Sudden Sway - Sing Song (f-a-E-G-s-i-n-g) - 1986 - WEA
Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…
Sing Song is a song about writing a song.
More specifically, Sing Song is a song about writing a song which is the actual song you are listening to.
In other words, Sing Song is a song about writing this song, Sing Song.
Unfortunately, this song is the same song as the song Sudden Sway are currently singing about writing - they are both one and the same - and how can you start writing a song about writing a song when the original song written about the song you are writing hasn’t been written yet ? Just as worryingly, the song you are currently writing a song about can only appear once you have written the song about writing the song - so if you are not bloody careful you’ll just end up in the pub reminiscing about the song you never got around to writing.
Sudden Sway confront this admittedly tricky problem by very cleverly making the original Sing Song (whichever one that is) into a very silly pop song.
By doing this they can write a lyric of almost total nonsense which not only comments on the genius banality of the very best pop music, but also becomes the very best pop music. This means the song can basically write itself as the best way to write about total nonsense, of course, is by writing total nonsense.
In essence then, this is a song which means simultaneously absolutely nothing whatsoever but also - because silly pop music can rather ironically be the best music to utterly lose yourself within - absolutely everything important to you at that moment.
Sorry…Errr…How Many Songs Called Sing Song Are There ?
Depending upon what you want to believe, there is either just 1 song called Sing Song… or an infinite number of Sing Song’s.
What Are You Going On About ?
Remembering that this Sing Song is subtitled f-a-E-G-s-i-n-g on the record label, the really quite lovely front cover suggests this is in fact version 4 of 8 different songs called Sing Song which (according to the equally brilliant back cover) were all packaged in the same record sleeve and sent randomly to record shops. Thus, the person buying the record would have no idea which version they were buying, or indeed if they’d even heard it before.
Remembering that logically if one song exists about writing a song there must always be another song about writing a song about to be written and vice-versa, there are arguably an infinite number of Sing Song’s all consistently writing both themselves and each other for all eternity.
And herein, one supposes, lies Sudden Sway’s point :
If there is always another song about to be written about writing a song, why not write it yourself ?
And What If The Record Cover Is Lying ?
If that is the case then there is only one song called Sing Song.
This one.
So Is This Sing Song Any Good ?
Luckily, yes.
Taking notes from M’s equally spectacular Pop Muzik (which pulls the same trick as this song by taking the brilliant banality of pop music as it’s subject by writing a song of brilliant banality) it is completely and utterly fabulous.
The back cover repeats the point that brilliantly silly pop music is ironically sometimes the most meaningful stating as it does ‘Permitted Freedom Illusion : Freedom’. ie For the three minutes that a brilliant pop song allows you to immerse yourself within it, there are times when nothing else matters.
Frankly, it seems to be saying, if you don’t thrill at the sound of a grown man straining his vocal chords to order you to do such things as getting ‘busy with your busy whizzy house mouse’ and scream such words as ‘Doggedyheadsticker’ , then I would give up on this whole pop music malarkey altogether if I were you.
Were There Really 8 Sing Song’s ?
A quick run around the internet says that, yes, there really were - and they really were sent randomly to record shops in the same record sleeve. It is worth pointing out that we are not talking about 8 lazy remixes of the same song with no input from the band, but 8 independently recorded songs all with the same song title - with different producers. Adrian Sherwood did one, as did the bloke who used to produce Bucks Fizz.
This would of course have been a totally brilliant marketing exercise if thousands of people obsessively bought lots of them on the off-chance of collecting the set, making the record a bit like a Panini sticker album with that one missing bloody sticker.
Unfortunately for Sudden Sway however… they didn’t.
Either way, this does explain the equally brilliant b-side, entitled Creative Marketing In Eight Dimensions :
In fact, I am so in love with this song after a few listens, I have created this page in it’s honour where you can listen to all 8 of the different songs called Sing Song and save yourself the absolute hassle I just went through to find them.
Where Are Sudden Sway Now ?
Although other band members came and went Sudden Sway seem to be at their core Simon Childs, Pete Jostins and Michael McGuire… and sadly, nobody knows where they have gone.
They were signed to Blanco Y Negro (part of WEA) by a chap called Mike Alway who formed the label after leaving Cherry Red (he then later started el records). He describes WEA allowing him to sign Sudden Sway as ‘indulging’ him in an interview here.
It is possible that Simon played the guitar on a limited edition record made to accompany a fancy book with a print run of just 35 copies called ‘Dust, Dobros, Desert Flowers’ by famous artist Richard Long. The book and record would have cost you over six and half thousand dollars to buy it at the time - but if it is just the record you’re after, a mere 90 dollars will get you a listen these days :
http://www.editionjs.com/img/long/
Whether the Richard Long connection is true or not however, this probably isn’t Simon’s bouncy castle .
