyone (and supporting Roxy Music on a tour!), and the beginning of Leo Sayer as general irritant.

His hits before “WINY” had come at things from an angle, and were gloriously original, infuriatingly catchy vignettes, which admittedly hinted in a humorous way, at the slightly maudlin, slightly pitiful character he was later to become. Perhaps the relative lack of success of the following two singles “How Much Love” and “Thunder in My Heart” suggested to him that he would be better sticking to ballads and covers; perhaps the muse just left him..

As you may have guessed, I thought he lost something, and I think the public kinda agreed, as he never really threatened to be this big again, at least not without being heavly remixed/sampled (although his anodyne “More Than I Can Say” nearly hit the top in 1980).

Please don’t take any of this as an attack on Leo Sayer the man. Some time later, around the late 80s, I found myself at his show at the Glasgow Pavilion (decidedly second-rate in terms of both size and salubriousness). The show was a cracker and I was surprised just how good some of these later hits sounded live, as opposed to on record. (I can remember that night being the first time I had really taken notice of “Orchard Road” – a blistering performance!!) He came across as, probably what he originally wanted to be, a showman, and he seemed genuinely happy, which was good to see, as he has always had difficulties reconciling his somewhat shy personality with the requirement to perform for his fans. (And my mum enjoyed it too)

His “Unchained Melody” attempt, a #54 hit in 1986, was possibly one of the worst versions ever, maybe even worse than U2’s or any which the SB has up its sleeve for later. Not a patch on the Goons!

#2 watch – “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave had its (and their) only week at #2 on this song’s last week at the top. I wouldn’t have grudged it the one week!

This is the essential version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHZQNWp9yI

This record inspired a very childish but painful game at my school, which saw kids walking up to each other and giving them a good old fashioned dead leg before singing “When I kneed you…I lift up my leg and I boot you…” etc. You get the idea. Naturally, some of them took it a little far (knives, swords, chains, kung-fu stars etc) but boys will be boys, even the ones who were built like George Foreman.

I never really took to Leo Sayer, I must say. The Pierrot bit for “The Show Must Go On” was a nice touch, though and “You make Me Feel Like Dancing” (a US number one) captured the mood, I guess, but I just found Leo annoying. Kudos to him for joint penning “Giving It All Away” for Daltrey, a most worthy piece but otherwise the Waldo drawbridge comes up, I’m afraid.

I actually used to work with a girl who believe it or not actually FANCIED Leo, which I found astounding, as she was quite nice, whilst yon Sayer looked like he belonged available for purchase in a garden centre. “When I Need You” was as uncomplicated a song as it gets, a mighty ballad it most certainly wasn’t. All in all, I think you can say that this wasn’t my favourite number one of the year, although Leo didn’t inspire hatred as much as mere irritation a tin of Cooper’s pest spray could have readily dealt with.

I’m not unaware that we are still in 1977, btw!!

Thevisitor: I like that angle (not totally sure I believe the people involved felt the writing was on the wall though), and actually I’m aware that I’ve been harsher on this genre than I’d have liked to be in this run of #1s: I underrated Chicago, and just haven’t liked the others, but I’m pretty sure other things in this style would have got higher marks. (And some yet might).

It’s a pity that we won’t get to discuss The Carpenters or the Buckingham Fleetwood Mac at any point, possibly the zenith of 1970s MOR of stupendous sensitivity and depth. (Along with ABBA, if you classify them in the same genre)

Endearing video footage of Sayer lipsynching “Long Tall Glasses” (the only one of his cuts I find I really need) can be found here.

Well, there were so many elton wannabee’s that Leo being slightly less of one, didn’t register as such until the others died off…

So, this song is not about masturbating truck drivers then?

thanks to the interweb I was able to confirm that I saw the Stranglers live at Crawley College around this time – in fact the night before Leo hit number 1 – and therefore my first experience of ‘punk rock’. In those days we’d go and see anything that was on at the college as gigs were fairly infrequent. I remember the talk before the gig was that there was due to be a fight, possibly involving knives, although why this was seen as a selling point I’m not too sure. As it happened there was no obvious violence – and I don’t recall any pogoing or gobbing either. Quite a different story when they played the Leisure Centre a few months later. At this stage I don’t think I’d heard anything by the band before seeing them live but I enjoyed the gig – although not enough to buy any product later.

From Wiki:

In a 2006 interview with the Globe & Mail Cohen said:

“I once had that nicking happen with Leo Sayer. Do you remember that song ‘When I Need You’?” Cohen sings the chorus of Sayer’s number one hit from 1977, then segues into ‘And Jane came by with a lock of your hair,’ a lyric from ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’. “Somebody sued them on my behalf … and they did settle”, even though, he laughs, “they hired a musicologist who said that particular motif was in the public domain and, in fact, could be traced back as far as Schubert.”

Listen to this and Elton’s Little Jeannie back to back

A fairly tiresome record to my ears. 2/10 I’m sorry to say.