Ignored Obscured Restored
Last Sunday, October 6th, the world said goodbye to drummer Ginger Baker. To learn more about him, read the New York Times obituary or watch the Beware of Mr. Baker documentary.
The SotW MUST pay tribute to such an influential and wacky rock star. My first thought was to select a song that featured one of Baker’s famous drum solos. Maybe the live version of “Toad” from Cream’s Wheels of Fire, with its 13 minute blast of drums. Nope, that’s a bit too much. Maybe another long jam, Blind Faith’s “Do What You Like.” This is another tour de force of stick work. But, nah, that’s not it either (though I suggest you listen to both on your own).
Then it hit me! Today’s SotW should be one of my favorite Cream deep cuts – “What a Bringdown”, written by Baker.
“… Bringdown” is a wild, psychedelic ride that uses unusual time signatures (5/4 to 3/4?) and has ‘60s style, surreally lysergic lyrics. It also has some interesting and innovative sonics. Felix Pappalardi (the “4th Cream member”) plays a violin bass. Jack Bruce, who was ordinarily on bass, moves to keys. Clapton layers guitars, including a spacey, high pitched wah-wah solo after the bridge and on the fade out. Baker pounds away at his kit and also plays tubular bells (listen carefully at the end). This all adds up to a recording that sounds more like early Jethro Tull than Cream.
“…Bringdown” was the last song on Cream’s last album – Goodbye (1969), making it an apropos way to acknowledge Baker’s passing.
Enjoy… until next week.
Great choice!
Excellent song.
Love the choice.
Note that the song’s main riff, including its timing, is basically Lalo Schifrin’s “Mission Impossible” riff backwards. (Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it.)
I can’t begin to unravel the lyrics, but some of the seemingly nonsense lines are actually examples of that venerable London institution, Cockney rhyming slang. The way it works is, you take a word or phrase, come up with a rhyming phrase of two or more words, and then (this is the really important part) drop the rhyming word. A good example is the classic British cop show The Sweeney, which got its title from Cockney rhyming slang for Scotland Yard’s “flying squad'”: “flying squad” = Sweeney Todd = the Sweeney. (Once you know this, the second verse of Squeeze’s “Cool For Cats” makes a lot more sense.)
Anyway, in this song, the line “Take a butcher’s at the dodgy minces of Old Bill” sounds like complete gibberish, but it unpacks as follows:
1) In rhyming slang, “look” = “butcher’s hook” = “butcher’s”. So “take a butcher’s” = take a look.
2) Dodgy minces: “Minces” is rhyming slang for eyes (eyes = mince pies). “dodgy” is just regular British slang for something unreliably or shifty. So “dodgy minces” = shifty eyes.
3) Old Bill is just regular British slang for the police.
So “Take a butcher’s at the dodgy minces of old Bill” translates to “take a look at the shifty eyes on those cops”.