Roxy Music - Siren
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 24.10.1975
Love is a drug, and love is also a cure for loneliness and for sadness. It can be hard and painful, and it can feel like the most right thing in the world.
Bryan Ferry, frontman of the rock band "Roxy Music", sang of love as his drug of choice on the band's fifth album, "Siren", released on October 24, 1975.
Ferry was born into a working-class family in Washington, County Durham. As a boy he worked as a paperboy, and with the money he earned he bought jazz records.
An art student at Newcastle University, Ferry played at the same time in the bands "Banshees", "City Blues" and "Gas Board", where he played alongside Graham Simpson and John Porter, with whom he would later collaborate in "Roxy Music".
He then moved to London, where he taught ceramics, but didn't stick with it because of his love of music, and left teaching to focus on forming a band. Even before that, Ferry had auditioned as a singer for the progressive rock band "King Crimson" as a potential replacement for Greg Lake, but Robert Fripp and Pete Sinfield felt his voice wasn't right for them. They were nevertheless impressed, and passed his name to EG Records so that it would develop and sign the musician they considered so full of potential.
Ferry placed an ad in a newspaper saying he was looking for a keyboard player to collaborate with him and with Graham Simpson (bass guitar), whom he had known since his days as an art student in Newcastle.
The ad was answered by Andy Mackay, who in fact played oboe and saxophone. Once accepted, Mackay recommended a fellow who, although not a musician, knew how to operate a synthesizer: Brian Eno. Mackay and Eno had known each other since their days at the University of Reading and shared a love of the avant-garde and electronic music (Eno would later collaborate with Robert Fripp of "King Crimson" as well).
Mackay suggested that Eno join the new band, at first as a technical adviser and later as a full member.
Guitarist Roger Bunn and drummer Dexter Lloyd (replaced by Paul Thompson a year later) completed the band's initial lineup. It was originally called "Roxy", a name chosen as a homage to cinemas and dance halls, combined with the word rock.
When it emerged that a band with exactly that name already existed in the US, the band added the word Music.
Shortly before the band's first album was recorded, guitarist Phil Manzanera joined.
Manzanera, who spent his childhood in Latin America (Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba), drew great inspiration from Latin music. He learned to play Spanish guitar and played Cuban folk music, and then moved on to rock and roll while learning to play the electric guitar.
Despite the different backgrounds that Manzanera, Mackay, Ferry and Eno came from, they were united by a shared love for the band "The Velvet Underground", something that comes across clearly in the music "Roxy Music" created: rock that blended gentle classical influences with experimental music featuring Eno's synthesizer and special effects, bridging pop music and high art.
Despite Eno's avant-garde leanings, "Roxy Music" succeeded commercially even in its early days, with UK hit singles including "Virginia Plain" at No. 4, "Pyjamarama" at No. 10, "Street Life" at No. 9 and "All I Want Is You" at No. 12, even though some were released separately from the albums, so that all of its first four albums sold relatively well for a band with an experimental statement to make.
It should be noted that Eno left "Roxy Music" shortly after the tour for the second album, "For Your Pleasure". Bassist John Gustafson joined for the third album, "Stranded", along with Eno's replacement, the 18-year-old multi-instrumentalist Eddie Jobson (formerly of "Curved Air").
While on the first two albums Bryan Ferry was the sole writer, on the third and fourth albums Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay joined the list of writers from time to time.
What had been a trickle became a fruitful collaboration on the fifth album, "Siren", on which Manzanera, Mackay and Jobson contributed to the writing alongside Ferry.
This is the album that produced the band's only US Top 40 hit up to that point, "Love Is the Drug". Saxophonist Andy Mackay wrote the song's basic groove while playing his electric piano.
After Mackay's foundation, shaped by church music, the band gathered in the studio to hammer the song into shape, with Ferry and drummer Paul Thompson pushing it to a faster tempo, and Ferry drawing inspiration for the opening lyrics from a Trinidadian friend who took life as it came.
Mackay gave great credit to producer Chris Thomas for the success of "Love Is the Drug", thanks to his ability to get the band members to work for hours on their parts in the song.
After hearing early versions of Mackay's chord sequence, Ferry wrote the lyrics at his home in Holland Park. He stated: "The image I had in mind for the song was of a young guy getting into his car and driving fast into the city, looking for some action in a club."
In the filmed television performance of "Love Is the Drug", Ferry wears
a G.I. Joe uniform and a black eye patch over his right eye. While most fans assumed the patch was a fashion statement, Ferry confirmed to "The Wall Street Journal" that he was suffering from an eye injury.
"The day before the recording, I was sent to the hospital to have my eye checked. I wasn't paying attention and walked into a door. I remember thinking, 'God, we have to do a television show.' Which we did, despite the state of my eye. In the video, if you look closely, you can see a bandage with a dressing underneath. But the black patch looked good."
One of the last songs completed for the album was the second single, "Both Ends Burning", a song that reflected the heavy pressure the band was under from touring while recording the album. John Gustafson's bass playing was based on the bass part of "Dancing in the Street" by "Martha and the Vandellas".
Like all the poetically moving lyrics of "Roxy Music", "She Sells" is full of wordplay and innuendo. It is not clear who the character is here: a real-estate agent? A tailor who does alterations? A table dancer in a club? A dealer in stimulants? A collector of Chinese ceramics? An Asian escort? Or perhaps all of them at once. In any case, it can always be summed up as a fantasy running wild in the feverish mind of Bryan Ferry.
Ferry wrote the lyrics to "Nightingale" deliberately about the nightingale. His choice of this particular bird was no accident. Ferry was clearly familiar with the many books written about the nightingale, which inspired him for this song, as well as with the comparison between the nightingale's song and a singer's, and with the way the nightingale helps the singer get through the night together.
The album's success opened the door to international success across the ocean in the US, but just then the band members, probably because of the workload, decided to take a break that lasted until they returned to record "Manifesto" in 1978, and the American train went on its way without them.
The influence of "Roxy Music" on music was far-reaching, touching on the development of electronic music, punk rock, disco and new wave. Bands such as "Madness", "Siouxsie and the Banshees", "Duran Duran", "The Smiths" and "Depeche Mode", the producer Nile Rodgers ("Chic") and others have named the band as part of the inspiration for the music they made.
The cover of "Siren", photographed by Graham Hughes, shows Bryan Ferry's then girlfriend, the model Jerry Hall, leaning over rocks in the Anglesey area.
Hughes took sketches produced by the fashion designer Anthony Price, who photographed Hall in several poses. The inspiration for the shoot came to Ferry after he watched a television documentary about lava flows and rock formations in the Anglesey area.
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