MY MOST LOVED ALBUMS - Mott by Mott The Hoople - 1973

 

Throughout his career David Bowie was extraordinarily generous towards musicians who fell on hard times. Mott The Hoople, were a band popular with the music press, who just could not break through into mainstream success. Bowie heard they were thinking of packing it in. At the height of 'Ziggy mania' he stepped in and offered to give them one of his songs and to produce them. The song he gave them was All The Young Dudes, one of Bowie's best songs from this or any period. Because of the Bowie connection, and because it was a classic song, it was a hit, peaking at No 3. Bowie wanted to give them another song as a follow up Drive In Saturday. Mott The Hoople turned it down, because they wanted to write a hit of their own. In 1973 they released Honnaloochie Boogie from this album Mott, which peaked at No 12, which was the beginning of a short run of punchy hits climaxing with Roll Away The Stone.

Ian Hunter has a distinctive vocal delivery, a unique mix of Dylan's muscular inflections, with a louche campy, even occasionally fey insouciance. Plus he has some powerful pipes behind it.  Fully utilising that voice, makes his lyrics all the more telling. What distinguishes Mott, and makes it such a great album is that it has ambition and a hard earned confidence and swagger. Touched briefly by the genius hand of Bowie, Mott The Hoople soared to an altogether higher level. The quality of Ian Hunter's songwriting on Mott is brilliantly evocative. Conveying the human costs of being a working band touring the concert circuit. I don't think anyone else has quite captured that so vividly in song.

The album opener - All The Way From Memphis lays out the territory the album is going to explore. That Hunter had picked up the baton of rock'n'roll, and run with it all the way from its source in Elvis and Memphis.

Forgot my six-string razor hit the sky
Half way to Memphis 'fore I realized
Well I rang the information my axe was cold
They said she rides the train to oreoles

Now it's a mighty long way down the dusty trail
And the sun burns hot on the cold steel rails
'n I look like a bum 'n I crawl like a snail
All the way from Memphis

And a later verse gives you the sense of the journey the band has been on to get this far. and how easily all this fame could vanish.

Yeah it's a mighty long way down rock 'n' roll
From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood bowl
'n you climb up the mountains 'n you fall down the holes
All the way from Memphis

On The Ballad of Mott The Hoople , Hunter produces a melancholic song of lyrical regret for what they've gained and lost from all the fruitless years spent chasing the tail of rock 'n' roll success. Here they are, having reached the height of their fame and he's reflecting on the travails they endured in order to get here, and writing a song like this.

I changed my name in search of fame
To find the midas touch
Oh I wish I'd never wanted then
What I want now twice as much
We crossed the mighty oceans
And we had a few divides
But we never crossed emotion
For we felt too much inside

You know all the tales we tell
You know the band so well
Still I feel, somehow, we let you down
We went off somewhere on the way
And now I see we have to pay
The rock'n'roll circus is in town

Buffin lost his child-like dreams
And Mick lost his guitar
And Verden grew a line or two
And Overend's just a rock'n'roll star
Behind these shades the visions fade
As I learn a thing or two
Oh but if I had my time again
You all know just what I'd do

Rock'n'roll's a loser's game
It mesmerizes and I can't explain
The reasons for the sights and for the sounds
We went off somewhere on the way
And now I see we have to pay
The rock'n'roll circus is in town

So rock'n'roll's a loser's game
It mesmerizes and I can't explain
The reasons for the sights and for the sounds
The greasepaint still sticks to my face
So what the hell, I can't erase
The rock'n'roll feeling from my mind.

The final song on the album I Wish I was Your Mother, is a heartfelt song on the costs to family life, a love life, and to a sense of belonging to anywhere that's long lasting and meaningful.

I scream at you for sharing
And I curse you just for caring
I hate the clothes you're wearing, they're so pretty
And I tell you not to see me
And I tell you not to feel me
And I make your life a drag, it's such a pity
And I watch your warm glow palin'
And I watch your sparkle fadin'
As you realise you're failin', 'cause you're so good

No, I don't mean to upset you
But there's so much crime to get through
If only I could make it easier then I would

Oh, I wish I was your mother
I wish I'd been your father
And then I would have seen you
Would have been you as a child
Played houses with your sisters
And wrestled with all your brothers
And then who knows
I might have felt a family for a while

It's no use me pretendin'
You give and I do the spendin'
Is there a happy ending? I don't think so
'Cause even if we make it
I'll be too far out to take it
You'll have to try and shake it from my head

Oh, I wish I was your mother
I wish I'd been your father
And then I would have seen you
Would have been you as a child
Played houses with your sisters
And wrestled with all your brothers
And then who knows
I might have felt a family for a while.

I'm quoting song lyrics at length because these really are finely wrought examples of the popular song genre, poetic reflections, putting fame on one side, of the unseen debits of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. And they perfectly demonstrate why Bowie chose to do what he did, because Ian Hunter on Mott proved he was a songwriter of quite outstanding ability. Its why Mott has become one of My Most Loved Albums, because its  lyrics emotionally gets to me every time.