lundi 16 mars 2009

Clive Griffin "I'll Be Waiting" re-edit

Oh dear. Pity poor Clive Griffin. Dubiously famous for a second after singing with the pair of weepy bellows that are now Celine Dion. Backing singer for, er, Take That and Kylie. Short-lived solo career that no-one remembers, except for a few 90s house and garage crackpots. Like me.

So, poor guy. On some of his record sleeves he looked more like an Elvis impersonator than a guru of garage. This may explain why he's sporting a Phantom Of The Opera look on "I'll Be Waiting". The song has become a bit of a classic over the years, perhaps less for the vocal mix than the dub, both by Morales. A rave/Hacienda/garage classic that just won't go away, a high spot in a career of low spots. iTunes just has the one album from Clive available. Although he's still singing for cheques to this day, it seems that glory will never be his.

At least we have "I'll Be Waiting" to remember him by. You can find CD rips of it on several blogs. Finest Def Mix posted it last August. Nineties Club CD Maxi Singles followed suit a fortnight later. Neither however served up the killer dub that I found on The Love Unlimited Sound System blog. I put the vocal and dub in a blender and came up with what I think is a rather pleaant Fist fusion (here), and it's a testament to the music that I can listen to it at all, as the lyrics are poor beyond belief. Garage lyrics have never given the poet laureate cold sweats, but the priceless rhyming dictionary pap that Clive serves up here just has to be read to be believed:

Believe in forever, forever more
Keep holding on to all of our dreams
You know we can find a way and we'll find it come what may
Oh hand in hand we're strong.

Starts off badly doesn't it? It gets worse. Clive has a lady singing partner for the song. She's black. You can tell. And even if you can't tell, she and Clive and going to bludgeon you over the head with THE MESSAGE:

And maybe the moon glow will soon show
All the beauty lying beneath our skin
When you touch me in the night I know there's no black and white
Nothing's gonna keep us apart.

Tolerance, love beyond the colour of one's skin, and... trying to chart as highly as possible (don't think it worked). Watch out, here comes the chorus:

I'll be waiting, 'til the end of time
Waiting for the moment to live as one
Anticipating a much brighter day
Waiting for this heartache to end.

Yep, they just rhymed 'waiting' with 'anticipating'. You can't stoop much lower than that. I'm guessing that there's a thinly-veiled allusion to apartheid in there, but what a god awful way of going about it. It's it's not about to finish quite yet...

I'll be waiting, for the sun to shine
Shining on the darkness of confusion
What we're creating, this love is yours and mine
Turning on the light in our heart.

I especially like that line, "turning on the light in our heart". It's terrible isn't it? Imagine Nelson Mandela eating slop out of a wooden bowl, in the dark, turning on the light in his heart. For 27 years. Bless.

And maybe tomorrow, the sun
Will seem a little easier to endure
(Oh I believe)
There's no place for any tear when we lose our darkest fear
Heart to heart we're strong.

That last verse is just cack. Pretty much meaningless. Pollution. Moving swiftly on...

Let's say that salvation just takes its time
Coming oh so slowly on down the line
'Cos with dream that we create and I know it won't be late
Nothing's gonna keep us apart.

Yep, forget dodgy sentence structure and scan: remember that salvation is ever so ever so slow. Indeed it would be a few more years after the record's release before apartheid was finally dismantled, no doubt partly - and inevitably - through the force of those lyrics. The song ends off with:

And maybe someday, some way
We'll find a way, can't you feel it
Won't you hold on to me (yes I will)
We'll find the strength to carry on.

Holding on? Yeah, to a sick bag. And that inspirational message of hope at the end? It's like the report on the skateboarding duck after 30 minutes of depressing news. Personally, the fact that I 'find the strength to carry on' after all that shameless bollocks amazes me. Those lyrics are - I believe - the worst ever for any garage song in history, and that's saying something. And it's a testament to the great Morales remixes that I can wade through nonsense and still enjoy the music.

Anyway, if you want to turn on the light in your heart you can download my Clive Griffin "I'll Be Waiting (Fist fusion) here. Enjoy!

1 commentaire:

Ctelblog a dit…

Bahia Black will be reposted on ACID TED later today.

http://acidted.blogspot.com/