| Author | Message | ||
     Matthias Treml Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 98 Registered: 05-2005 |
I've been listening to various recordings and remembering lyric changes made by Robert and Grant over time. A couple I've noticed is Robert's change in People Say from "Pack up your bags, your saxophone, I'm gonna take you to Kingdom Come" in the original single to "So pack your bags, your saxophone, I'm gonna take you to Rome" Also Grant changed Love Goes On! from "The people next door got their problems They got things they can't name" on record to "The people next door got their problems They got kids they can't name" during the tour in 1999. Also, I always thought the live ending that added to Love Goes On! where they chant "Love Goes On Anyway! That's what I'm telling you! That Love Goes On!" as strange but somehow very Go-betweensian. It's done in concert on several occasions and I believe also on the Snap CD. I'm always interested when an artist changes a word or phrase in concert or later on and why they have chosen to do so. Any thoughts? Anyone else know of other lyric changes? | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 390 Registered: 04-2005 |
I always assume they (any artist) do it mostly because they get bored singing it the same way hundreds of times. But RF and GM also have a history of alternate lyrics that appear on demos, radio sessions, and such ("Casanova's Last Words," "Bye Bye Pride," etc.), so I imagine they tweaked songs over the years when they came up with lyrics they preferred. As for "Love Goes On!" live, GM's exhortations at the end were sort of like RF's "hired/tired" riffing on the live "Draining the Pool"--attempts at showmanship, I guess. Neither really worked or were necessary, but oh well--that's live performance for you. | ||
| Paul Swinford Member Username: Prema Post Number: 12 Registered: 11-2005 |
Grant, singing a live version of "Cattle and Cane", opted for the old soft shoe rather than "looking for a chance": "I recall, a boy in bigger pants, like everyone, he's learning how to dance" | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 421 Registered: 05-2005 |
Kurt, I didn't much like the hired/tired stuff when I first heard it from Robert solo a decade ago, but I got used to it over the years and came to give it a wry smile. I'm no musician, but I think I'd get pretty bored with doing the same version of the same song over and over; over the years. | ||
| Matthias Treml Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 100 Registered: 05-2005 |
The getting bored thought is possible. I think that is the reason why we see them changing the timing on certain songs (on Live in London for example) or adding a verse (I've read here that it was a Bob Dylan song) in Clouds. But I wonder when it's just one or two words (as it seems they've done on several occasions) since the initial record version. Perhaps RF thought it was too dramatic (even for him) to continue to sing the 'Kingdom Come' bit in People Say and that 'Rome' was enough to convey his intent. I mean he's been singing the Rome version at least since the 1999 acoustic tour. And maybe Grant uses the word change as a social commentary on Love Goes On about the "kids that can't name." I thought of another word swap he made recently on the DVD. Black Mule he changes "walking down a Beirut street when a car bomb blew him up" to a Baghdad street. Another revelant change. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 427 Registered: 05-2005 |
Matthias, Grant changed that line to "a London street" when they played in The Metro in Sydney a year ago. This was a couple of weeks after the London bombings. | ||
| Matthias Treml Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 102 Registered: 05-2005 |
It really illustrates what kind of world we're living in when you can change the name of the city to three different places about car bombing. And he wrote in 15-16 years ago! | ||
| Pat Boland Member Username: Pat_boland Post Number: 13 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Bob Dylan song featured at the end of 'Clouds' is 'Love minus Zero/No Limit'. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 344 Registered: 08-2004 |
There was also the line from Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone interjected with Bow Down "You'd better take that diamond ring, you better pawn it baaaaabe". | ||
| Stephen Reader Member Username: Stephen_bat__reader Post Number: 2 Registered: 08-2006 |
As far as live shows go I can clear up one thing ,I was on tour with the GB's in '85 and on most nights the line in Bye Bye Pride "He turned the fan off and went for a walk by the lights down on Shield street" was changed to a local street name. I have a couple of live board tapes where it became Queen street (Brisbane) ,Sullivan street (Adelaide ,I Think) and Acland street(Melbourne). And that what makes each live show a new experience. | ||
| Roger Griffin Member Username: Roger Post Number: 42 Registered: 11-2004 |
Then there's Robert's brief Prince period where he'd occasionally sing Head Full Of Steam with the line: "...opened the windows for the neighbours to see her swallow parts of me" and finish it off with another Dylan ref: "Go forward, Go forward now Run to her, she's your lover now" | ||
| Matthias Treml Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 106 Registered: 05-2005 |
Roger, I love Robert's various incarnations of HFOS! He made changes to that line during the 1999 tour but I cannot remember the exact line. I think it's "climb ON (or on top) of me." The one you reference is made in 1989. BTW, I love your article archive. Is there a link at this site to it? If you're an American fan, you most likely have read very few articles on GBs. You should get it added... | ||
| Roger Griffin Member Username: Roger Post Number: 43 Registered: 11-2004 |
Thanks for your comments, Matthias. Yes, I was at that 1989 gig. The Last Stand, I call it. It was brilliant. I asked Jonathan to add my site to the links page on this site a while back, but nothing happened and the links page has gone anyway. Fortunately people seem to be finding it anyway, but for those who haven't it is: http://members.ol.com.au/rgriffin/GoBetweens/index.html | ||