On a similar non-inflatably-bouncy art theme, it also possible that Pete played on a record called Placement and Recognition which was published by the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford :
http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?what=R&obid=801503
But again, whether or not John Simons recently tiled his wet room and kitchen floor with Bisazza glass mosaics is a bit more up for grabs.
Beyond that there is also a web design company called Sudden Sway , a really scary looking man called Michael McGuire who works at Sun Microsystems, and also quite a few internet warnings informing us politely that wind turbulance can make your trailer suddenly sway - but none of that really helps us.
The only legal Sudden Sway you’ll find on the internet is Cherry Red’s re-release of their second album ‘76 Kids Forever which is described as a ’soap opera musical’ here. However, Spacemate (the boxed album which a version of Sing Song was on) has basically disappeared and their third album Ko-Opera is only available secondhand.
Incidentally, Spacemate looks bloody brilliant - take a look at this review from Smash Hits. One of the reasons it looks so good is both that and this lovely single cover were designed by a chap called Jon Wozencroft who later went on to form Touch.
There is a Yahoo group for fans old and new of Sudden Sway if you feel the need for further investigation. All the members seem tremendously nice, and there are scans of some of the Spacemate inserts and lots of other goodies to take a look at :
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/suddensway/
Here is a short article about Sudden Sway, apparently written by the keyboardist from Scritti Politti, with a nice link to their second admittedly odd Peel Session called Hypnostroll :
And here they are, in dodgy sounding VHS glory, playing on Whistle Test. In a box :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3d7tUs7K7g
” hehe i know the guitarist, hes ma sisters dad livs in scotland” claims one of the comments below it…
Simon ? In Scotland ?
Money Update
Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : This is a bit tricky. The entire point of the exercise was, of course, for nobody to know which particular Sing Song was inside each identical cover and none I could find actually specified their contents. I will therefore just take the lowest price I can find - safe in the knowledge that Sudden Sway’s shenanigans are still being successful over 20 years after they started them : a rather magnificent 5 pounds and 54 pence.
Current Profit : 158 pounds and a single solitary penny. Which made me sing a bit.
Supporting Cast Update : Scritti Politti; Bucks Fizz; Sherwood, Adrian; Long, Richard
RSS Blog
January 7th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I had all 8 Sing Songs, but after not listening to them for 10 years I flogged them on eBay for a tidy sum. d-o-8-5-s-i-n-g was supposedly the “main” version, and the one that ended up on the album,
Spacemate is a stunning record, and long overdue some kind of re-release - not that many people would buy it.
I had an email from Mr McGuire about 18 months ago, in which he said:
There is indeed movement on the Sudden Sway front. We completed a song cycle ready for some kind of release about 3 months ago - but have now torn it up again on the grounds of mediocrity. The whole thing is currently being reworked, as is the very idea of a ‘release’ or any kind of band to go with it.
On the other hand it’s funny what kind of stuff shows up in Oxfam these days. And all the t’internets of pre-history.
Stories of old lives. Ephemeral compilations of the lived-in.
Beyond the problem of the hyperspatial, an answer to the nature of circulation after Celebrity remains to be Seen.
Which is typically obtuse
January 7th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Barmy Army was class
January 8th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I think I prefer the ‘main version’ do85sing. Though the Pistoly 77 one made me laugh too.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Wasn’t Adrian Gurvitz - ‘Classic’ the one he wrote in the ‘attic’ in similar brain scrambling/time warping - singing about the same song being sung while it’s being written - type territory?
January 10th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Contact http://www.myspace.com/suddenswayactivitymodule
for all your problem solving requirements.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
An inordinately clever band, who will be remembered for their Peel sessions, which were basically radio plays with a couple of songs attached (one had a BBC Micro programme as well, back in the days when the Beeb experimented with distributing computer programmes over the air (it was a recipe for gnocchi and an article about Florence if I remember correctly). My copy of Spacemate eventually fell to pieces and all I have left are some of the game pieces and the records, which were frequently an accessory to the overall concept of Sudden Sway. Their next record was ‘Autumn Cutback Job Lot Offer’, which was eight jingles on a seven inch single which they promoted by playing events as a human jukebox, where they would sit in a shed type thing and play the tracks that spectators requested. There might have been an LP planned but I don’t think it happened as it would have been too much like the Residents’ ‘Commercial Album’. I managed to collect quite a few SingSongs including the 12″. What you have missed out on is the whole concept that connected Sing Song and Spacemate, but I’m buggered if I can remember exactly what it was, as would probably they.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
For some reason Sudden Sway were never quite cool - the way the lyrics periodically lapsed in a kind of semi-Joycean not-quite-English probably didn’t help. I remember when Spacemate came out being surprised and baffled by how little promotion it got, either from WEA or from my friendly local independent record shop; they did put the box in the window for a while, but they didn’t even put a label on it (the window copy was blue rather than yellow, I seem to remember).
