Kent, England [Columbia SCX-6306]
AMG Review by Bruce Eder & Richie Unterberger
Who could ever have thought, going back to the Pretty Things' first recording session in 1965 -- which started out so disastrously that their original producer quit in frustration -- that it would come to this? The Pretty Things' early history in the studio featured the band with its amps seemingly turned up to 11, but for much of S.F. Sorrow the band is turned down to 7 or 4, or even 2, or not amplified at all (except for Wally Allen's bass -- natch); and they're doing all kinds of folkish things here that are still bluesy enough so you never forget who they are, amid weird little digressions on percussion and chorus, and harmony vocals that are spooky, trippy, strange, and delightful, and sitars included in the array of stringed instruments, plus an organ trying hard to sound like a Mellotron. Sometimes one gets an echo of Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn or A Saucerful of Secrets, and it all straddles the worlds of British blues and British psychedelia better than almost any record you can name. The album, for those unfamiliar, tells the story of "S.F. Sorrow," a sort of British Everyman -- think of a working-class, luckless equivalent to the Kinks' Arthur, from cradle to grave. The tale and the songs are a bit downbeat and no amount of scrutiny can disguise the fact that the rock opera S.F. Sorrow is ultimately a bit of a confusing effort -- these boys were musicians, not authors or dramatists. Although it may have helped inspire Tommy, it is, simply, not nearly as good. That said, it was first and has quite a few nifty ideas and production touches. And it does show a pathway between blues and psychedelia that the Rolling Stones, somewhere between Satanic Majesties, "We Love You," "Child of the Moon," and Beggars Banquet, missed entirely. [The CD reissue on Snapper adds four valuable songs from their 1967-1968 singles ("Defecting Grey," "Mr. Evasion," "Talkin' About the Good Times," and "Walking Through My Dreams"). This version of "Defecting Grey" is the original, long, uncut five-minute rendition, and not of trivial importance; it's superior to the shorter one used on the official single.]
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
S.F. Sorrow is the title of a 1968 LP by the British rock group The Pretty Things. Although neither as well-known nor as commercially-successful as other similar albums of the period, it is now widely regarded as one of the best British psychedelic rock records of that era, ranking alongside The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), Pink Floyd's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), Family's Music In A Doll's House (1968), The Zombies' Odessey and Oracle (1968), and The Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968).
One of the first rock concept albums, S.F. Sorrow was based on a short story by singer-guitarist Phil May. The album is structured as a song cycle, telling the story of the main character, Sebastian F. Sorrow, from birth through love, war, tragedy, madness, and the disillusionment of old age.
As well as being an impressive work in its own right, notable for its adventurous songwriting and performance and its dazzling production, S.F. Sorrow is now generally acknowledged as having been a major influence on The Who's Pete Townshend in his writing of that group's magnum opus, Tommy (1969).
The songs were recorded over several months during 1967 at EMI's famous Abbey Road Studios in London, during the same period when The Beatles and Pink Floyd were recording Sgt Peppers and Piper.
Working with noted EMI staff producer Norman "Hurricane" Smith (who had engineered the earlier Beatles recordings) and house engineer Peter Mew, the group experimented with the latest sound technology, including the Mellotron and early electronic tone generators, often employing gadgets and techniques devised on the spot by Abbey Road's technicians.
Phil May has emphatically stated that Smith was the only person at EMI who was fully supportive of the project, and that his technical expertise was invaluable to the effects and sounds on the album; May once even referred to Smith as a "sixth member" of the band. This attitude was in marked contrast to Pink Floyd's unhappiness with Smith.
Story/Concept
S.F. Sorrow's narrative is different than others in the Rock Opera/Concept Album genre: while Tommy and Pink Floyd's The Wall relay their concept through the lyrics of their songs, The Pretty Things tell the bulk of the story through small paragraph-like chapters which were printed between each song's lyrics in the liner notes of the LP and the CD. These explanatory notes were also read aloud between song performances by Arthur Brown during The Pretty Things' only live performance of the opera.
Like The Wall and Tommy, S.F. Sorrow opens with the birth of the story's protagonist. Sebastian F. Sorrow is born in a small nameless town to ordinary parents in a house called "Number Three." The town is supported by a factory of some sort, referred to as the "Misery Factory." Sorrow, an imaginative boy, has a relatively normal childhood until it ends abruptly when he needs to get a job. He goes to work with his father at the Misery Factory, from which many men have been laid off. This might make S.F. the object of hate in a sense that he might be a scab in the story, or perhaps the young boy who is taking some older man's job.
Sorrow's life is not yet over, though. Joy still exists for him in the form of a pretty girl across the street. She says "good morning" to him every day, and he thinks about her constantly. This is the factor that keeps him going despite his childhood's abrupt ending. The two fall in love and become engaged, but their marriage plans are cut short when Sorrow is drafted.
Sorrow joins a light infantry and goes off to fight in a war, possibly World War I. Sorrow sinks into a daze, living out the entire war in a funk. Soon the sounds of gunfire and artillery become the rhythm to his life in a daydream. He survives the war and settles down in a land called "Amerik" (perhaps a nod to Franz Kafka's novel Amerika). Sorrow's fiancee travels by "balloon" (presumably a Zeppelin), to join him, but it bursts into flame at arrival, killing all aboard. Sorrow is left alone, his beloved fiancee dead.
Sorrow drifts into a state of depression that leads him on an epic journey to the center of his subconscious. When wandering the streets, he encounters the mysterious Baron Saturday (a figure from Haitian mythology). The black cloaked–Saturday invites Sorrow to take a journey, and then, without waiting for a response, "borrows his eyes" and initiates a trip through the Underworld.
The trippish quest begins by taking flight into the air, where Sorrow is driven by a whip-cracking Baron Saturday. Sorrow thinks he is flying toward the moon, which would have been lovely as he always had a fascination with it, but instead he sees that it is instead his own face. The Baron pushes him through the mouth of the face and then down the throat where they find a set of o,ak doors. Saturday throws them open and prompts S.F. Sorrow inside where he finds a room full of mirrors. Each one of them shows a memory from his childhood, which Baron Saturday suggests that he studies well. After the hall of mirrors comes a long winding staircase which brings him to two opaque mirrors that show him the horrible truths and revelations from his life.
Sorrow is destroyed by his journey; it leads him to understand that no one can be trusted any longer, and that society will only do away with you when you become old and serve it no longer. He is driven into a dark mental seclusion where he suffers from eternal loneliness. Much like The Wall, S.F. Sorrow is the tale of a man who has endured hardships which he uses to build into a mental wall that cuts him off from the rest of the waking world, and leaves them without light. At the end of the album he identifies himself as "the loneliest person in the world."
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