After a sequence of superb releases through the summer of 1972 had in every way met the expectations of both the critics and the U.K. album-buying public – ‘Exile on Main St.’ (May) ‘Ziggy Stardust (June) ‘Never a Dull Moment‘ (July), ‘The Slider‘ (August)’ – the next L.P. generating eager anticipation was the third release from accomplished North of England folk-rock ensemble Lindisfarne.
Having delighted everyone who came within earshot with their first two offerings, the outstanding debut ‘Nicely Out of Tune‘ (1970) and excellent, if slightly less assured, ‘Fog on the Tyne‘ (1971), the Newcastle-upon-Tyne based quartet comprising of Alan Hull (guitar/piano), Rod Clements (bass/violin), Ray Jackson (mandolin/harmonica), Simon Cowe (guitar) and Ray Laidlaw (drums) had pretty much endeared themselves to everyone.
Such was the wit and wisdom contained within the more exceptional songs of Hull, he had been declared by one reviewer as ‘the best songwriter since Dylan‘, while the group were declared in some quarters ‘the Beatles for the 1970s.’
Which was all very hifalutin, but at the same time not too wide of the mark. Hull, indeed, had an exquisite turn of phrase, the jaunty, Clements-penned ‘Meet Me on the Corner‘ had earlier in the year given them a major U.K. hit single, which played an undeniable part in propelling ‘Fog on the Tyne‘ to become the biggest-selling homegrown album of 1972 and they were a first class live act to boot – all of which made imminent arrival of their next collection a mouth-watering proposition.
Yet when it appeared ‘DINGLY DELL‘ (September 1972) felt more grin and bear it than lip-smackingly good.
This 12-track collection from a group taking their name from an island off the Northumberland coast created a first impression, while not exactly washed-up were marooned on coursing currents of diminished song quality and problematic recording process.
Their sudden and unexpected falter had arisen partly due to the excellent material spread liberally across the first two Lindisfarne albums, had been written before the group became an acclaimed act, Hull in fact writing many fine songs while working as a nurse in a Newcastle psychiatric hospital before the band had formed.
While he was again the major source of compositions, the standard of his contributions was uneven, the situation not helped by the group taking dislike to how producer Bob Johnston – whose credentials included work with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash and previously at the controls for ‘Fog on the Tyne‘ – had mixed the record, eventually taking the eleventh-hour decision to do it again themselves.
On release ‘Dingly Dell‘ met with a negative critical response, mutterings from within the group suggesting they were not entirely enamored by the finished article. Initial sales were good but no more, not when measured against their two previous albums and to cap it all the next nine months would see Lindisfarne split, Hull issue a solo album (the magnificent ‘Pipedream‘ April 1973), with him and Jackson then fronting a second version of the band who took their bow with ‘Roll on Ruby‘ (June 1973) – Cowe, Laidlaw and Clements moving on to form an outfit named Jack the Lad.
‘Dingly Dell‘ therefore stood as the first full-stop of the original line-up (who would reform on ad-hoc basis in 1976 before the reunion became permanent two years later) and also catalyst for the significant changes about to occur. Yet the album at the source of these realignments was not without merit and while disparaged at the time, more agreeable than initial reviews came to suggest, even if below the standard of its two weighty predecessors.
The initial portents are highly encouraging, opening track ‘All Fall Down‘, a damming lyrical attack on the forces who permitted destruction of grand, age-old buildings and allowed concrete monstrosities to rise in their place – Hull wrapping his protest in a spirited melody framed by the ringing mandolin of Jackson and a creaking French horn:
‘Councilors, magistrates, men of renown/Who needs to live in a dirty old town/Yes, go on, tear it down/Who needs the trees and the flowers to grow/We can have a motorway with motorway dough/I know, I know, I know/They’ve got to go.’
As the 1970s continued to unfold so noted songwriters had begun to reflect on how the race to modernise during the previous decade led to decimation of areas within the cities in which they grew up. The year before Faces bassist Ronnie Lane wrote a couple of memorable songs based on the theme in regard to his East London roots, while Ray Davies had made the flattening of neighborhoods across North London the basis of The Kinks 1971 masterpiece ‘Muswell Hillbillies’.
But as Hull was not slow to point out, Tyneside had also fallen prey to the notion masonry was the price of modernity, convinced also some were equating progress with profit – his inditements coming with a warning for those inclined to take the rank and file for granted:
‘Tear them down, mess them round/Make a mockery of all of the ground/And if you ever have a sleepless night/Just count out your money, it’ll be all right/Politicians, planners, go look what you done/Your madness is making a machine of ev’ryone/But one day the machine might turn on.’
As the song builds to a conclusion an array of horns arrive to swell the sentiments, representative no doubt of brass bands identified with many working class communities across northern England. Heard as the opening track of an album in 1972 ‘All Fall Down‘ was an accomplished performance coupled to the protestations of a wordsmith expressing his well-honed social conscience – not so inspired, however, when viewed as the first single released from the album, this contemporary protest piece coming across an old English folk song from a bygone era.
