CHARLENE – "I've Never Been To Me"

I guess the question of the politics of the song is whether you treat the words as being uniquely about female independence. Obviously it can be, and was is probably mostly taken as part of the anti-feminist backlash (esp the I should have had a baby stuff. Boo). But you could also argue that she’s a woman so she’s addressing other women, and the whole thing could be a more general attack on jetset lifestyles and the widespread and false idea that going to lots of ‘exotic’ places necessarily gives you any perspective on anything (a notion swiftly dispelled by 30 seconds of conversation with your average ‘swam with the dolphins’ backpacker). There’s certainly something in it that appeals to my left puritan instincts.

I’ve never thought of it as country, or even country-ish.

I am obliged (by me) to say that this is my favourite cover on Ruby Trax.

I was totally unaware of this song until a Belle & Sebastian B-side was released in 2001 called Take Your Carriage Clock & Shove It, which, according to several posts on a certain mailing list for bedroom saddo devotees, was a soundalike of I’ve Never Been To Me. Being one such devotee, I sought out the earlier track, and (broadly) those posters were right.

Having done that, and looked up when it was released, I discovered that this was the record that was top of the pops when I was born. My sister, 11 years my senior, had always told me it was House Of Fun (because she didn’t know when I was born? Because she didn’t know when House of Fun was number 1? To spare me from the horrible truth?) and I had never thought to question her pop knowledge.

And so, by accident of birth, this song is inexorably linked to me, and I’m sad about that because I think it’s a real stinker. The melody and the schmaltzy arrangement aside, surely the key to “advice” songs like this is that the artiste dishing out the tips should be someone you can identify with or, if the advice isn’t aimed at you (I’m not, and never have been, a middle-American teenage girl), someone you can at least like and respect. And Charlene’s melodramatic (‘bug-eyed’ is an ideal description) delivery sounds gushing, a bit self-promoting and, in the end, just insincere.

I’ve never thought of it as country either, but assumed it was a ‘soul’ record (whatever that means) because it was on Motown.

Being a mere slip of a lad in 1982, I wasn’t aware of any feminist arguments raging over this record. No, what I found loathsome was the AOR arrangement and the spoken word section’s gushing faux-sincerity, which seemed to me symptomatic of a certain breed of American entertainer.

Interestingly, I’ve Never Been To Me is the first chart topper by a US artist for a whole year (unless you count Stevie Wonder’s contribution to Ebony and Ivory). British pop just seemed streets ahead of anything America could produce at this stage. From my young perspective, this was a source of pride and a kind of blinkered chauvinism. We had been through punk, post-punk, 2 Tone and were now well into the New Pop era, where as the Yanks… well, they were still wearing flares! And records like I’ve Never Been To Me just summed up how useless they were. I hated it.

We used to call it “I’ve Never Been To Leeds” which is the most interesting thing I can think of say about this rubbish.

The divarication of “I’ve been undressed by kings”/”I’ve been to Greece” reminds me of Shania Twain’s “So you’re Brad Pitt”/”So you’ve got a car”.

She’s grabbing the other woman’s sleeve throughout the song, ever, ever tighter. Clearly unhinged. I wonder how many sales were down to its comedy value.

Motown released some other equally un-Motown material when I’ve Never Been To Me was recorded, like Albert Finney’s Album (yes, that’s the title) on which he attempts to match Richard Harris’s orch-pop and doesn’t come close, wallowing instead in three-day-week gloom like What Have They Done To My Home Town?

#9 – Yes, “I’ve Never Been to Leeds”. My lot sung that also and it was the only fun we had with this terrible nonsense, in which Charlene whined on about seeing things women were not supposed to see and all the rest of it. What a drip!

As for the deliberate misheard lyric, the juxtaposition between Paradise and Leeds couldn’t have been more marked. Cloughie was well out of it.

Actually, scrap that. I’ve listened to them both (because I hate myself, clearly) and I think I’ve Never Been To Meath is the better of the two.

TOTP Watch: Chrlene performed ‘I’ve Never Been To Me’ twice on Top of the Pops;

3 June 1982. Also in the studio that week were; ABC, Echo & The Bunnymen, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Fun Boy 3 and Junior. David ‘Kid’ Jensen was the host. That looks like a good show.

17 June 1982. Also in the studio that week were; Roxy Music, Queen, Duran Duran and Echo & The Bunnymen. Simon Bates was the host.

i’m recalling the R1 breakfast DJ (hairy cornflake or mike read i guess) at the time speculating on what the things were that a woman just ain’t supposed to see.

the central metaphor ISN’T duff in the context of the philosophy it espouses and within its own definitions. where paradise = riches and luxury, but what really matters = facing up to who you are. MAN

There’s a fun dissection of this song from a feminist perspective at http://www.tartcity.com/newdungeon.html by one Lauren Henderson (a former writer for Marxism Today and the Observer!), who points out that the song was written by a MAN and then gives the man a good shoeing.