| Matthias Treml Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 107 Registered: 05-2005 |
Roger, I personally like reading about RF and GM's comments about the initial break-up and then learning that they played together throughout the next decade. I went to the Lloyd Cole tour where they opened up (it must have been around winter of 1992). I was so excited about the double bill from my perspective. But there was a massive snowstorm that night and the highways were paved with ice. We recklessly drove 30 miles an hour to get there but only got to see 2 songs by Grant and Robert at St. Andrews in Detroit. Anyone else there that night? I can't even remember what songs they played or if they played together on them. So it was good to read about them playing together throughout those wilderness years. I wish too that a recording of the Warm Nights tour would pop up or be released as everyone seemed to say that the live show was great with Adele and Glenn and the record is something altogether different and by some opinions worse. Anyway, it's been a great read. Are there other articles you have yet to post? | ||
| Roger Griffin Member Username: Roger Post Number: 45 Registered: 11-2004 |
Yes indeed, but they've come from all over the place and I need to sort them out and html them. One day soon... | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 516 Registered: 03-2006 |
I have to go on record as saying that I quite like it when artists mess with the lyrics of their own songs. It makes them seem more like living, breathing organic things, rather than museum pieces. And, I love Grant's summational statement at the end of the live version of "Love Goes On!"...on paper, perhaps it should be corny, but in execution, it's anything but... Having said that, Robert's interminable hired/tired rant on the life version of "Draining the Pool" is tedious and silly beyond measure. It's a little show-offy, which seems contrary to what the GBs stand for and ends up appearing more a feat of verbal dexterity than a communication of feeling. Why stop there? Why not throw in "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"? | ||
| Wilson Davey Member Username: Wilson Post Number: 61 Registered: 05-2005 |
I really love the hired tired thing ! It made me smile broadly when they did it live, and it gives RF the chance to show off in that great "campy" way of his with the raised eyebrow and limp wrist thing. I also like the way it slows the song write down before the coda. Genius ! | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 519 Registered: 03-2006 |
RF = King of Camp...Some of the faces he makes in the video for "Was There Anything I Can Do" inspire great amusement. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 462 Registered: 05-2005 |
The hired tired thing annoyed me the first time I heard it, which was at a Robert solo show. A subsequent Robert solo show and many Go-Betweens shows helped me warm to it though. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 435 Registered: 04-2005 |
He's been doing the hired/tired schtick that long? Wow...funny how something that's probably supposed to seem spontaneous is anything but. Hardin, I have to agree about his mugging during the videos--RF pretty much rescues "Right Here" and "Was There Anything" from terminal cuteness (the Grant 'n' Amanda stuff). Wait...on second thought he doesn't rescue them. Just makes them more bearable. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 464 Registered: 05-2005 |
Yeah, 1996. | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 135 Registered: 08-2004 |
Doesn't he sometimes vary it a bit by saying "I got shired"? ! I'm sure he was singing that at the Munich gig I went to last year. Like Wilson, I like it because it gives him a chance to show off and pull a few faces. The first time I heard him do it, I thought it sounded like the repetitive scatting thing Van Morrison does. Easy now, Randy, breathe deeep and slow  | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 465 Registered: 05-2005 |
"I got shired" could be a reference to Sutherland Shire in the extreme south of Sydney's boundaries. It is known to locals as "the Shire". Its beach area, Cronulla, is where there were race riots last December. Or maybe I'm reading too deeply into this. | ||
| Stephen Harris Member Username: Smh Post Number: 33 Registered: 05-2005 |
going back to the start - I think the lyrics of People Say were usually "pack your bags and your drums, I'm gonna take you till Kingdom Comes". I thought he'd changed it to saxaphone/Rome when he wasn't so close to the drummer anymore (I know it pre-dates Lindy) | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 539 Registered: 03-2006 |
Maybe RF is a Tolkien fan. | ||
| Svein Inge Saether Member Username: Springrain Post Number: 7 Registered: 08-2006 |
I think the 'sh'-sound comes from a slight speach impediment on Robert's part. I've heard this sound slip into other word, but it is most obvious on Draining the Pool. On the recorded version, you can hear it in the first verse on "evidently you've forgott(sh)en mine". RF might still be a Tolkien fan, mind you! :-) | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 491 Registered: 04-2005 |
God, I hope he's not a Tolkien fan. He would have gone into prog-rock if he was, right? I follow bands like the Go-Betweens to get away from Tolkien-type fantasy lyrics. I wondered if the "sh" thing was a regional pronounciation or something. | ||
| jerry hann Member Username: Jerry_h Post Number: 219 Registered: 07-2005 |
I could read most things but not Tolkien.I'm with you on this one Kurt the Go-betweens are the opposite of Tolkien | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 653 Registered: 03-2006 |
That makes three of us - could never get through one of them f-ing things. All the flowers and elves -it's just too much...I'd hoped RF wasn't, though he definitely is saying "shired"... What would that mean anyway? To get shagged by a hobbit? | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 509 Registered: 04-2005 |
Well, working as a pool cleaner for a rich snob probably feels about the same as getting shagged by a hobbit, so maybe that's it. |