Candy Flip – Strawberry Fields Forever
Quick – name two songs by late 80′s chart-toppers Candy Flip. You’ve got three paragraphs to come up with an answer.
During this twitchy pursuit of Bad Cover Versions it has occurred to me that all pertinent questions can swiftly be boiled down to one, simpler, one – albeit one uttered through agonised, ragged and contorted lips: but… why? Why do this to that song/yourself/my poor sullied ears that I was forced to attack with hot knitting needles?
The general pattern of answers is thus, and the reason behind the cover depends on the career arc of the participant:
- 1st album – surprise hit single follow-up album content-provider
- 2nd album – the materialisation of the ‘we could record ourselves farting and they’ll buy it!’ realisation-moment
- 3rd album – sheer, utter contempt for audience
But as a debut song? A non-album track? Like Sylvester Stallone’s face, such slack and incoherent madness deserves closer, tentative inspection.
The Beatles‘ songs are like Shakespeare in that they’re the definitive versions: you can re-write them, or re-appropriate them, but the original versions will always be the best. You know, unless you slow down that James Brown ‘Funky Drummer’ beat that’s been used on every half-arsed hip-hop track since time immemorial and slap it on top of one of everyone’s favourites.
Candy Flip dared to reveal the true extent of pop music’s progress since 1968. Despite decades of bold innovation and exploration – punk, funk, hip-hop, cod-reggae – Candy Flip simply went with their gut and realised that what people really want to hear are the songs they are already comfortable with, but with a briefly fashionable twist.
And so they simply condensed all of this musical derring-do, all of these giant strides into the terrifying rock wilderness, by spending 20 minutes mucking around with an Atari ST and welded a lumpen baggy beat onto a song that its intended audience could either remember from their childhood or heard in their dad’s car as they got driven to swimming class on Saturday.
Even the best efforts of the video’s director fails to deliver the desired payoff. Setting the singer loose to prance around like a loon in a smoke- and flame-filled studio, encouraging the smashing up of violins into dry, tempting tinder, and draping swathes of loose-fitting man-made fibrous clothes around their pasty frames: every viewer is left left praying for something to snag on a candle-holder and suddenly become engulfed in surprisingly huge flames. We are left unsated and any hopes of neat, analogous scenes akin to the demise of once-happy memories of Strawberry Fields Forever are sadly denied.
So be thankful that everyone’s favourite chestnut-haired, perma-thumbs-aloft, monoped-fancying Scouse bass-twanger hasn’t joined George and John in the great Cavern Club in the sky, because the combined centripetal force of their unified grave-spinning would jerk the Earth firmly out of orbit and send it lurching in one ungraceful, brutal arc into the centre of the sun. All the while soundtracked by Candy Flip. Fiery death would be a merciful blessing.
A final thought on the song’s conception. Candy Flip either realised that remaking Strawberry Fields was a clever route to a guaranteed smash, or realised that here was a vital opportunity for they, the young, pristine torch-bearers of pop perfection, to improve on the original. I sincerely crave for the latter to be true with every thrusting sinew of my being.
Astonishingly, this song reached #1 in the UK and #11 in the USA.
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Oh. My. Word. Terrible cover. How insipid does his voice sound? The line “that is I think it’s not too bad” has never been more out of place. This really is that bad. Yuk.
Insipid is the word, indeed. And I’m not a violent man, but his face is supremely punchable to the nth degree.
Point of order. This is probably the greatest single of all time.
You know what? I’m not going to argue with that.
Was not a no 1 in uk!
Stu’s right, y’know.
Wikipedia says one of them went on to produce Robbie Williams. Lot to answer for, Candy Flip.
I will take Wikipedia’s word for it Re: the chart positions. The fact that one of them helped produce Robbie’s ‘Rudebox’ album actually makes things a lot more bearable, as it shows they have one hell of a sense of humour.
I popped over to the Official Charts Company website to double-check the chart position of Strawberry Fields, but was entirely distracted by an unintentionally hilarious graph tracking their success. Poor Candy Flip:
http://www.theofficialcharts.com/artist/_/candy%20flip/
Good god, that may be the single most hilarious and simultaneously poignant thing I have ever seen. What a find!
hi
Everyone I know appears to be on this diet. My relatives are all dropping pounds and swear by Somersizing. Suzanne Somers discovered this diet although seated inside a garden in a medieval French village. That tells me it should be a fantastic diet! I love France.