MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYSICS: - Prefab Sprout

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In November, they released another single from the album, Nightingales, offering newer fans the opportunity to find on 12", gatefold 7" and CD formats tracks such as Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone) and The Devil Has All the Best Tunes (not available on any album to date) and demos of songs in their 'rawer' state, including the unreleased Bearpark. The single failed to chart but was a welcome addition for fans and collectors, marking another stepping stone towards eventual release of the 'lost' album Protest Songs. CBS had decided to string out a few more singles and release the album when Langley had significantly faded from the charts in the following year. It would be some sort of compensation for fans who had to wait the three years between the last two albums. The next single, the oldest song on the album, The Golden Calf, had an accompanying video which was filmed at Fulham Studios on Farm Lane and took in invited fans who attended an album signing stint at HMV in London to play frantic club-goer extras in the legendary 'Acapulco Rolfs' nightclub. The video was shot on 17 March 1988’ and the single eventually released in February 1989, reaching No. 82, being hailed as "a corking rock-out from our fab <strong>Sprout</strong>s" and "a bit of a stromer" in the music tabloids. During all the many European interviews, McAloon was queried about Protest Songs and about its release. He said, "We should never release it, it could only disappoint people." In June 1989, mid-way through the recording sessions of the next album, CBS decided to put it out but there was to be no personal appearances or interviews with McAloon or Kitchenware – just the usual press advertisements. The album reached No. 1’ and was received by the music press for what it essentially was - a 'filler' album: "Protest Songs fills two gaps nicely. As such, it'll do fine, thank you!" (Record Mirror) and "a mixed bag and one suspects that it's by way of being a sort of Bside to Steve McQueen". Others said of Protest Songs: � Guardian: "Genuine emotion, sex and passion" � NME: "… confirms the <strong>Sprout</strong>s as a band and Paddy as a writer… incredible" � Smash Hits: "These individual and often heart-stoppingly beautiful songs will have you captivated" � 20/20: "Every bit as accomplished as Steve McQueen and as wryly slick as From Langley Park to Memphis." Many fans had, incidentally, obtained copies of the 'Protest Demos', bootleg cassette copies from 1985 white labels, acetates and advance cassettes given out (or stolen) before the album was withdrawn from production. There were to be some definite differences, the main one being that the track Life of Surprises had been added to the album. Although the sleeve notes state that the song Dublin had been remixed, other tracks such as Pearly Gates (which had it's original title shortened) and The World Awake were remixed also during the mixing down of From Langley Park To Memphis in America. Why 'Protest Songs'? McAloon explains: "The theme of these protest songs are not as overtly political as whirly, nuclear power-type issues but I'd say that it probably coincides more with daily existence as we know it than most things we do. I think that one of the
est songs, if I can say that, is 'Til The Cows Come Home which is about Newcastle, is about the condescension you can get in coming from a provincial place and a few of the numbers of that kind and the fact the production is so sparse helps that feeling of being a very down-to-earth record. They're not protest songs as Bob Dylan or Billy Bragg would recognize them but somewhere in that field." McAloon could not write 'finger-pointing' songs, maintaining that Bob Dylan stopped writing such songs when he realized people were beginning to hide behind the cause. Protest Songs is a collection of songs which talk about what our British society has failed in providing and about how shifting generations and the media interpret our acceptance of these problems, asking, "Does it take you back to the kind of world hindsight calls the good old days?" 'Til the Cows Come Home talks of unemployment and is said by Keith Armstrong to be the best song ever written about the North East, how everything about you can offer a suitable backdrop: "cold as the beeches you comb", "You call that laughing? Wearing your death's head grin" and "aren't you a skinny kid… even the fishes are thin". Diana was an offering from the country's press, with china blue saucers, tasting of apple strudel and wearing sweet petticoats - you could eat her! They did, at least for McAloon, "stop the savagery". The album version was a much slower one to that on the "When Love Breaks Down" B-side years earlier, now rather ironic and, therefore, as fresh today as it was when it was written. Dublin tells of the divide in Ireland, of its beauty: "to build a city on such picturesque grounds, that takes some sort of flair" and it's violence: "you stay that side we'll stay here. It's far harder to keep it up." These are stories from his mother, "heady cocktail glories", "myths in less exalted forms". The album itself is an album of strong songs, not a 'produced' album and most definitely not a 'career' album, McAloon claims. In Autumn of 1989, CBS released a compilation video, including the songs Cars and Girls, Hey Manhattan!, When Love Breaks Down, Appetite, The King of Rock 'n' Roll and The Golden Calf. The video, entitled From Langley Park To Hollywood, was followed a few months later, into 1990, by a reissue of the band's debut 12", a compilation of all songs found on the first two singles and not available on any album to date. End of the Road I'm Travelling Touring and interviews are the hardest parts of being an active figure in the music scene to McAloon, mainly because you are immediately expected to do as others: write, record, interview, tour, TV work, radio sessions, music press work, videos, photo sessions - the whole thing, when all he wants to do is write songs and make records. He doesn't want the compromise involved in corny teenager magazine interviews or to be bound down by endless rehearsals and tours. But McAloon, despite a four year gap between tours and interviews to his next album, (as the run-out grooves on Langley offer "The Comeback's Underway"), he seeks consolation in the lyrics of Sondheim, in the song Putting It Together:
Page 1 and 2: Foreword MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYS
Page 3 and 4: Musically, McAloon was growing up i
Page 5 and 6: the new family home in Witton Gilbe
Page 7 and 8: The 'Sprouts', as they were becomin
Page 9 and 10: Goldberg and Hobson has known Armst
Page 11 and 12: A typical demo back then would see
Page 13 and 14: Newcastle adult comic VIZ held a sp
Page 15 and 16: or hold them up as ideals. As a con
Page 17 and 18: You're charmed by that and you get
Page 19 and 20: with the same basic arrangements as
Page 21 and 22: dropped the car but used the bike f
Page 23 and 24: McAloon was fascinated by Caulfield
Page 25 and 26: From Tiffanys to Acapulco Rolf's Th
Page 27 and 28: found that out when he found that t
Page 29 and 30: During the recording of the song, P
Page 31 and 32: Spitting Image puppet of Michael Ja
Page 33: Paddy and Wendy aptly visited Calif
Page 37 and 38: heard a record, I had no curiosity
Page 39 and 40: about the myths they create, whethe
Page 41 and 42: wanted to look at a group of contra
Page 43 and 44: centre to build a recording studio)
Page 45 and 46: confidently meet the challenge of t
Page 47 and 48: Church, where he began singing, see
Page 49 and 50: McAloon loved Webb's compositions,
Page 51 and 52: person's point of view. You can cho
Page 53 and 54: In July, the second single, If You

MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYSICS: - Prefab Sprout

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