UB40 – "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You"

Completely agreed about the backing being much better than memory suggested. Ali Campbell’s voice is still there though, so it doesn’t really matter. Nothing he sings on can ever get more than a ‘2’ from me.

Don’t get me wrong – yes, I know that’s a Pretenders song, but it sounds so like a UB40 song title – when I say that prior to their financial collapse (Neil Diamond got the residuals for “Red, Red Wine,” not UB40 – all those cover versions weren’t exactly lining the kitty), I had immense and thorough respect for UB40, not only for maintaining the same eight-piece line-up for nearly thirty years, unchanged (a remarkable feat in itself), but also because they were one of the very few groups to operate on unsullied socialist principles (or so it seemed); all of their own songs have always been credited to “UB40,” all of their writing, publishing and performance royalties were strictly divided in eight equal ways and they remained true and stalwart to their original political and musical beliefs – whatever they have done, it has always been, in one way or an eighth other, reggae. Moreover, their early musical output remains magnificent; the airy desolation skanks of their Signing Off debut began waves which continued to radiate through the work of, amongst others, Roots Manuva and Mike Skinner, and the top ten success of “The Earth Dies Screaming” in late 1980 continues to boggle the mind; this latter I find an exceptional single, not least because it suggests, musically, what Joy Division in dub might really have gone on to sound like, and also because Ali Campbell’s deceptively restrained voice (a major influence on Boy George) recites sternly intricate images of horror and gruesome decay which would not have disgraced Throbbing Gristle or Coil.

All of which makes their trio of chart-topping cover versions the more regrettable. Granted, “Red, Red Wine” did stem from a genuine love of the music which originally inspired them to form a band, and even “I Got You Babe” could be excused as a nice little thank you note to Chrissie Hynde, who gave UB40 their first big break by inviting them to support the Pretenders on tour in early 1980. “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” however, is inexcusable. It has been a UK hit single four times; the 1962 Elvis original performs the miracle of extracting holiness from the surrounding aquatack of Blue Hawaii – when he sings “Take my hand…take my whole life too” with the exact correlation of tenderness to worship that the line requires, he is back in the Church, as the rosary imagery (“Wise men say,” “Like a river flows”) more than implies.

In 1970 Andy Williams sang it at exactly the same tempo, and with even more extraneous wonder (that astonishing high C on the first syllable of the last “help” – since he manages to make two syllables out of that word), except that he is backed by a bustling double-tempo shuffle. The Stylistics gave it the pallid, cabaret disco once-over in 1976 but Russell Tompkins’ voice still betrayed the notion that he meant it. Whereas UB40’s reading is a grotesquely mechanical one, with horrid pear-shaped synth figures, an entirely inapposite crunching drum machine track, and no sense of modulation (the original’s ascending harmonic progressions, betraying its debt to Martini’s eighteenth-century ballad “Plaisir D’Amour,” are disregarded entirely). Meanwhile, Ali Campbell simply sounds bored and immersed in something far more involving and intriguing to him than any notion of “love.” Perhaps the alienation was designed to fit in with the rather silly Sharon Stone film Sliver – all about sex, surveillance and stalking – for which the performance was commissioned. It drags everything into a mushroom of grey.

I’m in the Tom camp with this one. Unsurprisingly, I was in the thrall of Francis Wright at the time. I must have found it disappointing that the group that gave us “1 in 10” had become a bland covers band. There’s little else to say really.

The song itself seems pretty bulletproof even in the most careless of hands. I’ve heard it mangled by drunken karaoke singers, but I’m still quite fond of the lyrics. I kinda like the idea of placing everything on the line in the name of love, although in the real world other stuff gets in the way. I’m repping for Elvis as my preferred reading, but that’s not to say there aren’t some interesting versions out there like this for instance:

http://youtu.be/16Ia3prdYxs

Of course, it’s the darker and more disturbing reading that you wish UB40 had the balls to have a crack at, especially in relation to the Sharon Stone film.

this song is so dull that it’s a struggle to say anything about it – everything about it sounds processed and manipulated so that music and vocal inhabit the same frequency. There’s very little dynamic to the band’s performance and Ali Campbell sounds like a semi-comatose pub singer

One of the funniest Popular reviews for this plodding cover.
Around the same time there was a celtic-rock version of Can’t Help… which appeared in the film version of Roddy Doyles The Snapper.
It was better than this one but I’m not sure who it was by.

