Springtime and Suzy

A fan-made video for "Spring" by the British trio, Saint Etienne, from their debut album, Fox Base Alpha, one of my Top 10 albums. There are too many songs to select from this album and from Saint Etienne's long career (active 30 years now and still going strong).

There's no real deep thoughts or significant moments in my life surrounding this song or this album, although, released in 1990, it did feel as though it heralded a new era in music, at least British pop, after all the years of Stock-Aitken-Waterman and the "Sound of a Bright, Young Britain." To me a SAW production was always a bit like candy: Delicious in and of itself but not necessarily satisfying or soul nourishing. (Author's note: I love candy.) But that may depend on the person and the pop. Who am I to say your pop doesn't fill you up?

Instead, this song and this album are just joyous, lovely music to listen to, "Spring" and another song, "Nothing Can Stop Us Now" (later covered by, but dumbfoundingly released as a B-side, by Kylie Minogue) being particularly good examples of what Saint Etienne did then and still does now to a degree--a melding of Burt Bacharach and '60s pop songwriting with contemporary production. If I were more critical, I'd say that sometimes the results on this album could be too precious and arch, but I think the group figured that out early and moved on to making solid, beautiful, catchy, and even danceable pop songs.

I guess if anything this album prompted me to return to the music of childhood (The Supremes, Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, even Nancy Sinatra) and appreciate it for its specialness and innocence. And in the midst of a global pandemic, a little more innocence and joy in the world are definitely welcome in my world.

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Oh look! A proper video for Saint Etienne's "Nothing Can Stop Us Now." On Kylie Minogue's version, the vocals are stronger, the enunciation better, but this certainly has the same feel (even if, in this video, the lips don't always match the music).

So, on second thought, maybe there are more memories connected to this song and this album, than I originally realized. I suddenly think of Suzy, the swingin' '60s daughter of one of our next-door neighbors growing up. Susy (or Susie or Suzie, I honestly don't know) seemed exotic: Divorced with a young son, older than me, dating a soldier (I have a vague sense that he was an officer in the US Marines), Susy must have seemed scandalous to some in conservative Eastern North Carolina. She drove a red convertible--a Stingray! And she listened to bossa nova records!

I think we've established that my life has been one long, fitful affair with the exotic, the international. It is perhaps because, deep down, I feel so un-exotic, so un-international. I have tried to remedy that through travel, through choices in music and literature, by dating people of different backgrounds (whether intentionally or not but sometimes quite intentionally I am ashamed to admit), by "living abroad" in totally un-exotic Canada. (It seemed like a bold choice at the time, although Montreal would have likely been a better, if more financially crushing [50%+ income tax rate!] option.) Maybe my fascination, dare I say boyhood crush on Suzy? is one place where that began--along with my Dad's "exotic" travels in the war-obliterated Pacific and post-war China and Japan.

So a big ol' obrigado to Suzy, whose last name I can't remember either, and those wonderful bossa nova records of hers. I remember riding around in her Stingray, I remember those bossa nova horns on the records she gave us (really, Suzy, why were you giving these away?), and I remember her giving us a lot of recordings of musicals, which, surprisingly, had absolutely no effect on me because I have never been that type of gay.

Nice try, Suzy. But I give you credit for knowing your fanbase long before your fanbase knew himself.