THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,147) Frabjoy & the Runcible Spoon (Godley & Creme) — “To Fly Away”
From another contender for the greatest lost album of the 1960’s comes this “starkly beautiful” song, one of the ones that “entranced” Giorgio Gomelsky, who “immediately view[ed Kevin Godley and Lol Creme’s (see #968, 1,048)] gentle abstract songs and vocal harmonies as a British corollary to Simon and Garfunkel.” (David Wells, liner notes to Frabjous Days: The Secret World of Godley and Creme 1967-1969) They were “well on their way to perfecting their vocal blend, with ‘Fly Away’ . . . sounding uncannily like what they’d created with 10cc a few years later.” (Mark Deming, https://www.allmusic.com/album/frabjous-days-the-secret-world-of-godley-creme-1967-1969-mw0003721503) The song “appeared on [Gomelsky’s label] Marmalade’s 100% Proof label sampler (where it was mistakenly credited to Godley and [Graham] Gouldman).” (Dave Thompson, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/frabjoy-the-runcible-spoon-mn0001919409)
As to G&C, Dave Thompson tells us that “Kevin Godley, a former member of Graham Gouldman’s Mockingbirds, and Lol Creme, once Godley’s bandmate in the early-’60s group the Sabres. . . . had studied for diplomas in graphic design”. (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/frabjoy-the-runcible-spoon-mn0001919409) They were attending different art schools. But, as David Wells tells us:
Although they were studying in different cities, Kevin and Lol were only about 45 miles apart, and they continued to play together. ”Lol would drive down in a van . . . with a Hammond organ in the back”, says Kevin. ”We would play loud, weird jazz all night and annoy the neighbours![“] . . . [T]hey hung out at weekends, as Kevin explained . . . “When we came back from the weeks at college, we’d sit down and write songs, discuss ideas for art and so on. At first we were keener on artistic things than music, and then gradually the music took over. . . . [They] worked on a project hat resulted in a Top Twenty single. . . . ”Pamela, Pamela” . . . came from an idea we had for a film . . .. We’d done the script for a story and then we’d written some music and we’d done the lyrics . . . . [Graham Gouldman] took the idea and developed it, and the song was a hit for Wayne Fontana. . . . suggesting that a career in music might be a viable option once they’d completed their studies . . . . [They] . . . . signed a management deal with Jim O’Farrell . . . .
liner notes to Frabjous Days: The Secret World of Godley and Creme 1967-1969
O’Farrell produced “Easy Life” and its A-side “Seeing Things Green”, and while the single “failed to make much impact . . . . [it garnered them] a publishing deal.” (David Wells, liner notes to Frabjous Days: The Secret World of Godley and Creme 1967-1969)
Mark Deming continues the story:
In 1970, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme would score their first serious hit with the oddball stomp of Hotlegs’ “Neanderthal Man,” and in 1973 they would become half of 10cc, who would release some of the smartest, wittiest, and best-crafted British pop of the decade. Dial back to 1969, and the two were veterans of the U.K.’s beat music scene who’d evolved into a pop-psychedelic duo called the Yellow Bellow Room Boom. Giorgio Gomelsky, who had previously helped guide the careers of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. signed them to his Marmalade Records label and gave them a different (and similarly whimsical but clumsy) stage name, Frabjoy & Runcible Spoon, in hopes of transforming them into a British answer to Simon & Garfunkel. . . . [T]hey released only four poor-selling songs under that banner before Marmalade Records went under, and the album they’d been working on was doomed never to see the light of day.* Thankfully, the tapes survived, and the British reissue label Grapefruit Records has released an approximation of that long-lost LP . . . . [including] seven unreleased tracks that were completed for the aborted . . . album [and] the four rare tunes that did see release . . . . Godley & Creme were showing off the compositional skills that would be the hallmark of their later work . . . . If there’s a difference . . . it’s in the absence of their pointed satiric wit, and a gentler melodic style more beholden to folk and pop-psych and lacking the splendid and shameless hooks that would reinforce the jokes on 10cc’s albums. . . . [T]his is fine and imaginative pop with a psychedelic edge . . . a splendid look at the juvenilia of one of the most fascinating partnerships in British rock.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/frabjous-days-the-secret-world-of-godley-creme-1967-1969-mw0003721503
Dave Thompson adds:
[B]y the end of 1968, the pair were making demos . . . . Gouldman . . . was working as a session man at Giorgio Gomelsky’s Marmalade label, and one day asked Godley to join him at a session. Gomelsky took one listen to Godley’s ethereal falsetto and promptly offered him and Crème a deal. As Frabjoy and the Runcible Spoon, the duo began work on an album in September 1969. Basic tracks were recorded at Gouldman and Mindbender Eric Stewart’s own Strawberry Studios, with that pair as backing musicians. A single, “I’m Beside Myself,” appeared in early 1969 . . . . Unfortunately, Marmalade folded only shortly after this pair of releases and the Frabjoy album was abandoned. . . . [T]he quartet returned to Strawberry to set in motion the sequence of events which would, three years later, see them emerge as 10cc.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/frabjoy-the-runcible-spoon-mn0001919409
* As Lol Crème put it: “Giorgio ran out of money, and out of people who were prepared to lend him more, and the whole thing fizzled out[.] But we did get the single out of it, and that to us a few radio plays.” (liner notes to Frabjous Days: The Secret World of Godley and Creme 1967-1969).
The Marmalade Sampler version:
Godley and Creme’s pre-10cc Band Hotlegs did release a version in ‘71:
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