Movin’ On With My Very Best Friend

See if you’re going to crawl around on top of a slag heap in yr birthday suit, with only a giant turtle shell on top of your back to protect you from the elements, you don’t really need to signpost your everyday state of mind to the uninitiated. For emphasis though, you might, should a camera appear, ignore the allure of the lens and hone your focus solely on a once-scarlet Tonka truck with missing tyres. You might call your album Fried. You might even, for added emphasis, stick the name of the album to the side of the wonky Tonka the way Eddie Stobbart might splash his livery across his fleet of motorway mile guzzlers. Julian Cope is Fried, says the picture in not so many words. Well, duh, points out the audience.

Fried was Cope’s second solo record. Following World Shut Your Mouth and his earlier work in the Teardrop Explodes, he continues to channel his undeniable pop chops; the knack of knowing where to stick a hookline in a simple three or four chord progression, the understanding that an understated brass section can elevate everything to Beatles-great levels of enjoyment, the tightrope drama of an acid-drenched guitar – too much and the pop has gone out of it, too little and the acid heads think you’ve lost your fizz. Cope has that balancing act down to perfection.

Check out Sunspots, the only single that would be grudgingly released by an amazingly stupid record company to promote Fried.

Julian Cope – Sunspots

Simple four chord progression? You betcha. Oom-pa-pahing Beatle-ish brass that stomps all under the verses like a drunk elephant? By golly, aye. A hooky yeeeoooow vocal line in all the right places? Wow. Yeah…right on, as the vocalist himself might’ve said during its first play back.

Sunspots is terrific. Forty years later, it’s lost none of its potency in the slightest. From its sharp, lysergic guitar intro onwards, it’s pure, hazy psychedelia for Gen Xers with a penchant for Nuggets and the outer fringes of the sixties counter culture. The organ (Farfisa? Vox?) stabs ‘n sustains ‘n swirls in all the right places. Glassy twelve string guitars pop in and out of the mix. There’s even a reedy Wild Thing-aping ocarina solo should you need to place it in context. And the dopey, walking bassline? It plays the part of trip sitter, holding the tuba player’s hand until it all wears off.

Cope is on very good form, overlapping his vocals to great effect -‘Way! Waaay! Way! Wuh-ay!‘ – singing about his very best friend…he’s in love with his very best friend, dontchaknow. Whether he’s singing about his actual best friend or whether he’s metaphorically alluding to, y’know, drugs, is anyone’s guess, but I know where I’d be sticking my money if it was an option with Paddy Power.

The outro too – all 90-odd seconds of it – is slow burning sunshine in a jar. Is that a xylophone towards the end there, just between the elephant stomps and the kitchen sink? I think it is, y’know. A fitting way to end a single that would peak at number 76. We’ve been here before, but really, what is wrong with people?

Sunspots‘ parent album fared even worse, limping itself to number 87 with a bullet. A bullet might’ve been kinder. Mercury Records decided enough was enough, and Cope’s time at the label was, eh, Fried.

“Julian Cope? The difference between me and him is I’m a character from Shakespeare and he’s a cartoon out of the Beano.”

That’s a quote attributed to Ian McCulloch in 1985.

The fact it’s taken directly from Cope’s ‘Repossessed‘ memoir would suggest that Julian kinda likes it. Can you imagine your image-conscious guitar-totin’ popstars saying that about one another nowadays? That lad from Fontaines DC getting hardcore bitchy about the singer in Westside Cowboy? Nathan Shepherd would probably get a three-part 6 Music podcast from the fallout.

But back to Cope.

I’m sorry Mac the Mouth, but given the choice of Shakespeare or the Beano, I’d take Minnie the Minx every day of the week. As great a singer as McCulloch is was, Julian Cope is just far more interesting.