MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYSICS: - Prefab Sprout

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But it didn't take long to take on board the opinion that his own songs meant much more to him, so much that he began to despise the compromise that he had forced upon him. So he retired to the jealous privacy of his bedroom penning songs, picturing himself as Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb and Paul McCartney rolled into one. The very thought that secret preservation would protect the 'strength' of his songs led to the self-satisfying refuge in being unknown. At the age of sixteen, in 1973, while he was still a few years from finishing school, he dreamed up the name "Prefab Sprout" as a name for his future band, which would play his songs. This name was to lie low for another four years before actually being used. Why Prefab Sprout? Well, Paddy was so enthused by names such as Grand Funk Railroad, Moby Grape and Grappled Institution going around at the time. It was, moreover, a name that couldn't give the listener a preconception of his songs in any way, thus forcing the newcomer into accepting his songs with an open mind. A year or so before school was out, he formed a band with four friends, 'Avalon', in the days when flares first made their appearance. They all lived in the area called Witton Gilbert, in the heartland of Durham County. He had begun to get impatient at being locked away unheard of and having his songs accompanied by just the guitar he'd been given by his mother that was to last him for the next twenty years. Avalon soon got together a collection of well known covers such as The Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Led Zep's Rock and Roll and The Eagles' New Kid in Town. In between these covers, lead man Paddy McAloon played his own songs, such as Marsden Rock, about a coastal beauty spot in South Tyneside and Walk On, a song about "the consolation of pop music when you're young, doing exams, listening to pop music, and ending up in your own little world". The band found themselves playing pubs and clubs around the South Tyneside and Durham region. They took over local folk singer Pete Scott's Sunday night residency at the Bay Hotel in Cullercoats, near to Whitley Bay's famous seaside resort. For a measly 40p you could enjoy an evening of Avalon's entertainment. Mind you, if it wasn't busy, they may have let you in to buy drinks (and watch the band). Providing a typically MOR evening, the band had a few 'gangs' of fans, such as 'The Whitley Bay Girlies', who followed them around the pubs and built up reasonably well over the weeks. All the time brother Martin, fuelled by his admiration of his older brother's skills, stayed side of stage and longed for the day he could play in his own band, taking up bass guitar and receiving some helpful advice from his brother along the way. Another local venue, The Corner House, in Heaton, also played host to their talents, but was to be one of their last gigs, having split and separated due to the band taking to higher education or finding jobs. With advice from concerned parents, Paddy took the road to Newcastle Polytechnic to study "heavy on the English and microscopic on the History"" Paddy left the Seminary with the opinion that he had become "quite religious, but not in a conventional way. I don't go to mass every day. I'm as cynical as anyone about organized religion, but I believe in God". By this time, his father, who fell very ill when Paddy was seventeen, had retired from his relatively short-term employment as a teacher and opened up a small garage near to
the new family home in Witton Gilbert. Paddy and Martin thrashed out covers of songs of the day with school friend Michael Salmon on drums, playing plenty of Led Zep songs and other 'rockers' in the back of a garage across the road McAloon's father's. Realizing how much of Paddy's time was spent with his music and songwriting, his mother and father showed concern that it was difficult to 'expect' a career in music, but never dissuaded him from doing what he really wanted to. The thought of spending his whole life pumping petrol at his father's garage, reading books and writing songs seemed heaven for McAloon, not caring for whether or not he had a contract with a record company. His satisfaction at that moment in time came purely from being able to write songs. McAloon knew by this time that there was little serious competition around and that his songs were damn good. He wanted to be a writer first and foremost but realized that to learn his art he'd have to hear his songs with the accompaniment of a band. It was a period of change in Paddy's life, not only moving up into College, but musically. In 1977 Paddy was at Polytechnic "becoming increasingly more interested in figures such as Picasso and James Joyce" over the punk movement. With great zeal, he would read magazines, novels and anything else he could lay his hands on. He was passionately attracted to the ways of writing than for the story. He didn't like poetry on the basis that he doesn't 'trust' it. He resigned to the fact that although he'd like to write a novel, he would never have the concentration. I a book, one single fault can tear down the whole building. Whereas in a three-minute song, even if the lyrics are not interesting in themselves or if they don't necessarily make sense on their own, if the melody or the rhymes are good, those words can be meaningful. The influence of literature and his studies of English prompted a deeper line of thought in his lyric writing. In 1977 he wrote The Golden Calf, eleven years later to become a single for Prefab Sprout, but having many of its verses removed and through the deep meaning of the song getting lost in Paddy's maturity, with an adage, "If I didn't know better, I would swear I was someone else." He also wrote Bonny at this time and admits that he finds it hard to focus on exactly what he was trying to do then. He hadn't started to single-mindedly write songs and record them at the time and on reflection didn't know what he was being influenced by. Indeed, he used to sing, "Bonny's not coming home" and in the song's release on the eventual Steve McQueen album, he opted for "Bonny don't live at home." Around the same time, he was getting bored with what was getting played on radio and this prompted a few songs, Donna Summer (playing live he used to scream, "Yowzer, Yowzer, Yowzer!", Faron Young ("Four In The Morning") and Don't Sing. A few years into his studies, Paddy formed another band, playing guitar and harmonica alongside brother 'Mart' on bass, and Michael Salmon on drums. They played the odd cover but most of their repertoire consisted of Paddy's songs. Paddy and Martin grew up with the then-current rock bands of Marc Bolan's T-Rex, The Who and Free, but Paddy also acquired a keen appreciation of the easier listening lyrical delights found in the songs of Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. A raucous three-piece, the band proved very different to the old Avalon days of high school. So here they came, at last, Prefab Sprout, after four years of hibernation, THAT
Page 1 and 2: Foreword MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYS
Page 3: Musically, McAloon was growing up i
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 and 34: Paddy and Wendy aptly visited Calif
Page 35 and 36: est songs, if I can say that, is 'T
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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