CHARLES AND EDDIE – "Would I Lie To You?"

I always assumed the origin story was a PR cookup? It would be nice if this were not the case.

Lovely record, yes – a well-deserved 8.

TOTPWatch. Charles & Eddie thrice performed ‘Would I Lie To You’ on Top of the Pops;

12 November 1992. Also in the studio that week were; En Vogue, Michael Bolton, Vanessa Paradis, Undercover, Jason Donovan and Neil Diamond. Mark Franklin was the host. This was the 1500th edition.

26 November 1992. A live performance by satellite from Toronto. In the studio that week were; EMF, Undercover, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, plus a live performance by satellite from Rod Stewart in Los Angeles. Mark Franklin was the host.

25 December 1992. A live performance by satellite from Toronto. In the studio that Christmas were; Wet Wet Wet, Right Said Fred, Shut Up & Dance (!), KWS, Jimmy Nail , Undercover and Tamsin Archer, plus two further live performances by satellite from Philadelphia; Shanice and Boyz II Men. Mark Franklin & Tony Dortie

Mind you Tom, that origin story sounds strikingly like Mick and Keef meeting on the platform at Dartford station 50 years ago last Monday, when Keef spotted his primary school passing acquaintance Mick carrying an armful of blues records. Their story would make an interesting rom-com!

With Popular, a lot of the time I hear a song, and I appreciate it and, because it isn’t really my ‘thing’ the most I’d give it is 7 or 8.

“Would I Lie To You”, with it’s sweet soul-pop stylings, most certainly isn’t my thing.

And yet, and yet…

I can’t find anything wrong with it. I really can’t. This song will brighten up my day, any time. The tune, the way the comparatively high-pitched vocals work, the sense of fun, the sense of enjoyment, the sincere-yet-lighthearted way it’s delivered…brilliant, fantastic, superb.

I cannot find anything that detracts from this wonderful song.

It isn’t my thing, but that’s not a problem at all.

10.

This completes a hat-trick of number ones from acts making their UK singles chart debut, where the record started half way down [Range 34-50] the chart and worked its way up to the top.

A song which brings back fond memories for me. I was in an unashamedly retro band myself at the time (albeit the kind of band which rehearses and procrastinates a thousand times more often than it actually gigs or writes new material) and this was something of a van stereo favourite. Up and down the London trunk road we went, dual carriageway lights whizzing past in the dark Autumn afternoons, as Charles and Eddie trilled this tune and somebody sang along.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone in my life who hates this single. OK, I know it seldom drops easily into conversations these days, but unlike most number ones it didn’t have a bunch of naysayers mocking it who were all tired of its over-exposure. It wasn’t parodied by comedians or mocked by music journalists.

The video with its peculiar head-and-legs montage shots, however, was a bit naff, and on the blog “Out on Blue Six” the writer Tim Worthington was moved to suggest changing the chorus’s lyrics to “Take a look at my head/ it’s much bigger than my legs/ would I lie to you?” which is what I tend to hear every time it’s played now. But that’s not their fault…

Weren’t they once accused of releasing a woefully inadequate follow-up single in the shape of “NYC”, which chronicled how they (supposedly) met? I’m sure I’ve heard that one described as a career-killer before now, but I can’t remember terribly much about it.

It might be one of those songs, if you didn’t know it that well, that could have been a R&B classic. Easily, mistakenly attributed to Sam & Dave’s give and go vocal stylings in the 60’s, or even Sam & Mark in the 00’s. WILTY is not of a particular time. It is fun, innocent, charming and you can feel the joy coming from the speakers.

The subway story is kinda twee isn’t it? Which record did they have in common? A soul classic? Or something more obscure? You could romanticise any famous Rock&Roll meeting eg: Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon (fresh in the mind after they announced their separation this week) meet in the record store queue, both clutching Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music”, go off and form Sonic Youth together. It’s a PR wet dream! The story writes itself.

The formula that worked so well on WILTY is repeated on “24-7-365” off the Chocolate Milk LP…did they get stuck in a rut? I’ve not heard that whole album to properly tell.

I can’t remember the specific artist, but even to my less cynical younger self I remember thinking ‘ah – a way to tell the public that these artists x are a bit like that classic artist y’.

The X Factor rendition the other day did demonstrate that the song has genuine legs – it’s not just in the performance. I had no idea that Charles had died that young. Horrible.

Hah, it might well have been Mark Thomas that I caught it from, but I remember consensus at the time being a) this was a good record but more importantly b) obviously they are lying. Starting with the line “look into my eyes, don’t you see they’re open wide”, is a Darren Brown-esque level of drawing attention to what is supposed to be an involuntary tell.