Released at the insistence of Hull it failed to reach the U.K. Top 30, the writer, keen to have his message heard, apparently overruling the others who favored issuing a more commercial entity – the failure of ‘All Fall Down‘ to significantly dent the charts had a knock-on effect of ‘Dingly Dell’ starting off on the wrong foot.
While a shortened version found its way onto a 45, on the album it segues into ‘Plankton’s Lament‘ a lively instrumental bursting with energy generated from interweaving harmonica and violin. The piece itself, credited to Cowe and effectively a band jam, then runs seamlessly into ‘Bring Down the Government‘, the group remaining committed in their playing as Hull, a committed socialist, rails against the current Tory administration led by prime minister Edward Heath.
In a year that had already seen industrial action by the National Union of Mineworkers bring them into conflict with Downing Street, the U.K. suffering power cuts as a result, the political firebrand within Hull comes to the fore – his empathy with those deserving better expressed over a melody where the folk inflections are provided by Cowe on banjo:
‘Bring down the government, do it now for love/Do it for your mother and sister too and do for God above/So roll on my brothers we can find out how/To walk hand in hand to the promised land/If we bring down the government now.’
1972 had also brought the terrible events of ‘Bloody Sunday‘, when on 30 January at a protest march in Northern Ireland 26 unarmed civilians (13 of whom died) were shot by the British Army when they opened fire on the crowd – Hull reflecting on a troubled land rather than specifically the present ‘Troubles‘ in the deeply-moving ‘Poor Old Ireland.’
Delivering an eloquent lyric over accompaniment of acoustic guitar and melancholy mandolin, Hull sings with compassion in a world-weary voice, his words simple but rich in resonance:
‘Poor old Ireland, poor old universe/Wonder who comes off the worse/Poor old people mistreating misbelieving/I think you’ve been cast by a curse/But I don’t want you to die, I can see all the lies/There’s nothing there that’s new/But there’s still no need to make blind children bleed/Even if what you say is true.’
Through a stellar vocal performance the composer conveys his sadness and confusion that manifests in anger at the church (no matter the faith) at failing to offer a message of peace and reconciliation, (‘And meanwhile in the aisles of the churches with style/They’re singing their songs to the Lord/And the preacher’s carping that for failure on earth/Heaven will be your reward’). Hull bravely attacks religious bigotry (‘Oh Ireland your people mean more than the idols/You seek to set upon earth’), in this thought-provoking composition that affirmed he had few peers when it came to vivid lyricism.
For his trouble in commenting on such an emotive issue, he and Lindisfarne found the song was promptly banned by the BBC despite Hull explaining the content was personal impression rather than political statement – the corporation coming to relent twenty years later when it featured in an episode of the back to the 70s time-travelling police drama ‘Life on Mars.’
Sadly, Hull would not live long enough to see peace come to Northern Ireland, dying at the age of 50 in November 1995 three years before signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
After the anguished observations of the previous track, there is no shortage of angst in what immediately follows, Clements stating pained bemusement with the music business through the sniping blues-rock of ‘Don’t Ask Me.’
While not the first to find isolation on reaching the top, he puts some acerbic lines on the concept of stardom into the mouth of Jackson who offers a punchy vocal when not wailing on harmonica:
‘Nothing can stop you from doing anything you choose/Nothing’s gonna stop you if you really wanna play the blues/But no one’s gonna like it if you make more than you lose/Well you can come on down and you can see the show/You can come on up and you can have blow/But don’t ask me how to get there, I don’t know.’
By the bridge there is tacit acknowledgement life as a rock star is (or has become) a series of gains and losses, (‘Well you can push, shove, lose your long time friends/You might make money, but you’ll never quite make amends‘), success on the scale Lindisfarne had enjoyed during the previous eighteen months leaving much to ruminate on, not least the authenticity of it all.
Through the more traditional Lindisfarne folk-pop sound of side one closer ‘O No Not Again‘ there also hides, within the verses that is, a somewhat downbeat tale, the main character questioning his identity and self-worth.
As writer and singing narrator of the song, with the first verse Hull sketches out the proliferation of minor set-backs that taken as a whole make life a struggle:
‘Well your briefcase is open and your papers, they are torn/And you look for your cheque book but you find that it’s gone/So you fumble in your pocket for the change for the train/Well the woman, she glares at you and then she calls you names/Falling down the steps, you get soaked by the rain/It’s so hard to carry on/It’s so hard to explain.’
Yet with the chorus comes a shift in tempo, the figure at the centre of the piece implored to embrace being alive, (‘But when it comes down to knowing who you are/Feels like a waste of time/You’d be better off by far/With a fistful of friends and a beat up old guitar‘), this against a backdrop of the band who have increased the vitality of their playing.
While undoubtedly a charming piece it lacks the gravitas found in those songs Hull had become revered for and given the entire album was recorded in just three days during June 1972, (all the time apparently producer Johnston was prepared to spend in London on the project), there is a sense of the take being a rough draft and not fully developed.
