Simply Red – “Picture Book”

unknown.jpgSimply Red es el grupo de Mick Hucknall, el pelirrojo que dio nombre al grupo, y dueño de una espectacular voz hecha para el soul y/o el jazz. Yo conocí a Simply Red con el segundo single que editaron “Come To My Aid”, empezaba el verano de 1985, y la canción me atrapó. Mi copia del vinilo dice que compré su primer disco, “Picture Book” (con una preciosa portada en la que aparece un retrato de Mick Hucknal), en junio de aquel año, allí me encontré con un discazo, dos versiones “Money’s Too Tight To Mention” de The Vallentines Brothers y “Heaven” de Talking Heads, que también versionaron mis adorados Esclarecidos, y ocho composiciones de Hucknall, entre las que destacaban “Holding Back The Years”, que se convirtió meses después en un éxito mundial, y “Jericho” mi favorita, sobre todo en la versión extendida. El éxito le llegó a Simply Red con su segundo disco, “Men & Women”, y sacaron algunos discos meritorios de sophisty-pop / soul pop hasta que su estrella se fue apagando, para mí este es su mejor disco.

Listen boy, I’ll tell you a thing
I’ll make you a career in the business I’m in
I’ll make you rich, I’ll make you a toy
I’ll make you turn over into my little boy
Y’see I’m going somewhere
I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I get there
I know money’s a thing – your only inspiration
And your only meaning
You must think that all I do
Is spend my time making pretty pictures of you
You can fall when I will climb
But I’ll be falling over just by having you in mind
1st. chorus:
Mend that fight – oh listen to them
Kickin’ up a ball inside a Jericho wall
Mend that fight – it’s all twisted through them
If you ain’t rich then you won’t go to the ball
Having mercy and licking up love
And moving through your ocean like I’ve never had enough
Y’see you ain’t all I want
You’re everything and more that I have ever hoped for
You must think that all I do
Is spend my time making pretty pictures of you
You can fall when I will climb
But I’ll be falling over just by having you in mind
You won’t go to the ball
You won’t go to the ball
You won’t go, you won’t go
You won’t go to the ball
You must think that all I do
Is spend my time making pretty pictures of you
You can fall when I will climb
But I’ll be falling over just by having you in mind
Mend that fight – oh listen to them
Kickin’ up a ball inside a No.10 wall
Mend that fight – it’s all twisted through them
I’m rich, you ain’t, so you won’t go to the ball
No more!
Yeah, if you ain’t got nothing
You’ll never go there
I tried to make you see
I tell you, I’d had enough
Money was a thing, money was a thing
Money was a thing that I believed in