Friday, March 03, 2017

Music Trivia: death of a Very Select Cohort


We should note the passing of a whole cohort in just the small end of this year.
Is your name Peter?  Did you release a single called You’re A Lady in 1972?  You wrote the song?  Well, the year’s not far out yet, but you’re already dead.

Peter Skellern?  His song was big at the time.  Slow, gentle, loads of sugary choir brass.  Died 17th of February, 2017.
Peter Sarstedt?  He wrote and released one too.  Big flop, though.  For that crime, apparently fated to die slightly earlier: 8th of January, 2017.

I guess Sarstedt’s legacy is more enduring though, even if his version was deservedly ignored.  Although both Peters only had 1 ½ hits, Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To, My Lovely? was bigger, and arguably more enduring and endearing.



Sarstedt had a brother called Clive, who had a British hit in 1976 as Robin Sarstedt, with My Resistance Is Low.  Before that, Robin recorded as Clive Sands.  After that, he recorded as Clive Sarstedt (all of which begs a few questions…)  In between, the Sarstedt Brothers (with Rick aboard too) released a single, Chinese Restaurant (1973).  Also sank, so leaden that I haven’t even heard it myself.

But I digress.

If you’re Peter, and you released such a single at such a time, you’re dead already.  Of a brain-related ailment.  Both these Peters did.  Shows what happens if you get too close to that confluence of events.  Forty five years later it will get you, the hideous finger of fate - for those with a skerrick of superstition.

Barely worth noting, but Wikipedia claims the Sarstedt song is a cover of the Skellern song.  It’s not.  You may wish to correct it, but what does it matter in this post-fact world that Sarstedt’s release is, by comparison, a fake?