Tune Tag #93 with Gayle Ramage: Cher, Wings, Kylie Minogue, Linda Lewis, Bowie, Dire Straits, Nick Lowe, Squeeze
Launching her "Music, Movies, Stories and Mutterings" Substack 9 months ago, we're pleased to have Gayle join us for her first Tune Tag! We're in for a treat, so let's get it started!
Greetings, Gayle! Welcome to Tune Tag!
Last week, we had the pleasure of the company of of :
Next week, of will join us on The Tag!
Back to this week’s guest! Gayle also has a compulsion to create music herself, but panics at the words “self-promotion,” though now and again, she’ll quietly release songs on Bandcamp, under the moniker, The Dandy’s Boutique, and is working on a new collection of songs!
She’s also written three music posts for the Toppermost website: Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook, and Badly Drawn Boy.
Her ideal guests for popping round for a cup of tea and biscuits (she’s too working-class for dinner parties) are XTC’s Andy Partridge, British and Australian actress, Miriam Margolyes, and Scottish actor/director/singer/guitarist, Peter Capaldi.
“With my author site” (accessible by clicking here), Gayle proudly discloses, “I felt that I should only really write blog posts which are related to writing and books. This self-imposed limitation actually made me end up not writing many blog posts at all!
“So I decided to create Movies, Music, Stories and Mutterings on Substack, which would give me more freedom to write about absolutely anything I like, including books if I wanted to! That the majority of my posts are music-related helped me realize just how passionate I am about music (perhaps even more so than fiction writing).
“So far, my Substack is a mix of live-gig reviews—I use the word ‘review’ very loosely—a monthly new-to-me series where I discuss music, generally from the past that I've heard for the first time that month, and general chatter about bands I love, like XTC and Squeeze!”
Gayle’s song #1 sent to Brad: Paul McCartney & Wings, “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five,” 1973
Gayle’s rationale: I chose this as my first song because if you had to ask me which solo Beatles music I prefer, it has to be Sir Macca! I heard this song for the first time only a few years ago, but I thought it was an outstanding piece of music…from opening with a simple piano riff to that intense orchestral ending.
I love how the song just builds and builds, and that intensity just rises and rises. If you’ve seen that clip of One Hand Clapping where McCartney is singing “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five,” you can see that he really gets into the song. It’s infectious and you can’t help but sing along!
Brad’s song #1 sent to Gayle: David Bowie, “1984,” 1974
Gayle’s response: Well, I can think of one reason instantly why Brad may have selected this track. As well as both song titles being a year in the 1980s (though one written numerically, the other, er, “wordy”), another connection I can make quite quickly is that both are by British music legends.
But I’m guessing there’s more to it than that, so let me roll up my sleeves and get to work...a quick look at the people involved in the production of each song reveals one person who had a hand in both songs, Mr. Tony Visconti. Could that be the link?
Brad’s rationale: It took all of one second for me to go from McCartney’s “1985” to Bowie’s “1984”! This hour-long, NBC-TV Midnight Special U.S. appearance by Bowie was shot in October 1973 at the Marquee Club in London’s SoHo, and was the first recorded performance of the song.
A studio version of “1984/Dodo” was recorded around that time, but went unreleased until it appeared on 1989’s Sound + Vision box set. “1984” (minus the “Dodo” portion) was recorded and included on Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album, released in May 1974.
I saw that original Midnight Special (The 1980 Floor Show…it took up the entire show) in real time in October ‘73 (I was a freshman at N. Texas State University (now University of N. Texas) in Denton, just north of Dallas. The show’s audio was later released on vinyl as the Dollars in Drag bootleg (which I used to own)! This yellow 12x12 sheet was glued to the plain, white standard cardboard sleeve; thus, the jacket:
Band on the Run (August-October 1973) was recorded just a few months before Diamond Dogs’ January and February 1974. Aside from the missed-by-one-year song title, there’s also the fascinating link with longtime producer/engineer/musician, Tony Visconti!
Producer of many a Bowie album, he co-mixed Diamond Dogs (Bowie produced), and composed and conducted the strings on “1984,” while also providing the orchestrations (uncredited, for some reason) for McCartney and Wings’ Band on the Run! Bowie, with the studio recording of “1984,” featuring the Visconti strings:
Seven years later, Bowie appeared on NBC again…this time in Burbank on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. I had just moved to nearby N. Hollywood, and came oh-so-close to meeting Bowie after the 5:30pm show taping! That story’s here:
Gayle’s song #2: Dire Straits, “Money For Nothing,” 1985
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