A return to a VersionCrazy favourite, the ever wonderful Bill Nelson. It’s good to see news recently about a deluxe box set edition of Bill’s 1981 album ‘Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam’ due for release in late November. The path for the album to gain a release was far from straightforward – Bill Nelson had been signed to EMI imprint Harvest, but with the EMI/Thorn merger that took place, a cull of acts deemed surplus to requirements/the balance sheet saw an exit from EMI and plans for the album shelved. I look forward to what new insights the accompanying text in the super deluxe box set may bring to this backstory, along with the chance to hear a whole new mix of the album, courtesy of Stephen W Tayler.
Featured today however is the limited edition doublepack 7” single format of the third single to be released from that album, ‘Youth Of Nation On Fire’. This single was issued not long before the album release on standard 7” and doublepack 7” formats in the UK, with a sleeve design by Rocking Russian – who had also been responsible for the design of the previous two singles peeled from the – at that time still a way off from release – album, namely ‘Do You Dream In Colour’ in May 1980 and ‘Banal’ in March 1981. (A fourth single from the album would be released in late summer 1981 with ‘Living In My Limousine’ issued on 7” remix and 12” – the track was remixed for both 7” (edited to 3’ 40”) and 12” (extended to 4’ 20”) versions – along with a few more new tracks on the respective B sides.)
For the ‘Youth Of Nation On Fire’ single, the A side was an edit of the mix that would appear on the album – about a minute shorter, in fact. Looking at the tracklist of the forthcoming deluxe box set edition of the album, I don’t see any signs of this edit included in the track listing, sadly.
‘Youth Of Nation On Fire’ is an absolutely excellent track, uptempo, catchy, some great saxophone work in particular courtesy of Bill’s brother, Ian Nelson. Should have been a hit, but so should Bill’s other singles of the period I could easily say!
In typical Bill Nelson fashion, the value was high and not only in respect of the A side – all of the singles that Bill released during his tenure with Mercury records provided multiple extra tracks/B sides across the different formats. On this occasion there were three extra non-album tracks to be found on the doublepack 7” format.
Record One:
A: ‘Youth Of Nation On Fire’ (3’06”)
B: ‘Be My Dynamo’ (2’12”)
Record Two:
C: ‘Rooms With Brittle Views’ (3’55”)
D: ‘All My Wives Were Iron’ (1’30”)
(Timings are approximate and intended primarily as a guide to differentiate version.)
‘Be My Dynamo’ is an excellent little number, worthy of a place on the album, easily. Fast moving and with quite the propulsive whip-crack backbeat – it whizzes by in no time, over all too soon.
‘Rooms With Brittle Views’ was not exclusive to this release as it had already been issued as the A side of a 7” release by the Belgian label Les Disques du Crépuscule in February 1981. Of small note, the versions released on CD so far all seem to omit the opening kick drum beats that the 7” vinyl copies have.
Last track is the short, somewhat harsher sounding ‘All My Wives Were Iron’ – blink and you’ll miss it, built upon a heavily effected rhythmic pulse, a more downbeat piece to bookend proceedings. More of a sketch than a song, even in such a short period Bill’s lyric maps an intriguing and ambiguous narrative many others struggle to express give twice the time.
A prominent feature across all four tracks on this single is the fretless bass guitar – very nice indeed, though not overly showy.
Bill’s short but fruitful period on Mercury Records is an absolute treasure trove of inventive yet catchy art pop. A key figure in this was Dave Bates, A&R at Mercury Records who appears to have been instrumental in getting Bill signed to the label, having been given a listen to the then unreleased ’Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam’ album while both he and Bill were working on separate projects at Rockfield Studios in Wales. Chance meeting come good – I hope there’s more detail on the back story to come in the box set.