Earth to Gordon Waller: WTF?


Peter and Gordon (right) stepping out, in happier times..?


Gordon Waller – Rosencrans Boulevard

A total curveball, this song unexpectedly leapt out at me from the end of side # 2 of the utterly excellent second volume of the Rubble compilation series (“Pop-Sike Pipe Dreams”), as I was hanging some pictures in my new room.

For whatever reason, I’ve never paid much attention to it on previous spins of the LP, trapped as it is sounding rather square amid a giddy wealth of fuzz guitar madness and dead-cert freakbeat gear, but... my god. What an extraordinary, inexplicable, misguided pop venture it is, carelessly splitting the difference between “audacious” and “utterly fucking insane”.

A few seconds intensive research reveals that Gordon Waller was one half of Beatles-affiliated lightweight pop duo Peter & Gordon, who disbanded in 1968. According to Wikipedia:

“Afterwards, Waller attempted a solo career with little success, releasing one record, ‘..and Gordon’. On this album Gordon used New York based group White Cloud featuring Teddy Wender on keyboards. He also appeared in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as Pharaoh, a performance that he reprised on the LP.”

None of which really does a lot to prepare one for ‘Rosencrans Boulevard’.

Point one is: were it not on a compilation CD of British stuff, I’d never have guessed this track had originated anywhere except from the cosmic pop wonderland of late ‘60s LA, and indeed I would be extremely surprised if it was recorded in the UK. The song opens with a swell of symphonic/mariarchi bombast worthy of a Jimmy Webb production, which is appropriate, as a swift search on AMG reveals that it is indeed a Jimmy Webb composition, although apparently not one he ever managed to turn into a hit. So, given the presence of his trademark sound, I’m assuming he arranged/produced this version of it too, although Waller's rendition doesn’t merit an entry on AMG, or in Wikipedia’s list of Webb songs.

This is a shame in a sense – I think I liked the song better back when I thought it was some absolutely bugfuck English imitation of a Jimmy Webb record, strung out as the whole thing is with an inexplicable vibe of slightly scrappy Tin Pan Alley lunacy, of some doomed pop svengali’s celestial ambitions going waaaaaay overboard, crashing like an upturned salad bowl in the midst of a record label buffet.

It’s not surprising it wasn’t a hit. The song’s various distinct sections stack up with no apparent rhyme nor reason, none of them offering much in the way of a pleasing melody, central theme or connecting framework, whilst the mood remains desperate, decadent and somewhat hysterical throughout. Even these days, you couldn’t work this one onto one of those kitsch-cool ‘60s crooner dinner party albums – it would just bum everybody the fuck out. The damn thing’s got no tune! A headscratcher for sure, ‘Rosencranz Boulevard’ seems less of an attempt to score a hit, more like some natural, unstoppable outpouring of… something.

After a few seconds of unmistakable Webbery by way of introduction, the song swiftly gives way to a kind of epic Americana travelogue reminiscent of Van Dyke Parks ‘Song Cycle’, until our protagonist finds himself drawn to Hollywood, grounded on the titular Boulevard, propelled by fate into the midst of a doomed relationship with some spectacular, yet no doubt fatally flawed and ultimately unworthy, female.

“You know I never loved her anyway, I just used her over and over”, confesses Waller in portentous, Walker-like tones, before a swift change of pace hits, stabbing strings plunging us into an arena of overwrought metaphysical hysteria worthy of ‘Scott 4’, as Gordon is wracked with guilt regarding his unsatisfactory conduct in this tempestuous liaison.

Naturally, the only thing to follow that with is a car chase, so here we go: “the girl was half crazy, the way she drove her little car”, “doing ninety in a thirty mile zone!” “And she blamed me when she got a ticket”, Gordon adds wistfully, the drama concluded.

So far, pretty fucking breathtaking actually, but it’s only then, in the song’s concluding act, that the genius/madness barricades are thoroughly breached, as Gordon recalls that “she was a stewardess, you know”, “shot down on a non-combatant mission!” For a second, I thought that might be some kind of sly Leonard Cohen-esque double entendre, but I think Jimmy & Gordon actually mean it literally, gratuitously raising the spectre of Vietnam whilst they’re about it.

Music swells to an apocalyptic crescendo, as we leave our hero, wracked with confusion, driving drunk down Rosencrans Boulevard, asking “why did I do it??”, before disappearing forever into a compressed panorama of America reduced to a chintzy recording studio funfair, never to be heard from again.

Total running time: 2 minutes 44. Take that, ‘Macarthur Park’!

Do you think perhaps if someone had just thought to approach Jimmy Webb or Gordon Waller or whoever else was at the controls here, to ask “do you want to talk about it?”, we wouldn’t have this song?

Hooray for emotional repression and it’s deranged artistic consequences.

Labels: 1960s, Gordon Waller, Jimmy Webb, pop, song reviews