I listened to this (on youtube) for the first time about a week ago, as it were, in prep. for this entry, and it made no impact whatsoever. In the light of Tom’s 8 and all the peanut gallery love I’ve listened carefully to a pretty good mp3 of it though headphones twice just now, and still… nothing. I don’t hate it, but I certainly don’t like it.
The vocals are fairly thin and characterless by soul standards I would have thought, the blues chords in the second verse, and the overall lame-o piano kind of combine to kill off any momentum the song would otherwise have, and the less said about the laboring history/mystery lyrics the better. The whole thing in my view, just lies there, like a big yawn. A definite 4 or 5 at best I’d say, but maybe I’m missing something.
(Hah – the next thing on my itunes, playing as I type this, was the Charles Lloyd Quartet’s Dream Weaver. So awesome by comparison. That was followed by the even more monumental Charles Mingus’s Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love. What torture it would be to waste a single second listening to Charles and Eddie again rather than either of these. I won’t do it. Memo to popsters: stay out of the ‘Charles’s.)

Great chorus. Really insistent. The slightly tinny piano and boxy drums slightly let it down; the verse marks time, but overall a deserved 8

Not really sure what to say here, my sentiments echo Tom’s in the review pretty exactly. Really nice memories of it. Remember becoming aware that it was “proper” music, contra the Eurodance that was simultaneously taking my fancy, but not in a negative or boring way. 8 or 9.

Hmm…I’m a bit baffled at the amount of love this record is getting. I remember it as being a fairly nondescript piece of retro fluff. It’s harmless enough, but as 60s soul pastiches go isn’t fit to lace the boots of McAlmont and Butler’s Yes or even Gabrielle’s Give Me A Little More Time.

And that ridiculous story of them meeting on the subway put me off too. Whether it was true or not hardly mattered, it sounded just like a poor PR concoction.

More illustration needed! I probably do prefer ‘Give Me A Little More Time’ (and ‘One Goodbye In Ten’) but tho they both sound more faithfully authentic (WILTY has a subtle hip-hop influence in the backing) I can’t think of anything that would really elevate those that much above this.

Clearly very popular so I don’t want to dampen that.
It’s not a song I’ve ever latched onto but it is well crafted.
One of my initial thoughts is that it has a hint of seventies to it.
Actually it seems to hint at how music tastes move back and forth.
It could have been a number 1 in 1972 or 2012 or 1992.
It would have been a top 5 hit in 1982 or 2002 because it’s catchy enough but the actual sound would seem out of step.

Hmm, I’d say that “One Goodbye In Ten” is a sublime, stunning, superior work of art (and I think such terminology is not out of place here) to “Would I Lie To You”, which, while aiming less high, succeeds admirably at what it does – On OGIT the anguish sounds heartfelt, so palpably, painfully, sincere; the arrangement is powerful, and it is in all a thing of wonder. What it is not, however – because of this intensity and tautness – is a likely or potential no 1 record (as they were before the new release straight-in-at-the-top fever made such distinctions not meaningful: 1992 is still just on the right side of that line). What is great – and it is wonderful – about WILTY is its easy-going beauty and charm, combined with at least a good degree of technical proficiency. It’s radio-friendly, but, damn, it’s quality. So yes, I’d say that OGIT is the better song, and the better record – but when it comes to pop music you’d gladly hear on the radio, Charles and Eddie have the edge. Gabrielle, meanwhile, and while I am also fond of that song, really isn’t in the same league as either, at least not with GMALMT. “If You Really Cared”, though, hmm, maybe.

#34 Interesting idea re beautiful songs being too taut and intense to appeal to the masses. In Shara Nelson’s particular case perhaps she was too associated with romantic resignation and broody mystique to have been able to take a song all the way. OGIT/SN may have been too tasteful in that respect but ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ came closer and even a Nelson ‘Nothing Compares 2’ (thus by a Nelson for a Nelson!) is just about imaginable (but a version more proud than passionate). I can’t quite hear her doing ‘Sleeping Satellite’ tho.

I had no idea what this was until I watched the video and realised I’d heard it before. A great hook, but for me this goes on about a minute and a half too long; I would have preferred the briefer treatment it would have got in the 1960s. Nevertheless: 7.

Retro but not in the fascimile way of something like Diana Ross ‘Chain Reaction’ and played on the then still pretty ‘street’ Kiss FM at the time without jarringly sticking out. Nice tune but not really where my attention was being focussed at the time that being firmly occupied with what I saw as the sounds of 1992/the future.

A song I will always love. You can’t beat it.

Yep, I agree with (pretty much) all of you – this is lovely – so I’ll take a moment to speak up for NYC.

It’s another effortless piece of sweet pop-soul, this time built around the Buffalo Springfield For What It’s Worth riff. Oddly I think the Oui3 cover came out around the same period. Anyway, the (apocryphal?) C&E meeting is brought up in the lyrics; something like “I ran into C on the A-train/He had a brand new copy of Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man…” I could look it up but I like trying to remember it. If the story isn’t true they were certainly keen to keep hammering it.

When I was going through U.K. #1’s, I was surprised to hear this, I hadn’t heard it in years. Was a decent charting hit in the U.S., but my mind blended it together with Simply Red’s “Stars,” which I heard more often throughout the years. Not a favorite of mine, but I appreciate the ‘nice guy’ write up…though visually they looked like half of Color Me Badd.

I think Danh (#48) makes a great point regarding Color Me Badd. I’ll go with a 4/10 for Charles and Eddie.