The eleventh track of My Top Tracks
When I was doing A levels at my local college in the early '80s the were two groups of students that hung out in the common room. One was the trendy types into Culture Club and so on with floppy fringes and fashionable clothes. The others were the weed-smoking hippies. I was in the latter group, hair down to my stomach and long heavy coats. But I got on with both camps. In the trendy one there was a guy called Howard or Malcolm something like that with the floppy fringe look and and an old men's suit. His favourite band was The Only Ones and we discovered our mutual love for the group. The day after they broke up in 1982 he wore black to college, came over, and we mourned their end. The Only Ones did manage to straddle the two sub-cultures although I don't think any of my friends were really into them.
I think I first heard The Only Ones' Another Girl, Another Planet on John Peel's Festive 50 chart. Every year in November or so the listeners to his show could vote for their favourite tracks, post them in by mail and Peel would sit with a pen and paper and tot up the votes. Then at Christmas he would play the Festive 50 from 50 down to 1. When he discovered punk and abandoned old rock he refused to play the most voted for track, Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, because he now objected to it. So his playing of the 50 ended at no. 2. When listening I had wondered how he would have time for the no. 1 track as the show seemed to be coming to a close. At least, that's what I remember but seeing the record of past Festive 50s I can't see a year when things were getting punky on his show but Stairway to Heaven still came first. So maybe the actual occurrence was related but not exactly as I remember it. Soon the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK replaced Led Zep at the top. John Peel's show, and the Festive 50 especially, was my guide to what to listen to. In 1978 Another Girl came in at number 17 and I loved it. I was 14.
As I've mentioned in another post, 1978 was a big year musically for me. It was when I first heard artists like Patti Smith, Springsteen, and Dylan through the albums they released that year and this led me on to discovering other albums by them. It was also the heyday of punk and I loved all the new revolutionary stuff Peel was playing. (Just last night I saw Patti Smith play in Brighton, aged 79 but fresh, passionate, and full of energy).
I was in the car with my daughter once and we were playing various late '70s punk and new wave songs on a journey. She said - I bet you can guess all these from the first chord. And I absolutely could and can for many. Just the first chord of The Undertone's Teenage Kicks or Stiff Little Fingers' Alternative Ulster, for example, and I know what it is. Another case is Another Girl, Another Planet. Just one second in, it's immediately recognisable.
The distinctive start of the song is quite long before the singing kicks in. It starts slowly and tentatively then starts to pump up and takes off. Songwriter Peter Perrett doesn't begin singing until 50 seconds into the 3 minute track. And the first words are the classic line "I always flirt with death, I look ill but I don't care about it", seemingly a reference to his heroin and crack problems. The song is seen as being about drugs and some radio stations wouldn't play it because of this. It does sound druggy but Perrett says that, despite admitted drug imagery, it's about an actual girl. She was Yugoslavian and ethereal and intriguing. She got under his skin but not in a bad way. The song wasn't very commercially successful, to peoples' surprise. Maybe the limited airplay was an issue. But later other bands covered it and it was on a Vodafone ad so got more publicity then. Perrett made some money from the Vodafone ad but apparently blew most of it on drugs. I must admit I have never listened to the covers and have no burning desire to. I love the original. While the song takes a while to warm up it has a brilliantly sudden ending.
There's a version of Another Girl recorded for the John Peel Sessions, mentioned by the band as their favourite version, because it was recorded live and they feel they were better live.
Musically and lyrically The Only Ones were very talented. They released three great albums, The Only Ones (1978), that this song is on, Even Serpents Shine (1979), and Baby's Got a Gun (1980). The second was a bit more poppy and the third probably the least good but still very good. The songs go through a wide range of styles from punky to poppy and others.
On the second album was the song Out There in the Night. When I went to university I met a girl, we got together in the first year, and in the second year lived together. Then towards the end of the second year she died in a road accident. Following this, I wandered around the town humming Out There in The Night to myself: "You left that morning, You gave me no warning, You were my best friend, Oh, I can't live without you, There was something about you, I want you back again, Baby, sometimes I think of you, Out there in the night". It was obviously about his girlfriend that had dumped him but I could still feel the lyrics for my own situation. Except, I recently found out it was not about his girlfriend that had left him. It was about his lost cat. I read some fans saying this was the topic of the song and I didn't really believe it, but in an interview this is confirmed by Perrett. This does explain the line about the comforts of home that I never quite got: "Baby, sometimes I think of you, Out there in the night, All the comforts of home have been denied". That it was about a cat could have broken the spell of the song for me. But as a believer in animal rights and lover of cats I like it and it didn't stop me feeling it in the same way I had. "Compared to all of them, You stand out, You gave me pure unspoiled love, They're all reaching and grabbing, But all you did was give me, Love and love and love and love". The song has some haunting girl backing lyrics. They are sung by Perret's wife's sister, Koulla Kakoulli, who was very young at the time and the singing has a girly sound. She later went on to become a competitive bodybuilder and dominatrix called Mistress Dometria, I think in my home town Brighton. In a video of the band playing the song the girl backing singers have bright blonde hair, wear black pvc, short skirts, and seemingly have their hands in their pockets throughout.
Peter Perrett wrote great lyrics. Many rock bands had drug problems but the Only Ones seemed to have surpassed even others in this area. Perrett had addictions for many years as did his long term wife Zena Kakoulli, and they were dealers as well as users. On tour in the USA Perrett contracted hepatitis, got caught up in a drive-by shooting, deliberately ran over a car park attendant, then fled the country before a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. While clean now, Perrett and his wife both suffer the effects of drug use with breathing and lung problems. Perrett has a nasal, languid, whiny, moany style of singing, in an English South London accent, no americanisation of it. There is a mix of seen-it-all combined with heart on his sleeve, wounded, and haunted, in his singing and lyrics.
Perrett is left-wing. One interviewer refers to him talking about the Cuban revolution and American global imperialism and he was arrested not so long ago demonstrating for the banned group Palestine Action. Politics is not reflected in his lyrics (you'll never convert anyone that way he says). They often have a doomed, dark, romantic kind of content. He has been with his wife since they were teenagers and he talks about romance over sex as important to him in relations with women.
Some punk and post-punk music from the 1970s doesn't seem that punky now when you look back, but at the time this sort of band was mould-breaking. The other members of the group were very accomplished musicians, have played in many other bands, sometimes very sought after as musicians. Alan Mair, the bassist, was the only member who avoided getting dragged into drugs problems. He worked in clothes design and knew Freddy Mercury and David Bowie before they were famous. Talented guitarist John Perry has written books on albums by the Who, Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. (In one of the performances of Another Girl linked to above Perry is clearly off his head). The revival of interest in the band and Another Girl post-Vodafone and covers led to a reunion in 2007. Sadly the drummer Mike Kellie is no longer with us.
Lyrics
I always flirt with death
I look ill but I don't care about it
I can face your threats
And stand up straight and tall and shout about it
I think I'm on another world with you
With you
I'm on another planet with you
With you
You get under my skin I don't find it irritating
You always play to win
But I won't need rehabilitating, oh no
I think I'm on another world with you
With you
I'm on another planet with you
With you
Another girl, another planet
Another girl, another planet
Space travels in my blood
There ain't nothin' I can do about it
Long journeys wear me out
But I know I can't live without it, oh no
I think I'm on another world with you
With you
I'm on another planet with you
With you
Another girl is loving you now
Another planet is holding you down
Another planet