The same also applies to side two offerings ‘Mandolin King‘ a perfunctory Lindisfarne number written and sung by Hull about Jackson, (‘Listen to the mandolin king/Doing his own special thing/Strumming his strings/Singing his songs’) and ‘Court in the Act‘, a rousing Eddie Cochran-styled rocker where Hull takes a similar scenario, (police breaking up a party) to ‘We Can Swing Together‘ from their debut album, although this track appears to have been cut with the haste of someone having a plane (Johnston perhaps) to catch.
The cluttered arrangement detracts from another amusing escapade set to song (Hull coming up with any number of pithy lines), the band putting this rather slipshod performance in the shade with a storming rendition on the excellent 1978 double-live album ‘Magic in the Air.‘
Side two of ‘Dingly Dell‘ begins with the innocuous instrumental jig of old folk standard ‘Dingle Regatta‘ which gives way to the delightful ‘Wake Up Little Sister‘ – an instantly catchy piece that four-fifths of the group rightly heard as a potential hit single.
Using tested Lindisfarne trademarks in a melody with overtones of ‘Fog on the Tyne‘ and ‘Meet Me on the Corner’, Jackson assumes lead vocal duties with Hull writing an engaging ode to kinship between siblings.
There is obvious affection between brother and sister, (‘With you beside me I can feel both, gentle and strong’), the cheery nature of the lyric and performance is much more likely to have generated airplay than the stern realism of ‘All Fall Down’ and while easy to imagine ‘Wake Up Little Sister’ being whistled and hummed to a lofty chart position, even then a trick was missed – ‘Caught in the Act‘ was issued as the second (and final) single from the album and promptly sank without trace.
The impression they had come upon choppy waters in relation to new material is apparent with inclusion of ‘Go Back‘ a Cowe composition from the earliest days of Lindisfarne that had been omitted from both of the previous albums, only to be resurrected here out of necessity.
In truth an agreeable effort – although not at the standard of ‘Uncle Sam’ by the same writer on ‘Fog on the Tyne‘ – there is just enough charm to warrant a revisit. Jackson alternately sings and plays harmonica in presenting a lyric where the protagonist just wants to be left to his own devices:
‘I wanna go back where you’ve never been/I wanna feel things like you’ve never even dreamed/I’m flying through the sky on a black and blue night/And I’ll drink this midnight air till I see the day light.’
While the blend of guitars and mandolin are effective in establishing the recognisable Lindisfarne lilt, the inclusion of horns and whistled accompaniment to the melody suggests it was looked upon as something of a novelty.
There is, however, no shortage of ambition attached to the closing title piece, which at just over six minutes was the longest album track they had ever attempted.
Another song that had been on the shelf for some time, Hull conjures a mystical place, as if witnessed in a dream, that only the couple at the heart of this bittersweet romance are aware of.
Having arranged the horn parts on ‘All Fall Down‘, Paul Laidlaw (brother of drummer Ray), oversees a dramatic string arrangement that gives the song an eerie feel, the sweeping orchestration taking it closer to the prog of Pink Floyd than folk of Fairport Convention.
The verses resemble a lullaby in conveying the longing felt by the male figure, (‘Where did you see me last, was it down in Dingly Dell/Could you really tell if it were I or just a passing butterfly‘), although despite the chorus bringing an increase in vigour, ‘(Ooh, ooh, ooh – there’s magic in the air/Ooh, ooh, ooh – it’s ev’rywhere‘), it reveals the hoped for conclusion, ‘(And I need you, to share it with me/But you’re not there and never will you be’), cannot be attained.
With the second verse he contemplates their future and possibility of starting a family, (‘Will you have my children?/Will they grow in the likeness of me ?) the swing from elation to melancholic, while adding to the vague essence of the track, creates uncertainty in regard to it being fantasy or simply fatalistic.
Indeed, there is a case to be made for the title track being representative of the entire album, in turn poignant, perplexing and ponderous – the notion that true inspiration was only intermittent encapsulated in the plain grey sleeve (bearing just the group name and title) containing the record, the band reportedly wanting the music to stand and fall on its own merits, which it does in roughly equal measure.
After the overwhelmingly positive response and huge success of the second album – which triggered widespread interest in the first – ‘Dingly Dell‘ put the skids under Lindisfarne and while it peaked at number five on the U.K. charts quickly fell from grace. The negativity of an underwhelmed music press coupled with misguided choice of single releases, strained relationships within the troupe, one song receiving a ban and unimaginative cover giving them some hefty burdens to carry – the band subsequently imploding under the weight of it all.
Down the years ‘Dingly Dell‘ came to be regarded as the record that brought disaster to the original and by far most successful incarnation of Lindisfarne, attaching an unfortunate label to an interesting, if erratic album that deserved better than its cold water coating at the time.
With their first two LP’s Lindisfarne has fired off two shots and scored with both – ‘Dingley Dell’ did not complete the hat-trick in that respect but is still more misplaced pass than own goal.
LINDISFARNE – DINGLEY DELL (Released September 13 1972):
All Fall Down/Plankton’s Lament/Bring Down the Government/Poor Old Ireland/Don’t Ask Me/O Not Not Again/Dingle Regatta/Wake Up Little Sister/Go Back/Court in the Act/Mandolin King/Dingly Dell;
NEIL SAMBROOK is also the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book: