MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYSICS: - Prefab Sprout

James Bolero, Elvis starts off as a baby dangling on his mother's knee and ends up a
monster, not half as glorious as he thinks he is, who gets shot in the back.
Moondog is an account of Elvis' funeral. McAloon thinks back and refuses to go along
with the orthodox view that he was great when he was younger and then it all went
wrong: "I actually grew to like American Trilogy, I Just Can't Help Believing. I like
Always on My Mind. I even like Pork Salad Annie and some of the Vegas things." In
Moondog, Presley ("The once and future King") is dead and looking down from the Moon,
"beyond the Colonel's arms", waiting for his next life, his spiritual life; either that, or
actually making his comeback gig on the moon itself, a dream already held by Thomas
Dolby.
Scarlet Nights is a departure from the more spiritual accents covered here, being a song
about death and merely wishing you could have your time over again.
In the McAloon composition One of the Broken, he has God provide the narration. Not
satisfied with this, he pens songs written for the Devil to sing. Michael is about the Devil
thinking how he missed out on a great career opportunity when he was kicked out of
Heaven, asking Michael the Archangel (who, in Catholic theology sits at God's right hand)
if he can put in a good word to come back. Likewise, in Mercy, the Devil begs forgiveness
in a way, musically, that will be received better by the man upstairs.
During the Gulf War, McAloon was writing songs which dealt with subjects such as
despair and world disorder, offering hope and faith where the great world powers'
political and military controls couldn't. He wrote a collection of songs about the healing
powers that music has, entitled Let's Change the World With Music. Just after the Gulf
War ended he wrote The Sound of Crying, a pursuance to answers of questions raised by
the helpless.
His songwriting was becoming more focussed and, he claims, "despite what I've said
before, I'm probably even less bothered than ever about commercial and artistic
constraints. If I like the idea, I'll follow it through, no matter how strange it is. I don't want
to turn into a boring, confessional singer-songwriter. I'm still attracted to the bizarre. It's
just a question of being crafty, so I can keep the record company happy."
1991 was a year of triumph in many ways for McAloon. Being hailed as one of the most
celebrated conventional songwriters of this age, he was invited into two documentaries on
songwriting which were broadcast on Radio One.
The Sprouts' first hit single was being covered by The Zombies on their album New
World, with a shortened title, Love Breaks Down - a fairly faithful version to the original.
In July, Kitchenware Records received a telephone call from Ireland's RTE, inviting
Paddy to sing one of his songs on a show, An Eye To The Music. They had plans of Paddy
singing with their thirty-piece orchestra. Phil Mitchell at Kitchenware asked them who
else was involved and Jimmy Webb's name was mentioned. When Mitchell called back, he
asked if Jimmy Webb would do a duet with Paddy, a long-time admirer of Webb's works.
RTE checked and said "Yes". They agreed to sing the Webb composition The
Highwayman, originally a hit in 1974, and a song about reincarnation. McAloon tripped
to Ireland with brother Martin and managed to spend some time with Webb offstage, who
offered some great rock 'n' roll stories to McAloon's excitement.