One of the best top songs of the Seventies, performed here again by the band on a Swedish television show. This is the same band that gave us "I'm Not in Love" and the immortal "Rubber Bullets".
From Wikipedia: In a BBC Radio Wales interview, Eric Stewart added: "We were crossing Wall Street in New York in a stretch limousine, celebrating the fact that we'd got in the charts with Rubber Bullets, and we'd gone across the big financial district of America there, and just as we were going across the street, Lol said 'Wall Street! The Wall Street Shuffle!' And I said 'Do the Wall Street Shuffle,' the melody, I had the melody in my head. But it was Lol, Lol's words. Wall Street Shuffle. And by that time I'd started writing more so I was getting a little bit more competent in what I was doing in, in the writing partnerships. And those things stay with you, as I was saying earlier on, if someone says a nice line to you or you hear something on radio, there's a part of your brain suddenly locks it in if it's good, and you'll never forget it."
Its been a while since I last heard that one Doug. 10CC seem to have spent their youth travelling around the world being amazed ...from Dreadlock Holiday to troubles on the Bogside (Rubber Bullets) they turned everything into songs. If they were writing those songs today would they have hits called I'm Not in Debt and The Things We Do for Nato?
ReplyDeleteThe mind boggles, but it was great to hear this old song again, so thanks for posting it Doug
LOL...Two excellent song titles, AA. You seem to posess a touch of the Ivor Novello Welsh musical affinity.
ReplyDelete"Wall Street Shufle" was one I half-forgot. Even my treasured LP album collection I've lugged about from bedrooms to garages to flats to "dirty dog " houses, et al, is now shy the "10cc" I bought in 1973--74. It was their first album released in North America I believe.
I suspect the first wife chucked it out in spite, or, more ominously, Spiny Norman has picked up my scent.
This song came to mind to me last week--revelations that JP Morgan Chase were up to their old casino-capitalist tricks in multi-billion dollar crap-table losses and a bit of damage control (and pay outs, no doubs) to Congress.
Perhaps they would have called this song "The Baghdad Deplorable" if it had come out thirty years later.
I gather from Wikipedia entry that the song had a different interpetation in Britain than in the USA. I thought "Rubber Bullets" was about the police attack on prisoners at Attica Prison in New York. (A "gift" from New York state's "straight-shooter" governor, Nelson A. Rockefeller.)
"Band member Eric Stewart recalled:
"I was amazed, but pleased that the BBC never banned the track, although they limited its airplay, because they thought it was about the ongoing Northern Ireland conflicts. In fact, it was about an Attica State Prison riot like the ones in the old James Cagney films."
—Eric Stewart, 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh
II don't know if Stewart isn't really backtracking a bit here, maybe he was thinking "Bog side" and added a patina of American references to get it passed at BBC radio. We might not ever know.
But, in 1970, I do know It was "Rocky" Rockefeller, not Mr. Cagney, who was the "Public Enemy" in that slaughter.