It’s Derby Day and, as Steve Harley is preparing to go on stage at the Acoustic Festival of Britain, our conversation is punctuated by racing commentaries from Doncaster and Epsom.
“I’ve had one of my biggest bets for five years,” says the 67-year-old. “It’s a horse that my friends own and they swear it’s gonna win. The horse is called Austrian School.”
Apart from forming Cockney Rebel in 1972 and releasing one of the most famous singles of all time, Harley is a passionate racing fan who once co-owned a horse with Mel Smith, so it’s fitting that our interview is taking place at Uttoxeter Racecourse.
Cockney Rebel first entered the UK charts in 1974 with the singles Judy Teen and Mr Soft, although the band’s debut 45, Sebastian, had already been a hit on the continent. However, it was Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) that sealed their place in the annals of rock music, a tune with lyrics that were inspired by unrest amongst Harley’s band members.
“It came out of adversity. We’d had Judy Teen, Sebastian was massive all over Europe, Mr Soft had just been a hit; we were on a roll. Then three members of the band came to me with all these ultimatums, and I said, ‘I can’t do this. It’s my band, I formed the band, you knew I was going to write three albums, a trilogy, and I’m halfway through writing the third album’. And I wrote Make Me Smile about it.”
And the rest, as they say, is history. By the middle of February 1975, Make Me Smile by the renamed Steve Harley And Cockney Rebel was top of the pops, the first of five chart entries that the single would make during the next 40 years.
To Harley’s knowledge, the song has been covered at least 130 times, with notable recordings by Duran Duran and Erasure. However, it was a version by British indie band The Wedding Present that hit the mark with Harley.
“I think it’s very much the best ever. I saw it on Top Of The Pops and I just went, ‘Brilliant! They’re the first ones to get it, they’ve read it right’. They kicked it, they really went for it, angry and finger-poking. I kind of like that.”
Harley describes Make Me Smile as “my pension; I wish I had five or six of them”, but his thirst for songwriting remains undiminished.
“I’ve got a grand piano in the living room, a Roland (keyboard) set up in my study, I’ve got guitars in three rooms, permanently set up on stands, so I play all the time. A couple of hours every day, mostly in the evenings, with a glass of something. So I record all the time.”
An indentured newspaper reporter, Harley has always seen himself as an outsider in terms of his career in music.
“I’ve never felt part of the music industry, I’ve never felt a bonding with them, ’cause deep down I’m an ex-journalist who got lucky with songwriting, but I’m quite good at what I do.
“I really, really feel like it’s my life now, that I belong, that I’ve paid my dues and earned my place, and these kind people (at the Acoustic Festival) are giving me a lifetime achievement award today. I’ve seen the list of previous recipients, and I belong there.”
As a child, Harley suffered from polio. It was during his recuperation that he developed an enduring love for literature, with Ernest Hemingway a particular passion.
“I’ve got a first edition of Hemingway’s To Have And Have Not. I haven’t read any Hemingway for 20 years. He was a massive influence on me. He taught me not to waste words and, here I am, rereading To Have And Have Not, and I’m a chapter in and just going, ‘How did anyone get that good?’
Harley’s love for literature has been reflected in his lyrics. Tumbling Down, the third single off 1974 album The Psychomodo, features the line ‘The Hemingway staccato, the tragic bravado,’ while solo album Poetic Justice’s closing track, Riding The Waves, cites another major influence - Virginia Woolf.
“Woolf was from a special, different place. I can’t have a word against Virginia. You just have to read To The Lighthouse - it’s poetry - and then you’ve got The Waves, in a world of its own. In Riding The Waves, I borrowed from it quite heavily.”
With our interview almost at an end, Harley politely asked if he could watch the Derby, having seen his earlier tip fail to make it into the frame at Doncaster.
“I’m sorry, it’s the Derby, and I might just get my losses back.”
As we watched the horses approach the last half mile, the live stream of the race froze, resulting in a volley of expletives from Harley.
Later, he announced during a very impressive set, albeit one dogged by technical problems, that he’d backed the winner as well as the second-placed horse in the Derby. So all in all it was a good day at the races for the legendary Cockney Rebel, both on the turf at Epsom and on stage at Uttoxeter.
Steve Harley plays Leamington Assembly Rooms, Friday 3 August; Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Friday 24 August and Moseley Folk Festival, Sunday 2 September.
It’s Derby Day and, as Steve Harley is preparing to go on stage at the Acoustic Festival of Britain, our conversation is punctuated by racing commentaries from Doncaster and Epsom.
“I’ve had one of my biggest bets for five years,” says the 67-year-old. “It’s a horse that my friends own and they swear it’s gonna win. The horse is called Austrian School.”
Apart from forming Cockney Rebel in 1972 and releasing one of the most famous singles of all time, Harley is a passionate racing fan who once co-owned a horse with Mel Smith, so it’s fitting that our interview is taking place at Uttoxeter Racecourse.
Cockney Rebel first entered the UK charts in 1974 with the singles Judy Teen and Mr Soft, although the band’s debut 45, Sebastian, had already been a hit on the continent. However, it was Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) that sealed their place in the annals of rock music, a tune with lyrics that were inspired by unrest amongst Harley’s band members.
“It came out of adversity. We’d had Judy Teen, Sebastian was massive all over Europe, Mr Soft had just been a hit; we were on a roll. Then three members of the band came to me with all these ultimatums, and I said, ‘I can’t do this. It’s my band, I formed the band, you knew I was going to write three albums, a trilogy, and I’m halfway through writing the third album’. And I wrote Make Me Smile about it.”
And the rest, as they say, is history. By the middle of February 1975, Make Me Smile by the renamed Steve Harley And Cockney Rebel was top of the pops, the first of five chart entries that the single would make during the next 40 years.
To Harley’s knowledge, the song has been covered at least 130 times, with notable recordings by Duran Duran and Erasure. However, it was a version by British indie band The Wedding Present that hit the mark with Harley.
“I think it’s very much the best ever. I saw it on Top Of The Pops and I just went, ‘Brilliant! They’re the first ones to get it, they’ve read it right’. They kicked it, they really went for it, angry and finger-poking. I kind of like that.”
Harley describes Make Me Smile as “my pension; I wish I had five or six of them”, but his thirst for songwriting remains undiminished.
“I’ve got a grand piano in the living room, a Roland (keyboard) set up in my study, I’ve got guitars in three rooms, permanently set up on stands, so I play all the time. A couple of hours every day, mostly in the evenings, with a glass of something. So I record all the time.”
An indentured newspaper reporter, Harley has always seen himself as an outsider in terms of his career in music.
“I’ve never felt part of the music industry, I’ve never felt a bonding with them, ’cause deep down I’m an ex-journalist who got lucky with songwriting, but I’m quite good at what I do.
“I really, really feel like it’s my life now, that I belong, that I’ve paid my dues and earned my place, and these kind people (at the Acoustic Festival) are giving me a lifetime achievement award today. I’ve seen the list of previous recipients, and I belong there.”
As a child, Harley suffered from polio. It was during his recuperation that he developed an enduring love for literature, with Ernest Hemingway a particular passion.
“I’ve got a first edition of Hemingway’s To Have And Have Not. I haven’t read any Hemingway for 20 years. He was a massive influence on me. He taught me not to waste words and, here I am, rereading To Have And Have Not, and I’m a chapter in and just going, ‘How did anyone get that good?’
Harley’s love for literature has been reflected in his lyrics. Tumbling Down, the third single off 1974 album The Psychomodo, features the line ‘The Hemingway staccato, the tragic bravado,’ while solo album Poetic Justice’s closing track, Riding The Waves, cites another major influence - Virginia Woolf.
“Woolf was from a special, different place. I can’t have a word against Virginia. You just have to read To The Lighthouse - it’s poetry - and then you’ve got The Waves, in a world of its own. In Riding The Waves, I borrowed from it quite heavily.”
With our interview almost at an end, Harley politely asked if he could watch the Derby, having seen his earlier tip fail to make it into the frame at Doncaster.
“I’m sorry, it’s the Derby, and I might just get my losses back.”
As we watched the horses approach the last half mile, the live stream of the race froze, resulting in a volley of expletives from Harley.
Later, he announced during a very impressive set, albeit one dogged by technical problems, that he’d backed the winner as well as the second-placed horse in the Derby. So all in all it was a good day at the races for the legendary Cockney Rebel, both on the turf at Epsom and on stage at Uttoxeter.
Steve Harley plays Leamington Assembly Rooms, Friday 3 August; Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Friday 24 August and Moseley Folk Festival, Sunday 2 September.
By Stephen Taylor