BACK TO BASICS WEEK - WEDNESDAY

Despite a love of music that goes back as far as I can remember, I've never really had any ability on any instrument. I suppose my biggest ever success was when I was about 21 years of age spending a week learning how to play White Man In Hammersmith Palais on a Casio keyboard for one drunken performance with my flatmates very late one evening.....but anytime someone has put a guitar into my hands, I've found playing anything that resembles a tune well beyond my capabilities.

But if the truth be told, there was a two-year spell back in my early teens when I picked up the clarinet and tried to be part of the school orchestra. Now anyone who has played that instrument will know just how shocking it can sound when its done badly - the unexpected bum note that shrieks and squeals and has all the local dogs howling at the moon. I must have driven my mum, dad and two young brothers demented at times - especially living in a house that was far from the biggest and with walls that were paper-thin.

I very much associate the clarinet with jazz and be-bop, and whether my failure to master the instrument is instrumental in my views I'm unable to say.....but I cannot abide either of those musical genres. If I hear a clarinet on a record, I'll immediately lose all interest.

Except in this case.

Back in 1981, Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, the debut album by Soft Cell was rarely off my turntable. There was just something so perfect about the tunes and lyrics that appealed to a 17/18 year-old who was so desperately trying to find the secret of happiness, whether it was through sex, dancing, drinking or breaking away from the confines of what was admittedly a happy family home. Indeed, it was probably the cautionary tales of the loneliness of bedsitland as described by Marc Almond and Dave Ball that kept me at home until I was in my 20s....

Last year, I put Bedsitter into my list of all time favourite 45s, and at the time, I said it was as much for the fact that it was the single that stopped anyone labelling Soft Cell as a one-hit wonder with a cover. But in all truth, it was the third single, the closing track on the LP that has always been my favourite and the one that was heart-breakingly beautiful....especially to someone who just couldn't quite land the girl of his dreams.

As with the previous Soft Cell singles, I bought this on 12" vinyl. And I was gobsmacked when I played it for the first time to hear that the opening three and a bit minutes were dominated by a clarinet solo. My initial reaction was one of horror....I thought the song had been ruined.

But after maybe two or three more listens, I quickly realised that this solo by Dave Tofani was indeed a perfect addition to the song, making even it more of a heart-wrenching story that would bring a tear to any eye.

If this song had been around when I was learning the clarinet, then there's every chance I would have stuck at it a bit longer in an effort to master that solo.....so I suppose we should be grateful that I wasn't born 10 years later.

mp3 : Soft Cell - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (12 inch version)

And, as ever, Soft Cell didn't short-change their fans with the b-sides on the 12" singles, with a an amazing version of Fun City, recorded live in a Leeds recording studio:-

mp3 : Soft Cell - Fun City (12 inch version)

I'm playing this version of Say Hello, Wave Goodbye as I type this, and I had forgotten just how glorious the second appearance of the clarinet is....it comes about three-quarters of the way through, just before Marc sings his last few choruses......

Happy Listening.