2 Thackrays

[imomus]

Because he was so brilliant, and because the versions of this song on the Jake in a Box collection are such poor ones (Thackray did it much better live), I thought I'd make my own cover version of Jake Thackray's "Lah Di Dah", which I offer you below in the form of an impromptu mp3. Well, two, actually.



When I invented myself as Momus in 1984, I remember making a tape for my friend Neill, who played keyboards on my first album. On it were Thackray's One-Eyed Isaac and The Jolly Captain, which, like "Love You Till Tuesday"-period Bowie, mixed narrative and spookiness in ways I found appealingly odd. I also remember teaching myself to play the brilliant, Brechtian The Bull. The reason Thackray was an important figure to me was that he was the only British songwriter I could find who approached songs the way my French heroes -- Brassens and Brel -- did. You could hear them in Thackray the way you could hear Moliere and La Fontaine in them. But you could also hear something fascinating; the world's most tender misanthropist. Singing like a cross between Noel Coward and a Bridlington miner.

Four years after his death, just as I predicted, new generations of music lovers are greeting Thackray with "surprising upswellings of affection and admiration". Now will somebody please put the two BBC 4 Thackray documentaries aired last month up on YouTube? Or, you know, just burn me a DVD or something? I am, after all, Jake's closest living relative.

Lah Di Dah (Momus sings Jake Thackray's song; 2.6MB mp3 file, 2 mins 50 secs. For AK.)



(And here's the Spooky Weird Version.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hearing the simplicity of this makes me miss your own take on Brel and Brassens ( and a nice interpretation of his singing style). I remember Thackeray on late night TV and found him strange and annoying as a child. Now of course I realise he was great. One of a kind..

Richard

[jond.livejournal.com]

Wow. Your impression is spot on. I almost didn't believe it was you at first.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought he was suffering from spirit possession for a minute.

I remember the song from when I was young (my mother listening to Radio 4 in the kitchen).

I could't help thinking about the lyrics. I'm not convinced by this "I'll put up with this sort of thing, because I love you" theme.

Sounds like a recipe for prostate cancer and alcoholism to me.

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

wow, i very much enjoyed your versions.
just yesterday i published my new ep "shadel" here (free download):
http://polybone.net
it happens to be a premonition of your "spooky weird" lah di dah.
(i should comment on "ocky milk" in more detail. but, to be shure, for the moment just this: it's on very heavy rotation here ever since i got it, which is already a month now, or more? damn, time flies ...)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Interesting, Kai, there's something a bit Anne Laplantine-ish about that music of yours!

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

that's certainly not the worst reference. actually, when i play, i can't think about anything, but before recording, in this case, there must have been henry flynt on my mind. hm, came out diferent, again ... my older/other tracks might go from phill niblock to steven stapleton/nww, but all these are references made up after the damage was on the virtual tape ... in fact, i'm way too inept to consciously recreate anything.
but now that anne laplantine stopped doing music, there's maybe an empty niche to be refilled! but no, anne's playing is much more baroque fugue than i would be able to do.

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

i just relistened to "summerisle" (fantastic!). hm, maybe "barque fugue" isn't totally spot on ... somehow, that's how i remember her concert i heard at "zentrale randlage", and i don't have her own records.

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

"barooooque fugue" - but "bark fugue" would be a nice new genre, maybe.

[(Anonymous)]

nursery baroque?

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

lo click nursery baroque?

i wish momus & anne laplantine would do another album together.

[(Anonymous)]

Absolutely. That's a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Willy

[peacockpunk.livejournal.com]

http://www.uknova.com/details.php?id=33455

http://www.uknova.com/details.php?id=33451

The second link is the one you want, really.

Thanks for that - never heard of him before, but judging by your version of 'La Di Dah', I think I feel a phase coming on...

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

your version is adorable.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Remember you bringing him up before. Enjoyed the first version very much.

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

Excellent. How sad that his career was calculatedly destroyed by coked-up TV execs on the grounds of unsuitability while they celebrated and acquiesced to "an 80s too fascist and psycho to understand his gentle, humane 60s satire." He was superb, your versions do him honour.

[mini-snape.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for posting about him! What a great discovery.

And I love his eyebrows more than a human being should ever love eyebrows.

[eustaceplimsoll.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting this. I love Brassens, but I'd never heard of this cat. Brilliant. And at the risk of sounding obsequious, your take's great. It's funny, perhaps it's because you're consciously acting, but mimicking Thackray's voice seems to make you a little braver and more strident than normal, and the result's splendid!

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

I love the song "Isobel". It's just so funny, witty, sharp and fast. Big thumbs up. There's an ever faster mp3 live version floating around somewhere...
Isobel (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/music/clipserve/B000F0UVC2004018/1/ref=mu_sam_ra004_018/202-3555128-4096661)

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, the above song could quite possibly appeal to the Affected Provincial...? Just gut feel. Sorry for stereotyping. ;)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Of course!

[dailyrave.livejournal.com]

Hello, just found you through ubu;
I found your cover very inspiring. So inspiring, in fact, that I ran towards the nearest piano and recorded this song (although it doesn't have much to do with La Di Dah):

Three Parts (mp3) (http://www.mediafire.com/?2o11xsk67gz)

I'm starting to get into your music :)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, they've run my Top 10 Feature (http://www.ubu.com/), cool!

I like your song, but you need better vocal miking!

[dailyrave.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
It was recorded in a practice room at my college with a laptop that I just set down next to the piano, so the voice was hardly miked at all. I guess if I weren't so lazy, I would have recorded the voice and piano separately, but meh.

Oh, and the top 10 feature was pretty cool. I've been listening to the Bristol Project all day today :)

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

i want to make music too.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Saw some of the BBC 4 stuff about Thackray and am intrigued. Must get hold of some of his stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

is it you playing the guitar?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes. And there are some samples of Nazi radio call signs, woozy strings, and gender wayang chanting mixed in there too. An attempt, you might say, to reproduce in sound the sinister charm of Jake's face.

[chuckm.livejournal.com]

I like the slight flange to the reverb, expecially in the "spooky" version. I envy your ability to create such lovely textures for your songs.

Jake - Momus

[(Anonymous)]

The first time I ever heard you (a compilation cassette found in a rubbish bin, probably stolen from a car and discarded: I have a lot to thank that person for) and playing through tender pervert, the IRA song, Sexual Jealousy, Hairstyle, etc, one of the three artists I thought of was Jake Thackray (the others were Pet Shop Boys and Divine Comedy). Bloody good stuff.

Stephen Parkin (I will really have to get an account one day.)

Harry K-Tel

[(Anonymous)]

Don't think I didn't notice. The line "I hate your fucking guts" in "Harry K-Tel" has the same tune and cadence as "I love you very much" in Lah Di Dah. Shameless.