Leave Nothing to the Imagination

I never know if ‘deceptively simple’ means something simple that is actually very complicated or something that is complicated that is very simple. Also - now that I write that - I don’t know if ‘complicated’ is the correct word, perhaps it should be ‘complex’. I’d check my dictionary but it’s so big and heavy (I know what ‘big’ and ‘heavy’ mean), an old school 1,800 page Chambers job, that with the current state of my shoulder - still a bit rough from that mad cycling escapade two years back - I don’t think I could lift it off the shelf.

Anyway, where am I going with this? Is anyone still reading?

Music and Lights, a single released in 1982 by British post-disco outfit Imagination. This isn’t a trip down memory lane, well, sort of is, in the sense, I’m writing about a song I first heard 43 years ago. But very briefly, Imagination were a trio, three London lads, Leee John, Ashley Ingram and Errol Kennedy who between 1981 and 1984 released 15 singles. It was fair to say, there were overtones of sex about all of them: Body Talk, Flashback, In the Heat of the Night. I can’t say I was a massive fan at the time, didn’t dislike them, but that was the thing then, there wasn’t much choice. It was either Radio 1 or nothing, so if a record got on to the station’s playlist, then you just listened to it. On the other hand, Imagination’s performances on Top of the Pops were legendary, had me questioning my sexuality.

Jessie Stevens MBE, image © Agenda Brown of Visual Marvelry

As a side issue, a side issue before I get into the meat and potatoes of the matter, while researching this, I discovered that singer Leee John’s mum is Jessie Stevens, who came to Britain as part of the Windrush Generation in the 1950s. Born in 1927, she is still an active community leader and volunteer in Haringey, London and was awarded the MBE for her contribution in establishing the Police Liaison Committee in the 1970s. But she was also the first black woman to work at Companies House. As an accountant, that resonates with me; I remember what it was like when you could actually speak to someone at Companies House. Like, in person.

But, yeah, Music and Lights. The lyrics are nonsense (“Let me take you through a night of ecstasy / I like to hear the sound of a mystic melody”). However, as Anthony Burgess said when writing about poetry in his novel Inside Mr Enderby, “meaning doesn’t matter all that much”. So, it’s just as well that the music - never mind the lights - is absolutely stonking.

It's all glued together with a deceptively simple / complicated / complex bassline knocked out on what I assume to be a Roland TB-303. It must be, nothing else could make that pre-digital slightly out of tune squelchy pulsating rhythm. A twinkly keyboard break in the middle and towards the end, an insane bass solo. It holds up today.

However, listening to the song again recently, I fell down an internet rabbit hole and - not too far down that hole - found this. Which kind of puts a different … er, light … on Music and Lights.