Defend The Indefensible : John Miles

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Reached number 3 in the chart of Sunday April 10th 1976. A moribund top 30 graced by crap like Brotherhood of Man, Hank Mizell, Guys and Dolls, The Eagles and Gallagher and Lyle, 3 Beatles reissues, a Drifters reissue, and bottom of the barrel stuff from The Bay City Rollers and veterans Marmalade. Sutherland Brothers and Quiver, C.W McCall and Peters and Lee lurk ominously between 30 and 40.

Actually there's also a few cracking tracks on the rise as well - a sign of 76's last hurrah before *you know what* - Sheer Elegance's 'Life Is Too Short Girl' (#29), Silver Convention's 'Get Up and Boogie' (#26), and Tina Charles's future number one 'I Love To Love'. The Glitter Band's underrated 'People Like You, People Like Me' is also around fall 5 places to number 15.

So - 'Music'. Pompousness that makes Bohemian Rhapsody sound like the Cockney Rejects, horrid quasi-classical piano curlicues, a vomit-inducing 'rock' section which sound like what is is - 57 year old session men clock-watching until the next tea break And *these* lyrics : (Readers of a nervous disposition avert your eyes now)

**Music was my first love
And it will be my last,
Music of the future
And music of the past.

To live without my music
Would be impossible to do,
In this world of troubles
My music pulls me through.**

The sobering sight of this eternally middle-aged, fat-assed Geordie becoming *at one with his music* as he communes with his piano in the final bars of this piece of shit is the one (and only) reason why...PUNK.HAD.TO.HAPPEN.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll download it immediately C!

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

**is also around fall 5 places to number 15.**

Uh? : **is also around falling 5 places to number 15**

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw him last (end of) summer, playing an outdoor festival in South Shields. It was a sort of religious fest/benefit/charity thing, not that well attended, as these things end up being...
He had more hits than I thought...

-- mark grout (mark.grou...) (webmail), February 24th, 2004. (link)

(From the 'Defend the indefensible : Robert Miles thread, but now seems a better place for this. I did go on to say "Balls. That's John Miles.")

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

haha 'Music' is way better than ALL OF PUNK PUT TOGETHER. How do you think this board got its name??? [/slight exaggeration]

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Tico - also download Cockney Rebels 'Sebastian' for *good* 70's pomp comparison purposes! ("Your view of society screws up my mind/like you'll never know")

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I already have Bo Rap for good 70s pomp Doc!

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

God! I read that as "Cockney Rejects' sebastian"

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 March 2004 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Great song. Absolutely great.
Musical ambitions are always a good thing.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 4 March 2004 13:02 (twenty-one years ago)

"Next thing ya know, this record'll swing, and then where will we be?"
"Yeeeeaah..."

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 4 March 2004 13:08 (twenty-one years ago)

OK I downloaded it and it is pretty awful. No defense from me.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 4 March 2004 13:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Get 'Sebastian' Tico!

Jeff - what's that from? It's bugging me.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 4 March 2004 13:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Stan Freberg, aint it?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 March 2004 13:33 (twenty-one years ago)

"The old Payola roll blues", i'm pretty sure it is...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 March 2004 13:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Correct, mark

It sort of said in a better way I post I typed and then scrapped. I think my point was you can't defend John Miles from a punk perspective, since the things that are 'good' about it (and I'd stop short of saying it's a 'good' record overall because it doesn't quite succeed on its own terms) are probably the exact same things you take it to task for being.

(or what Geir said)

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 4 March 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Let Me add that everything else I've heard by John Miles sounds like a boring cross-in-between Billy Joel, Barry Manilow and Mariah Carey. That one song seems to remain his only great moment.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 4 March 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

see also David Fanshawe's "African Sanctus" (1977)

(x-post)

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 4 March 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

ah we have a David Fanshawe fan here!!!! i can say with pleasure that i've tracked down the Fanshawe LP (not that one) i was looking for in another thread a few months ago ... what i've heard of African Sanctus i like a lot.

"Music" is the type of song i like to defend but not even i can find anything worth salvaging about it. there are so many other songs of the time which, while nothing special in themselves, are much more listenable than "Music" if you think of them purely as period pieces, even such things as Kiki Dee's "Loving and Free" and the Sutherland Brothers and Quiver's "Arms of Mary". but then they're just straightforward MOR songs without any of Miles' unbearable meaning-of-life schtick ...

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, it's the 'meaning of life schtick' that pushes this waaay over the edge of what's stomachable.

I like Kiki very much.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 5 March 2004 07:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Re John Miles' "Music" I dont like it: dull (imo) Elton John/Billy Joel thing, probably cashing in on Bohemian Rhapsody's structure. The funny part of the song (for UK TV viewers), is where it suddenly lapses into the Blake's Seven theme.

― Jez (Jez), Friday, 5 March 2004 11:38 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

wheres the download Link?

― Maurice Pape, Saturday, 15 October 2005 08:39 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, "Music" is terrible. Oddly enough, however, it was recorded before Blake's Seven was but a twinkle in Terry Nation's eye. I hope John Miles claimed royalties.
The big blustering ending always reminds me of the recently-discussed-round-here Liverpool Express' "Every Man Must Have A Dream"; another ultra-pompous pop number from the mid-70s, but with that resigned "oh yeah" bit to drag you back down to earth.

― harvey.w (harvey.w), Saturday, 15 October 2005 09:37 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

although I can't find any references online, I thought that Miles himself had "borrowed" from Rachmaninoff for the instrumental part of "Music". Has anyone else heard this?

― Grandpont Genie, Monday, 21 January 2008 15:17 (seventeen years ago)

Can't really see it; the section in question is a bit of a Rachmaninov pastiche but I can't hear any direct lifts.

The question is whether Jeff Wayne heard the penultimate uptempo section before embarking on War Of The Worlds...

― Dingbod Kesterson, Monday, 21 January 2008 15:20 (seventeen years ago)

thirteen years pass...

'Music was my first love'. RIP John Miles https://t.co/trfjJdD9mp
— Dave Morton (@DaveSMorton) December 6, 2021

― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Monday, 6 December 2021 16:19 (three years ago)

Pretty irreverent opening post from Dr C!

― When Smeato Met Moaty (Tom D.), Monday, 6 December 2021 16:21 (three years ago)

Great post from Dr C - sets out clearly and acutely the (mostly) depressing landscape of 1976 for the singles market in a couple of sentences.

Hope he’s well and still plugging away on the London pub circuit somewhere post-Bull & Gate.

― Luna Schlosser, Monday, 6 December 2021 17:48 (three years ago)

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Defend The Indefensible : John Miles - "Music"