SONGS THAT SAVED MY LIFE #3

After the Divine Madness compilation turned me on the music of the Magnificent Seven in 1992, i set about finding their studio albums. The U.S version of Keep Moving on cassette was the first one i had, a lucky find on a local market, followed by their 1985 swansong Mad Not Mad on cd at Christmas that year.  Listening to these albums confirmed my belief that Madness were so much more than a collection of hit singles: here were a band who belonged in the same category as Ray Davies of The Kinks, Difford and Tilbrook of Squeeze, Damon Albarn of Blur and others, great English songwriters penning 3 and 4 minute tales of everyday life. The album that really opened my mind to their genius though was their 1982 masterpiece The Rise And Fall. released a few months after their first chart-topping single and album - "House Of Fun" and Complete Madness respectively - it was a startling change of direction that confused many of their fans. Where were the upbeat, poppy, "nutty" songs? Some fans may have seen it as too grown up at the time, but that was the point: the band had been recording and touring nonstop for 3 years now, and were one of the biggest bands in the country, but they weren't being taken seriously, and wanted to shake off their "nutty boys" tag. The Rise And Fall was born out of this. The initial idea was for all seven members to write songs about their childhoods, but what came out was a meditation on growing up, mortality, the loss of innocence, social comment, depression, and urban decay (the exception being Mike Barsons' "New Delhi"). The title track was written by Suggs after a trip to the street in Liverpool where he spent part of his childhood, and his sadness at its decline. Primrose Hill concerned a recluse who spends his days watching children play, and his reflections on his own childhood. Tomorrows' Just Another Day, a Top 10 hit, was a downbeat lament from a prison cell. That Face documented lost love and regret. Baggy Trousers this was not. The obvious go to song was their transatlantic Top 10 single, "Our House", for which songwriters Cathal Smyth (aka Chas Smash) and Chris Foreman won an Ivor Novello award, and quite rightly so: childhood memories that could speak for just about anyone encpsulated in a catchy 3 and a half minute pop song. It's not just the lyrics and themes that make this album such a masterpiece though: the music was like nothing Madness had attempted before. Multilayered, grand orchestral and brass arrangements, echoes of jazz, psychedelia, and (whispers) even prog intertwined in complex rhythms and melodies, alongside the familiar influences (The Kinks "Village Green Preservation Society" is a likely candidate for a big influence here, alongside The Beatles Sgt. Pepper). Sticksman Dan Woodgates' "Sunday Morning" is the most complicated song on the album, he and bassist Mark Bedford having "tied themselves in knots trying to make the rhythm parts different". There's an element of Music Hall in the arrangements too, especially on "Mr Speaker Gets The Word" and "Calling Cards". One criticism i still hear from non-believers is that Madness write stupid pop songs that don't mean anything, ie Driving In My Car, etc, etc. My response is to play them "Blue Skinned Beast", written by saxman Lee Thompson, a damning indictment of the then current Falklands War, and Thatchers' handling of the crisis. A joke band? I think not. It took until their reunion in '92 for the band to be recognised for their talent and contribution to British music, and they are now considered elder statesman of pop. It wouldn't be until their 2009 magnum opus The Liberty Of Norton Folgate that they would top this album. For some reason it always makes me think of that transitional period of summer and autumn.