V02-T03 The Crying Game

.....Happy Birthday, Chris Spedding!

Volume 2: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS, AREN'T WE?", track 3

• 02:39 "THE CRYING GAME" (Geoff Stephens)
• performed by Chris Spedding
• original source: LP I'M NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE RAK Records SRAK 542 (UK) Nov./80
• and my source: LP I'M NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE Fan Club FC 055 (France) 1989

.....Most people probably know this song by the remake by Boy George used in the soundtrack for the movie of the same name. This lesser known cover was made roughly halfway between the Boy George version and the original. Geoff Stephens was a songwriter aspiring to more lucrative work as a producer when Dave Berry got a number 5 hit for Decca with "THE CRYING GAME", one of Stephens' songs, in the summer of 1964 in England. At about that time Stephens and Peter Eden went to a resort town to scout musical talent. Both had a financial interest in music publisher Southern Music which had a recording facility called Iver Records. At the resort they went to see a British blues band called Cops'n'Robbers but were more impressed by a teenage friend of theirs who played during their intermission: Donovan. While Stephens and Eden went about tricking this naive Scottish runaway into contracts that it would be charitable to describe as criminal, American Brenda Lee on the US Decca label had a minor hit with "THE CRYING GAME". Although it was used as the B-side of "THANKS A LOT", which didn't crack the top 40 either, her version charted further down in its own right in January 1965.

.....Chris Spedding is a prime example of a gun for hire. Like many great guitarists (Mick Ronson, Earl Slick, etc.) he has released a number of decent but often ignored solo albums over a long period while simultaneously doing prolific studio session and concert tour work as a sideman. The work they do for others usually succeeds both commercially and critically but because they don't have great singing voices and often rely on outside material to fill out albums, they can't translate the plaudits for outside work to their solo projects even when their arrangements and playing technique are impeccable.

.....After this I decided to use the covers more judiciously. Hearing something familiar from a different perspective is something that would be inevitable in any compilation that really reflected my music collection, but it loses its impact if the listener has a reason to expect it around every corner. The next track would be something truly original.