#14: It was by Lick The Tins. I heard it on the radio as a teenager at the same time as discovering my dad’s RCA Elvis comp and fell in love with both, though the Elvis had to keep alive the memory of the polkajiggy version as I didn’t hear who did it. I might not be sold by its fey ways today, but I spent most of the ’80s and early ’90s with an ear out for it, in that long-term back-burner memory that we no longer have a need for. The recording that took its place in my brain-iPod was by Jungle Wonz.

Lick The Tins’ is still my favourite version, though I’m not sure if I’m talking about the actual recording or the one in my teenage mind.

As normally a staunch supporter of anything 1990s (oh boy, the amount of 9s and 10s I’m going to be giving at the end of the decade – I apologise in advance but it was my era) even I agree with this. And I adore ‘Red Red Wine’ and consider it one of the best singles of 1993, but although this has some nice atmospherics, it just doesn’t do anything for me.

One thing I’ll give it is that it didn’t stop any other potential songs from hitting the top – the two #2s during its fortnight at the top were ‘All That She Wants’ and the next number 1.

Very lightweight recording….love the Elvis version, which I’d never heard until the late 80s when I saw “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”, the Alan Bleasdale-penned musical starring Martin Shaw. Up till that point, Elvis had just been a popular singer who’d died in 1977, and Shaw was Doyle from “The Professionals”. I came away from the show with a newfound respect for both artists, and this tune’s had a special place since (the karaoke industry would have shrivelled up and died years ago if not for it).

Despite the UB40 howler, the movie’s Soundtrack album isn’t too bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliver_(soundtrack)

#21: I’ve still got Soft Reggae (on cassette)! Pretty much the sort of compilation you would expect from the time and probably the only reason I kept it was that it’s the only time “Silly Games” by Janet Kay is represented in our collection.

@Rory. We could always talk about football. Is anyone seriously picking Chelsea tonight? (There must be some great odds available. Might be worth a punt?) Also, the 1966 WC final was on Mad Men this week. (Lane: England just won the World Cup. Roger: Cup of what?) Discuss!

@swanstep Football isn’t my game, although the general principle is tempting (and that’s a nice Mad Men gag). But it might not be doing justice to Tom’s return to veer off so soon in the thread. So, forcing myself to listen to the thing a second time today (/this century): how did this ever not sound like bad karaoke to everyone? Was there ever a time when that backing track sounded novel? Or was the novelty in Ali Campbell’s vocals (but we’d had “I Got You, Babe” not that long before, so that can’t be it)? Surely it wasn’t the song itself? I suppose the clash between the jolly jingle on offer here and everyone’s memories of Elvis was novel; although that assumes that “everyone” remembered Elvis’s original, which may not at all have been true of early-’90s singles-buyers.

Of course, Chelsea nailed on 8-0!

I’m not buying this suggestion UB40 were swept up in the early ’90s ragga-boom. I’d be more inclined to believe there were a large number of punters who didn’t “get” grunge and didn’t “get” ragga either, but did identify with the “soft” reggae that UB40 were knocking out.

#16 Indeed it was the bizarrely named Lick The Tins. I thought it was comissioned specifically for the film. It turns out it had come out some time before.

@30, thefatgit. Only 7-0 at Camp Nou to go…

Thing is, there was only 2 paths, do cover versions and keep going, or make more ‘credible’ stuff and fade out.

Showaddywaddy did the same thing! Really! They wrote (nearly) all their hits, until ‘Take me in your arms’ missed and “Under the moon of love’ hit big, and after that it was cover versions only from then on.

Mark G #36 – re the UB40 and ‘Waddy career path, I’m reminded that nearly three years ago when discussing “Red Red Wine”, Wichita pondered: “Imagine if Pin Ups had sold so well that Bowie spent the rest of his career singing Kinks and Who songs in an uncomfortable baritone – he would be a joke, Starman and Space Oddity as thoroughly swept under the carpet as King and Dream A Lie.” Worth a quote in this context.

Lino was talking about the parallel with “Labour of Love” though.

About the Spiritualized version: Ladies And Gentlemen… was reissued a few years ago with the IHCFIL-infiltrated original title track present and correct.

But I thought it would be nice to resurrect my ancient ILM send-up of the lads here, with a slight 2012 remix:

Kids! Listen and learn as man of action Jason Pierce “pierces” together another one of his immortal rock classic Spiritualized anthems. Admire his skill and craftmanship as he weaves his magic to produce exactly the same song which he has been putting out for the last twenty-one years – from the most basic ingredients!

SCENE: A hushed studio in north-east London lit only by crimson lava lamps. Jason “Piercing” Pierce sits crosslegged on the same carpet which George “Harry” Harrison used to record “Within You Lord My Piggies Pass” with a sitar in his lap which he may one day learn to play. He lays the sitar down carefully and picks up his dobro Stratofendercastpaul 1948 spat-upon-by-Gram-Parsons vintage guitar-shaped thing.

