I was 14 in May 1979 and was given a £2 record token for my birthday and had never bought a record in my life so I asked my sister to get me something.
She brought back Janet Kay Silly Games and Roxy Music Dance Away. I was ambivalent about the Janet Kay single but loved Dance Away and played it over and over as well as the b-side Cry Cry Cry. It’s hard to believe that what seems to be one of the Roxy fan’s least favourite tracks used to be 50% of my entire record collection.
I enjoyed both songs at the time as it was the only record I had. The hunger to get the album started there and then and after a few weeks of working on our local ice cream van I had the money to now be in the big boy’s playground, I owned an album.
The excitement on that 17 minute train journey into Glasgow Queen Street to buy my first album was tenfold on the way home. Sitting on the train with my coffee and Mars Bar I opened the Bruce’s Record Shop LP sized carried bag and read every word on the sleeve before I took the inner bag out and scanned that too. Back in the bag it all went until the thought of “oh the label” so I had to take the record out and look at the actual label too and read every credit….oh the smell of a new record. This particular ritual right down to the Mars Bar & coffee stuck with me for years with many albums that I have bought since.
Di dit, di da dum…… the opening bass note opened up a whole new world to me, not just the next forty two and a half minutes over 2 sides of vinyl. I had lost my LP buying virginity.
The opening to Manifesto as an album and as a live show is a masterstroke. The whole structure of this song is so unconventional but flows naturally. These lyrics by far are up there with Ferry’s best.
I am with Richard on this one when it comes to Trash and it's not so identical twin brother Trash 2. I have always liked both of these. Maybe my judgment on a lot of this album could be clouded by the fact it was my first album but I still love these 2 tracks.
It was about 2 years after I bought Manifesto that I knew of or heard the original rock version of Angel Eyes so the single/disco version was the first one I had heard so I wasn’t weighed down with the “not as good as the original” burden we sometimes put on ourselves. I like both tracks for what they are.
Still Falls The Rain struck me right from the first play and again some of Ferry’s best lyrics and some great playing from Manzanera. I wish it had been played live more than that 1979 tour.
Like most of the albums I have bought by anyone, my favourite track is usually the one I just don’t get at all on first hearing. Stronger Through The Years was too dark and melancholy for someone who was just getting into music. How that has changed for me and by far is the my favourite track on the album. I love the backwards reverb on the drums at the intro and these guys produced this album themselves. I love the sort of lazy way the verses are sung. The end section is just amazing. When other musicians that I know ask me to play a good example of Roxy as musicians I play that section. I point out that unlike Dire Straits, Guns And Roses etc Roxy don’t do riff rock. Roxy are all about lots of individual parts that are nothing on their own but combined together make such an amazing and unique sound. "The Roxy Soup" to quote Manzanera.
Ain’t That So & My Little girl are songs that I am ambivalent about too. I never skip them but don’t rush to hear them either. Dance Away & Cry Cry Cry I mentioned earlier. Roxy’s biggest selling self written single is ubiquitous and over heard on the radio and at live shows so it has lost that magic for me but still a great pop single.
What a way to close an album with Spin Me Round. I love Ferry’s laid back voice on this and how cool is the delivery of the words “I’m wired FOR SOUND” I love the way it is a very straight forward and pretty ballad then at the end everything goes chaotic then fades out leaving the musical box playing Brahm’s Lullaby.
If I had to pick one song for Bryan to do live for the first time it would be this. He has never performed this track to date.
Spin Me Round has great memories for me then but also in later life too. I recorded a version of this after a night out with my friend the late Robert Jackson. We were just mucking around in my studio and we quickly recorded it as a piano vocal in one take. During the following week I added some guitar and strings to it. It became very poignant as unknown to me beforehand, his family had it played during his funeral in the crematorium, not a dry eye in the place.
Like I have said, this was my first album ever and I can’t change that fact or would I want to. This may cloud my view of it or my feelings towards it, great memories.
One final thing about that first record that I bought with that record token. I read that label every time I stuck it on the record player.
Title taken from the LP "Manifesto" and that made me save up to get the album. Never did I think that 43 years later I would be watching Roxy on their 50th anniversary tour with my name in the tour book and a scan that I did when working in Studio One of my actual copy of Dance Away spinning on the stage backdrop screen.
"...all the way is far enough"
J.O'B.
The late Robert Jackson....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BGbCXySfdU