I loved ‘em (Mike or was it Pete had one of the great voices for pop music). Everything they actually released from _Spacemate_ on was a bit of a disappointment musically, but “…ReGard” and the first Peel session would make up for a *lot*.
Incidentally, does anyone know if they ever released anything after _Ko-Opera_? I’m sure I saw references to a ‘Klub Londinium’ album once…
March 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
ko-opera was the final release. klub londinium was a promotional activity around the ko-opera album ; guided tours thru london to a tape soundtrack chosen to match your personality type. i’ve read a couple of references to the fact they’ve re-formed/recorded new material/signed to Rough trade again but nothing seems to have come of it.
shame , the time seems more relevant for them than ever. p
March 12th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Anyone else remember the all night gig at The Key Theatre in Peterborough with a number of films (names of which which have escaped me now) and also Ersatz playing. I was only young at the time. This was “Jane’s Third Party” era and so pre “Regard”. Looking back, I feel honoured to have attended!
March 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
The human jukebox was part of an installation called “Home is Heavenly Springs”, which I saw at the ICA. The band represented an example of the live entertainment available in the fantasy yuppie gated commnuity “Heavenly Springs”. The installation took the form of a fake promotion for this ideal residential community. Other plywood and papier mache kiosks showed short videos representing other aspects of life in Heavenly Springs.
Klub Londinium was the best thing they ever did. It was an exercise in psychogeography in which you walked the city in someone else’s shoes. Having completed a personality assesment questionaire, you were assiged to a tour for a quite different personailty. They decided I was an Outsider, so sent me on the Hedonist tour. The cassette contained two voices, one giving directionds and factual, historical information about London, the other representing the interior monologue of the ‘raver’ driving himself to despair in pursuit of the good time that must be going on somewhere esle. The tour began at Charing Cross station and led through Soho and Mayfair, describing this history of the Crysal Rooms in Leicester Square, the location of the first strip show in London, Sheeky’s restaurant, the location of private gambling clubs, 18th century brothels, and much else. A tremendous amount of research must have gone into into the tours.
I bought the tapes for the other tours: the ‘Mystic’ personality (a satire on new-age nonsense the led around Regents Park and up Parliament hill); Materialist (through the City, St Katherines Dock and the yuppie housing in Docklands, ending in Tobacco Dock) and, the best I think, the Outsider tour, an eternal wanderer’s search for a home, through Spitalfields and Brick Lane, ending at the Geffrye Museum.
The degree of synchronisation between the taped speech in your head and what you saw in front of you was often uncanny; graffiti on the walls was read to you as you passed; an electronic tone representing the onset of a migraine kicked in as you emerged from the shadow of a building into the sunshine; the sound of footsteps following you as you walked through a long tunnel in a dodgy part of Shoreditch.
I love Sudden Sway.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
thanks for that ken , i’d have loved to have done one of those tours. i have one tape (bought off ebay) but would love to hear the other 3. any chance we could do a trade ; i have some other things that might interest you….
cheers , paul
March 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Wonderful wonderful stuff. I can’t get the b-side player to play the b-side, which is a shame as I remember it as being rather fine.
*I Am Not The Beatles Note - Sorry about that, but this has now been fixed.*
October 27th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
i know Michael McGuire
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
how’s he doing?
January 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I should add to the general cinfusion, so I will:
There was a 12″ version, just the one. It had the V8 version on the a-side, and although it pretended to have one of the other versions on the b-side, it had a completely different, slow, version of the music themes. This then crossfades into the regular b-side.
Also, I have the two tracks from a promo 12″ single MEDIA / RETAIL, one side is an ‘interview’ chaired by what sounds like Magenta DeVine with the three suddenswayers giving their answers simultaneously, and the other interviewing people on the street, with their fairly non-committal answers being ramped up into supposedly showing GREAT INTEREST.
February 1st, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Sudden Sway? Gods. I still dig out Job Lot/reGard/Spacemate/76 Kids/Ko-Opera often.
“Kev and Kath, function and data processors for Conceptat - the Idea Agency - are attending an Office Awareness weekend at the old mill by the stream…”
June 10th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I had just revisited ‘Spacemate’ last night and it rekindled my interest in ‘Sudden Sway’ matter, hence finding this page.
I never managed to get all the ‘SingSong’ versions, just 5 (thank you Record and Tape exchange)! I do remember the ‘interview ‘ 12″ mentioned by Mark G, I had spent the last, err few years, thinking it had all SingSong versions on one side!
Oh yeah… the spinach gnocchi recipe… was it a delight for the tastebuds?
Have not heard KoOpera yet. Klub Londinium sounded a blast.
June 5th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Think we will have to rely on good ‘ol Cherry Red to release Spacemate. Get those emails writ and send em on!!!!