Friday, December 01, 2006

"Living Without You" / The Alan Price Set

Every fan girl needs a melancholy break-up song to moon over, and this is mine. It's from the 1967 album A Price On His Head, and if you look at the vinyl LP you can see how often I knelt on my dorm room floor beside my pack-n-play stereo to set the needle down on this particular track and no other. (Ah, you youngsters with your CDs and iPods will never know the sweet joy of finding that hiss and groove.) For about a year, it was the first song I played every morning upon waking up; I'd sigh deeply, swipe away a few tears, swallow the lump in my throat, and then drag myself off to another morose day of being a college student.

I can't remember what boyfriend I was longing for at the time; most likely it was Alan Price himself. After I saw him in the 1973 film O Lucky Man! -- he not only wrote and performed the brilliant soundtrack, he had a sizeable role in the film -- I was a Fan Obsessed: I spent the next two years tracking down every album I could find to fill in the gap since he was the original Animals' organist. Every record store I went into required two ritual stops -- one at the K bin for the Kinks, then one at the P bin for Alan Price, hoping I'd find him somewhere in between Alan Parsons and John Prine. Ah, life had a purpose in those days.

Randy Newman wrote this song; Alan covered several early Newman songs -- often the definitive versions, if you ask me. I've heard Randy sing this one: nice try but no cigar. Though the Alan Price Set had a killer horn section, this track is just piano and vocals, and Alan's piano playing is as deft as Randy's -- but it's his vocals that really knock this one out of the park. Like his old bandmate Eric Burdon, Alan Price has a searing voice, velvety and warm as Scotch whiskey, with a rough edge like fog hanging over the Newcastle docks; the fact that Eric got all the lead vocals in the Animals was a crying shame.

The first lines paint you into the scene: "The milk truck pulls the sun up / And the paper hits the door / And the subway shakes my floor / And I think about you," and the way his voice falls miserably on that last line is just perfect; here's another day, and you wake up happy for a moment -- until you remember, and it's all downhill from there. A little snarl of self-pity and resentment creeps in after that: "Everyone's got something / They're out trying to get some more / They got something to get up for-- / Well, I ain't about to."

Then you get to the chorus, where the lyrics numbly rehearse over and over "It's soo hard / It's so-o-o hard / Yes, it's so hard / Living without you," and every repeated "hard" quavers with a little more anger and pain and loss and hurt. By the time Alan's voice rasps on the final "you" -- jeez, Alan, stop moping; I'm right here, and you can have me.

I still have the odd day when I want to wallow in melancholy. Today is one of those days. And, hey, this song still works like a charm -- I heartily recommend it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I discovered Alan Price the same way as you, I saw "O Lucky Man!", twice in one session, next day bought the soundtrack, and then, totally amazed with Alan Price, his band, his accent and his cloth cap, worked my way backwards.

I already knew the Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear song, and the flip side, Tickle Me, which was a substantial hit in Australia,

I first heard this song on The Price is Right LP which was the first American import record i ever bought!

I remember exactly who I dedicated this record to. My FTL (First True Love) She and I split up seemingly in the same month as this record came into my life.There are plenty of wallowing songs on this album, Living Without You is only one of many,but it is the best one

Thanks for paying tribute to Alan Price, who, I don't think ever really topped his early records...and believe me, I've listened to all of his records trying to find the spark

I have only just discovered your blog, and you have great taste...and are one heck of a good writer...Thanks for that too

Big Ern xxx

Melbourne Australia

Holly A Hughes said...

Glad you found your way here, Ern. Any Alan Price fan is welcome, that's for sure!

Unknown said...

Нi. O, lucky man is one of the best albums on my list. Alan Price is a great musician.

Bob said...

Found my way here after Googling the lyrics to this song. I wasn't familiar with this cover version of the song, but I'll have to give this one a listen. As an aside, it's nice to see that you're still posting on this blog 15 years after this post, albeit infrequently.

I'd recommend listening to the Nilsson Sings Newman album for a lovely rendition of this song, along with lots of other great Randy Newman songs.

Holly A Hughes said...

Oh, yes, Nilsson sings Newman is a treasure! Harry Nilsson is another musical obsession of mine.