Behind him are seated his band of hired agency hands (contract-only, won’t complain about pay) keen with anticipation for the latest unformed outpouring from his personal Erato.

He solemnly strums a C major chord in adagio tempo, modulating to an E major chord, and then back again. The bass joins in, reproducing precisely the bottom note of each of these chords. After five minutes the drummer joins in, beating solemnly on his solitary tom-tom in the exquisitely pre-post-minimalist style of the Velvet Underground, whose song “Heroin” sounds nothing like anything Spiritualized have ever recorded, for legal reasons.

At eight-and-a-half minutes the mouth of Jason “Donovan” Pierce is pregnant with expiration of his unfettered emotional Camelot. He can bear it no more and begins to intone solemnly (not at all orgasmically):-

“Down. I’m comin’ down. The only way is up. But I’m goin’ down. Down. Down. Oh, my Sweet Lord. There’s blood on my tracks. I’m runnin’ low on my smack. I’m comin’ down. As opposed to sideways. Thinkin’ of those lazy hazy crazy days. To leave my lover there must be 50 ways. The tracks of my tears. Holdin’ back the years. Tears for souvenirs. But tears are not enough. I’m lookin’ for some hot stuff. Baby tonight. I feel like chicken tonight. The heat is bendin’ my spoon. Everyone’s gone to the moon. The girl from Mars. Plays my ten guitars. Never gonna give you up. I’m like a lonely pup. In a Christmas shop. Dancin’ at the hop. But I’m comin’ down. The drugs don’t work. Where’s Captain Kirk? A love supreme. Strange Brew by Cream. She’s got Bette Davis eyes. You’re the devil in disguise. My camera never lies. True love will never dies. My shit’s takin’ an awful long time to cook. She got sexy eyes like Dr Hook. I read it in a book. Knight’s castle to rook. You made me realise. Baby what a big surprise. The girl who lives on heaven hill. My least favourite herb is dill. I feel fine. Yay it’s 1969. And I’m comin’ down no more. Gonna knock on the green door. ‘Cos I’m goin’ high. High in the sky. Up where we belong. You can tell everybody that this is your song. Whoops, this ain’t Moulin Rouge. The nearest tube is street called Goodge. I’m getting’ high! With my American Pie!”

The band suddenly erupts into a feedback-laden climax. Enter the London Community Gospel Choir, their faces beaming with joy as they think of making even more money out of singing whitey public school retro-soft rock.

“OH HAPPY DAY! OH MY SWEET LORD! OH RELEASE ME! WE ARE THE WORLD!!”

Repeat for 12 minutes, then add Terry Edwards and bloke who used to play sax on Stereolab records to echo the primary two chords of the song precisely, and then indulge in some desultory free-form “freakouts” (would like to do “Ascension” but “David” Jason Pierce has an eye on Steve Lamacq’s playlist. In any case he doesn’t know what “Ascension” sounds like, having bought an original vinyl copy second-hand for £700 in 1994 but never having played it).

Just as the whole stew is about to boil over, Jason “Connery” Pierce adds the icing on the cake. He stops the whole ensemble to whisper:-

“Just say no to drugs. ‘Cos their long-term side-effects are tragic. But just say yes. To boogie woogie piano magic.”

Yes! It’s Jools Holland to play the band out with some goodtime rolling boogie-woogie piano magic! Fade out: “AbbbbababaBlueberry! Hill! Sam! Brown! Acoustic!” et bloomin’ cetera.

It was my modest tribute to Bert Weedon, who died this morning aged 91, and without whom, when you think about it, there probably wouldn’t have been a Spiritualized.

Without Bert Weedon, there might well not have been a lot of stuff, never mind Spiritualized.

@47 If your interest ever returns, try their first album, Lazer Guided Melodies. Still my favourite, partly because it reminds me of my student year in England (when it came out), but partly because it’s well before the orchestras and gospel choirs took hold.

Alternatively, do try the new one. I think it may already be my third-favourite of theirs.

Other than Elvis’ original has there actually been a decent cover recorded of this? Not to my ears, and yet it continues to be covered. Williams version was the first I heard and although the melody’s there it was a somewhat over-blown performance. The Sylistics version was even more souped-up – disco for people who don’t like disco including a ‘falling in love duh-duh’ bit that was entirely unnecessary and then there’s UB40. Blandness personified – reggae for people who hate reggae.