‘All I Want’
written by Gene Clark/Tom Slocum/Shannon O’Neill
from This Byrd Has Flown
recorded in 1987
written by Gene Clark/Tom Slocum/Shannon O’Neill
from This Byrd Has Flown
recorded in 1987
In 2000, Volkswagen successfully enlisted Nick Drake’s starkly elegant ‘Pink Moon’ for a very effective TV ad campaign. For Drake cultists, this canny move had the effect of transforming their cherished private icon into, comparatively speaking, a virtual household name. Drake, hardly a radio-friendly unit shifter during his all-too-brief lifetime, had overnight become a posthumous superstar. Sales of his CDs soared; his music was subsequently featured in films such as The Royal Tenenbaums, Serendipity, and Garden State.
Now, in 2008, with the CD era apparently dying a quick death–plunging sales would tend to indicate this–musicians are, in increasing numbers, turning to television ads to get their music heard by the masses. Music by the Who, Queen, Bob Seger and countless others have been featured to sell cars and cruise lines. Townshend’s licensing of ‘Baba O’Riley,’ ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ and ‘Who Are You’ to the CSI franchise doesn’t scream "The Who sell out!" as much as "Pete Townshend is no dummy!" Townshend’s music is still being heard, still making money; the same cannot be said of many of his contemporaries from the 1960's and 1970's.
All of this has led me to wonder if there could be similar posthumous success for a Gene Clark song. Like Drake, Gene never had a solo hit single, but Gene lived long enough to record much more music than Nick, increasing the amount of material from which to choose a likely candidate for possible posthumous success. So what Clark solo song from the years 1966 to 1991 would have commercial–-as in TV commercial–-potential to create renewed interest in my own personal cherished cult icon?
I have many songs I’ve cherry picked from Gene’s canon which might successfully accomplish this, but the song which I think currently has enough commercial oomph to get Clark some exposure is ‘All I Want,’ a bonus track from the 1995 reissue of 1984's Firebyrd (inexplicably, embarrassingly retitled This Byrd Has Flown upon its re-release in 1995). Co-written with Gene’s buddy Tom Slocum, with added touches to the final arrangement by Shannon O’Neill, ‘All I Want’ boasts a warm, echoey vocal from Gene, with an impressive list of backing musicians, including 'Sneaky' Pete Kleinow, Rick Marotta, Albert Lee and Jeff Porcaro.
The verses of the song feature Gene’s usual stately-sounding solo vocal, which on this occasion conveys equal measures of pain and world-weariness typical of his '80's material. The chorus is lush, unabashed AOR; its lyrics, simple and universally accessible: "All I want is your love, all I want is your kiss, all I want is to hold you."
So far so good, right? Can’t miss, right? The song, however, ultimately falls flat on its face during the bridge due to some ill-chosen lyrical ideas:
"I know that you know a million Casanovas, lover
And you know that I know a million bitches too
But there ain't a hundred of them gonna snow you under
Or blow your cover or make you feel blue."
Ugh. Awkward, sexist, metaphorically confused and downright unpleasant, these lyrics are pure dreck. Perhaps not surprisingly, in the liner notes to This Byrd Has Flown, Tom Slocum alludes to some disagreement between the co-writers: "As a song it was and is, lyrically and musically, an even split, but we both had some reservations about it. He wasn’t sure about my ‘bitches’ line and I wasn’t quite happy with the ‘blow your cover’ bit."
Well, at least I know who to blame for that awful "bitches" line. It’s a shame that a line filled with such gratuitous and needlessly inflammatory language should appear on a Gene Clark album, but it pleases me no end to discover that Gene himself disliked it. Whenever I hear the song, I imagine Gene singing that line through gritted teeth. (Listen to it: he even pauses after singing "a million" before finally spitting out "bitches," as if he dreaded every moment of it.)
Well, at least I know who to blame for that awful "bitches" line. It’s a shame that a line filled with such gratuitous and needlessly inflammatory language should appear on a Gene Clark album, but it pleases me no end to discover that Gene himself disliked it. Whenever I hear the song, I imagine Gene singing that line through gritted teeth. (Listen to it: he even pauses after singing "a million" before finally spitting out "bitches," as if he dreaded every moment of it.)
This is not a line Gene Clark would have ever written. From the get-go, Gene’s lyrics filtered man-woman relationships through a respectful, if unrelentingly melancholic, chivalric code. I have no idea if Clark led his life according to this code, nor do I particularly care, but this "bitches" lyric is antithetical to Gene’s personal style of songwriting. To his credit, he does not pull off the "bitches" line very well.
With a different set of lyrics, ‘All I Want’ might have been a late-period classic for Gene. As it stands, some intrepid commercial ad person may wish to snip the chorus in all its lush AOR glory and use it in some advertisement to sell toilet paper or life insurance.
Mark my words, if this were to occur, Gene Clark would finally have that solo hit single that eluded him during his career.
You heard it here first, folks.