At the time I didn’t pay much attention to the lyrics, apart from noting what clunkers some of the lines were – it all seemed of a piece with the nauseating glamour depicted in Dallas, Dynasty and all those spinoffs, and the song being at number one just got in the way of a lot more enjoyable stuff. Looking at the lyrics now, it sounds like another one from the “Stand By Your Man” stable, or maybe it’s an older and wiser Marie-Claire from “Where Do You Go To My Lovely” telling her friend back in Naples that it wasn’t all that glamorous after all. Not that the friend would have minded the chance to find out for herself, you understand.

BTW, welcome back Rosie, good to hear from you again. Carole King is on Later with Jools Holland this week, I notice.

This song gets extra amusement points around my way, as Paradise is a suburb about five km from where I live. Nothing like jumping on the bus to Paradise whenever the mood takes you…actually, it’s better known for being the site of an Assemblies Of God church that’s more like a giant music arena than temple of quiet religious contemplation.

This song is also a favourite among the sort of divas seen in “Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.”

I believe the “subtle Whoring” line never made it to TOTP performances, and the record got faded out before the spoken word part.

“Seen some things a woman ain’t sposed t’ see”

A men’s urinal, I believe.

And to be fair “Joolz” did also feature the rather good+actually hip Yeah Yeah Yeahs (perhaps to focus on the 2009 aspects of their new record rather than the 1979 ones, for sake of this argument)

Erithian @ 21: I haven’t been anywhere, I’ve been lurking, just haven’t had much to say about some recent entries.

Happening in Rosieworld about this time: the first microcomputer bubble had burst and I was out of a job again and at the beginning of a long slide the culmination of which we’ll come to in early 1983 when there’s some rather more interesting stuff about than this.

Was Charlene American?

I thought she was from Goodmayes in Essex.

Re 30: We Call It Acieed was definitely banned by the BBC. But I heard Charlene plenty, and have to agree that it’s a 2 for me at best (as with Ebony & Ivory, bonus point for “isle of Greece” laughs).

Speaking of which, E&I was in the middle of a SEVEN WEEK run at no.1 in the US while Charlene had her moment in the British sun. Prior to this, those dum Yanks had already placed the following at no.1 in ’82:

Hall & Oates – I Can’t Go For That
J Geils Band – Centerfold
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – I Love Rock’n’Roll
Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire

…all of which I’m fond of to some extent. And they didn’t buy as many copies of Seven Tears as we did, bad haircuts or not.

Never heard of this song! I’m shocked that this is the same woman who tried to be some kind of video vixen, singing “Fire” in The Last Dragon just a few years later.

Man, the things you find trying to find out how long ILX will be down…

To be honest, the line about “Sometime’s I’ve got to cryin’ for unborn children that would have made me complete’ is the “OK, gotta go now” point for me as well as the other woman she’s got viciously by the arm.

To be fair to ‘Oooh’ Gary Davies he did ‘get behind’ a number of rave-y tracks towards the end of his tenure at Radio One. I remember him loudly extolling the virtues of Bizarre Inc’s Such A Feeling on his bit in the middle during what must have been ’91.

Hated it at the time (everyone hated it at the time – it was playground law) but I play it a surprising amount now I’m senile. By that I mean I fish it out a couple of times a year, usually after the pub and usually along with ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ and ‘Angie Baby’.

Kings, yachts and ‘Isle Of Greece’ aside, lest we forget that INBTM also contains the fantastically racy lyric – “Moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed ’em what I GOT”. I find it hard not to be impressed every time I hear that part.

Re 41: Oh the humanity – by the time this was a hit Charlene was living near Harlow rather than Monte Carlo.

Will at No 39 – actually unlike the other 2 I can imagine Gary Davis being into the more poppy side of rave – he always did seem to be more of your local High Street club dj made good with the possible at least vague working knowledge of the ‘soul/funk-house-rave’continuum that the,admittedly ironic in his case, medallion man image he used to play up to would imply. For a period in around 1986/87 I was working in a factory where owing to this battered stereo I used to use only seeming to be able to pick up Radio 1 I used to listen to Radio 1 all day and although his music was usually shite I didn’t actually mind Gary Davis he seemed a sort of a personable bloke playing up to the Smashy and Nicey image with an ironic twinkle in his eye. Almost a breath of fresh air compared with the other dinosaurs on in the day in those days…

I’ve just added a particularly unpleasant cover of this to the “Bunny thriough the looking glass” playlist on Spotify.

Deeply retro film references not unknown at the time (of writing, rather than release), as in:

“In the morning from a Bogart movie/In a country where they turn back time/You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre/Contemplating a crime…”

from Al Stewart’s Year Of The Cat.