Primal Scream . Webadelica

Star Review

Star got Single of the Month in the July 1997 issue of Vox.

The Tories may have been buried this May, but Tony Blair's 'vision thing' fails to inspire BOBBY GILLESPIE on the new PRIMAL SCREAM single. ANGUS BATEY gets to grips with the band's tad-more-revolutionary manifesto.
Star by Primal Scream

THE SONG

The second single to be taken from Primal Scream's forthcoming album, 'Vanishing Point' (see review on p104), 'Star' finds Bobby Gillespie drawing on his personal vocabulary of revolutionary socialism to sing the praises of those he feels are "stars" because they've fought battles for equality and (ustice. Inspired not lust by historical events but by the example of his trade unionist father, 'Star' speaks about the way individual people can help make massive changes.

Partly a response to what Bobby sees as unadventurous and unambitious lyrics in much of today's rock music, 'Star' unselfconsciously fits into a black music tradition of empowering, euphoric soul.

"I don't think the lyrics in most rock music are very good, generally," says Bobby, "Whereas rap records are often loads better. Like on the first Nas album, there's a lyric that goes "I don't sleep, 'cos sleep is the cousin of death". That's fuckin' brilliant. I liked Kurt Cobain's lyrics; "Distill the life that's inside of me/Sit and drink pennyroyal tea" - women used to take that to try to help them have abortions. That's a great metaphor, a great image. How good is that? But it's much too easy these days. Nobody's got anything to say apart from the rap boys.

"There's a tradition in black music for uplifting songs with a message. You can move to it, you can dance to it, but there's a fucking militant message that's coming out as well. And it's always a collective thing: most rock songs seem to be self-centred. It goes right back to Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley - it was revolutionary music, but with a revolutionary message. I don't know if it's a sub- versive song. I'm a punk rocker, me, and it seems like a punk thing to do. It's an affirmative, uplifting song.

"'Star' was written last year. I'd been reading a lot of books like Soledad Brother by George Jackson and Seize The Time by Bobby Seale. And I'd always wanted to write a song about equal rights. I'm not trying to write a black song, I'm trying to write a socialist song. A rebel song."

THE RECORDING

As well as the regular Scream ensemble, the sessions which prod- uced 'Star' also involved the Memphis Horns and Augustus Pablo.

"It's Kingston meets Memphis in Glasgow!" laughs Gillespie. "We had the tune more or less recorded, then we added their bits on it afterwards. It happened over the space of a couple of weeks. We built it up as a groove based around these sort of starry, astral sounds that you can hear in the chorus. So we had the bare bones of the song ready before Pablo or the Horns came down.

"Pablo was perfect. He was very intense, very soulful: a bit shy. He lust came in and did it. He listened to the song a few times, then he said he was ready, did a take, and it was lovely. But he said he wanted to do one more, and afterwards he said: 'That's it!', and he was right. He knew. That was a great day. When he came down he didn't want to play along to the the backing track, he wanted us to sing and play it with him. So I sang, Duffy played piano and Andy played guitar, and we laid that down live with him.

"Marco (Nelson, of the Young Disciples) had already put the bass down, but when Pablo came down we phoned him to try to get him down to the studio as well. He was in Elephant & Castle in his car, he's got this old Mercedes the same as Bob Marley had. He was: "I'm coming! I'm coming!" but he got hit by a fuckin' bus or something. So he didn't make it 'cos he was in a car crash.

"We worked with the Memphis Horns (Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love) on the last album, and they (ust called up because they were in London and they wondered if we needed them to do anything. So we said: 'Yeah, come down!', all excited, then we realised: 'Shit! What are they gonna do?'.

"Someone thought of 'Star' and they just sat in and played. These guys played on the old Otis Redding records and Aretha Franklin records - you don't get any better than that. They're great players, and great people too."

Originally Appeared in July 1997 issue of Vox.
Copyright © Vox.

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