TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

I loved seeing fairport on the latest winter tour and a chance to purchase a copy of Shuffle and Go. Why then am I filled with a level of sadness I last felt in 2011? Because, like REM before then - I fear that Fairport are sending us a message that this will be their final CD. In much the way REM did with “Collapse into Now” in 2011. I will be delighted to hear I am mistaken, but sadly I am not as all the signs appear to be there.

Let us start with the title “Shuffle and Go” - shuffle is often considered alongside the phase to “shuffle off this mortal coil” - ie to depart us. Therefore I think in the title shuffle and then go might first hint if a departure?

Then let us consider the album cover - an empty stage. Guitars “propped” up with the players all gone. And the shadow of the King in blue suede shoes Elvis Presley whose death many still mourn. And more importantly a hint of the departed and departure once again.

Moondust and Solitude - a beautiful metaphor for isolation written by fairports own Chris Leslie. One can’t help but think of this as a message - a distress signal if you will - or his own reflection on a future without fairport.

Let us be grateful for what they have given us, a true final masterpiece. But I feel this cropredy will be even more poignant than even last years as we say goodbye to 50 years of Fairport.

Let us now be thankful for fairport; love their winter tour like it’s their last. As it may well be as I feel the band may well soon shuffle and go...  :(

I really think you may be reading too much into that CD..

Not sure any of them are thinking of shuffling off quite yet  ;D

Jude, I do hope you are right - it would be a sadder world with no more Fairport Convention. Especially after the sad loss of R.E.M. in 2011. Let us prey.  :-X

I agree Jude, they were fab in Lincoln and showed no signs of ending. xx

And what would you have us feast on?   ;)

Jules

Our heroes were on fine form in Farnham last night - can't see them stopping just yet !

Which album cover was it that suggested McCartney had died?

 ;D

I can’t imagine any of them NOT performing and can see no reason why they shouldn’t continue to do so together.

They are on top form.

If you play the title track backwards, it actually says “Sod this for a game of soldiers; we’ve been at this far too long. I’m off down the allotment.” So you might have a point.

Lol.  I spend most of my day scratching my head at the state of the world around me.  This thread really isn't helping.  I'm not entirely sure Shuffle and Go is either, tbh, but that's another matter entirely...  ;)

I wonder how we should understand the presence of Lee Mack on the new album cover?

Maybe it’s to signify that they’re “not going out” just yet....

Ha! Or to indicate that the clear and unambiguous messages that they’re about to call it a day are in fact ... a lie.  ;)

I think there may be a little bit of flippancy here. I’ve listened again to the title track and can’t spot the backwards messages.

If you’re not convinced then please look at this article on one of my favourite bands REM and the messages on their final album.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/various-artists-3613-1275370

But I do hope I am wrong. I really do hope I am.

Come on, man.  You didn't really think.....ah, never mind.

Don't sweat the small stuff.  If and when the band call it a day, the music will live on.  It's immortal.  Even if you play it backwards.

Jules

Is Cocker back in town?   ;) :)

C'mon now, No Pussyfooting...  :D

Has someone been watching old episodes of 321 one again. Farewell, farewell was subtler but it was already on the cards.

And of course playing your favourite Fairport albums forwards then backwards doubles the listening time, and therefore pleasure.

Wasn't it Abbey Road? Macca was dead because he wasn't wearing shoes, Lennon was the preacher, Ringo the undertaker and Harrison the gravedigger.

What a cheerful way of looking at an album cover.  ;D

And he's still with us today.

The doppelganger, you mean.  :)

The story I read years ago said that if you look at the numberplate on the VW Beetle on the left of the picture, the registration ends with "281F", translated as Paul would have been 28 IF he'd still been alive. OK that doesn't quite tie in with him being born in 1942 and the album cover being from 1969 but a good try...

I suspect that if Fairport were going to throw in the towel they would just ... well ... say so. What purpose would be served by secret messages?

Godzee: One's imagination can of course run riot on the most tenuous 'evidence' if you let it. Think Manson and the White Album.

(By the way, are you by any chance Ike Godzee?)

you are right because secret messages is an excellent album by the Electric Light Orchestra

Both Sgt Pepper's and Abbey Road are cited by the "Paul is dead" lot - Abbey Road for the reasons stated (and also because McCartney is out of step with the others), Sgt Pepper's for the floral arrangement of a guitar that some insist actually spells out "PAUL?"

And also because Paul has his back to the camera on the group picture on the back cover so his face cannot be seen.

Is it telling something that a new Fairport Convention album generates re-hashing 50 years old **** about the Beatles?
Just asking.

No, not really.

Jules

While we’re on the subject, however, it is well known that the imposter is often identified as William Campbell or “Billy Shears” (hence the use of that name on the Sgt Pepper album). There is an interview with Paul McCartney at event, during which Olivia and Dhani Harrison show up and the former greets him by saying “Hello Billy.”

Coincidence? I think not.

#wakeupsheeple

I, for one, am finding the discussion pretty interesting and learning a lot from it.

Liege and Lief backwards is Feildnaegeil .......which in the ancient Elvin language Tropriaf means.....
‘ trying to read something backwards in song lyrics is, of course ,bollox.’ 😱😱😉

xollob! ;)

When I played my Black Sabbath albums backwards it had a terrible effect....my mum used to yell upstairs and tell me to "turn that XXXXX racket down"

That still used to happen when I played them as intended....

That must have been a bit disconcerting, having Mick's mum shouting upstairs at you!

 ;D

Who would have thought that Tim Rice would be the kind to dabble in worrying strange backward messages on vinyl....

http://www.45cat.com/record/2090121

Back on topic, I now have a copy of Shuffle and Go which looks to me like a scene from a pub in the 1950s with the teddy boy on the right taking a break from playing some songs on his guitar while a group of Morris dancers prop up the bar. Quite what the significance of the pram is I don't know. All quite nostalgic really.

As for the music, it's another pleasant collection of songs and tunes from the chaps with none particularly jumping out at me on first listen apart from possibly A Thousand Bars though it's one of those songs that could get a bit annoying on repeated listens.

It's absolutely a scene from a Cotswold/Oxfordshire pub circa late 1950s. The Aunt Sally shy and Cotswold Morris paraphernalia give the place, while the guitar, teddy boy and pram give the date. (I used to be pushed around in a pram identical to that - inherited from my elder brothers.) My view is that it marks the point at which traditional English rural folk style made way for rock and roll.

You should give Aunt Sally a go sometime. It's quite liberating being able to hurl big sticks around.

Cheers

Nick

Talking of Aunt Sally, and immediately back off-topic, I've always been puzzled by the line in A Bone Through Her Nose by RT:

Her boyfriend plays in Scritti Politti, Aunt Sally's brown bread.

Anyone care to interpret?

Cockney rhyming slang for dead, isn't it?

That verse seems to be a list of ways she might accrue some money...Aunt Sally's will perhaps ?

And with that knowledge in hand and interpreting the cover further perhaps the pram is a passing reference to The Year Of Fifty Nine? 3 years old as sung in the song is probably too old to still be in a pram (thats purely a guess on my part) but if the cover is ‘representing’ the songs, then surely its for this one?

Yes, so does that mean the game Aunt Sally is dead? Possibly something about old traditions dying out vs new (at the time) music? Which kind of gets the thread back on track...

Its all in the song - description of Teddy Boy, the old Aunt Sally, rock amnd roll, baby on the way, Morris tune at the end ...

DW