This is the album, not the song. That can be found, of course, on Saint Julian. World Shut Your Mouth marked Julian Cole’s transition from Teardrop Explodes pin -up,to eccentric solo artist. And there are a couple of would -be TE tracks on here (Pussyface’ and ‘Metranil Vavin’) but in the main, it’s Cope flying alone.
All Cope albums are, in my opinion, underrated. He has one of the most beautiful voices in pop, ever, and a philosophical nature to explore esoteric pathways. He’s a sweetheart too, but never wanted to be cookie cutter famous- he’s far too good for that, and too contrary. I love the bones of him.
The eighties music scene, in the main, was populated by idiocy: shiny, vacuous puppets who pouted in lip gloss and sang about such utterly epoch- shattering matters as “rocking the house” and “lovin'” you “all night long”. Quite a claim, when viagara wasn’t available on prescription at that time. There’s nothing wrong with silly lyrics per se, but for a singer who’d referenced both Howard Hughes and Leila Khaled, that was never going to be an option.
Kate St John, the famous oboe player, is the album’s secret weapon, I think. She anchors the record in a particularly English melancholy that’s absolutely gorgeous. I see green fields and tors, the stone circles Cope has written extensively about, and a sense of centre. It feels atavistic, calm, pre-Brexit. It’s antithetical to the chaos and anarchy of Gazelle Twin, who mines a similar idyllic landscape, albeit with different results. This is no rural horror, it’s peaceful protest as artistic statement.
‘Head Hang Low’ is Cope recalibrating, finding his feet in uncertain new terrain after the fame machine. He’s looking for a soft place to land. “You may sit alone like me, but please don’t sit alone like me/ My world’s very beautiful today” .
He was settling into his newfound true love with his gorgeous Greek – American woman, Dorian Beslity. They’re still together today. It’s one of music’s greatest relationships. ‘Sunshine Playroom’, the joyous, sixties- influenced single, with its ticklish strings and different tempos, even featured the lady herself on the single sleeve.
Above all, it’s the vulnerability ( “I can’t stand too much meaning”, he confesses on the tender, lovely ‘Greatness And Perfection’) and sonic freedom that keeps me coming back to this album. What a joy. It’s like spring bursting into life, every single time.
Hit The North 