STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (13)
By:
November 7, 2023
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of proto-punk records from the Sixties (1964–1973, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Josh Glenn. Also check out our proto-punk playlist (a work in progress) at Spotify.
GILLIAN HILLS | “TUT, TUT, TUT, TUT…” | 1965
The Lollipops, an African American girl group hailing from New Jersey, gave us in 1965 a spirited lament about trying to reach one’s boyfriend via telephone. Written by Malou René and arranged by future TV-show theme composer Charles Fox, “Busy Signal” is a drama, one that doesn’t merely describe but enacts the frustration we experience whenever technological indifference trumps human emotion. In those days, a failed call didn’t go to voicemail — instead, your ear would be assaulted by a signal tone, the IPM (interruptions per minute) of which the Lollipops imitate with a flat affect contrasting effectively with the lead singer’s passion. The song’s French remake, later that year, would instead be… dispassionate.
Serge Gainsbourg’s duet “Une Petite Tasse D’anxiété” was written for Gillian Hills, a young Englishwoman who from the age of 16 was a successful yé-yé singer in France; her cover of “Zou Bisou Bisou” would turn up in an episode of Mad Men. Hill’s yé-yé take on “Busy Signal” features lyrics translated into French; more importantly, her kittenish delivery flattens out the contrast between the song’s tale of woe and the callous busy signal. Despite a bit of shouting, an atmosphere of proto-punk blankness pervades Hills’s performance.
One aspect of Punk music that I’ve appreciated since I first became aware of it, c. 1982 or so, is its negative-dialectical sublation of Fifties and Sixties rock’n’roll, soul, and girl-group stylings. A chord in my adolescent soul vibrated in tune with the disaffected yet affectionate tonality of… Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers’ run at “Do You Love Me,” say, not to mention the Clash’s “Brand New Cadillac” and the Ramones’ entire oeuvre. Paul McCartney on punk, approvingly, in 1977: “It’s very like the music everybody used to play.” Speaking of McCartney, John and Paul’s oldies sing-along japery in the Get Back documentary (the 1970 version of which I also encountered, at the Harvard Square Theater, c. 1982) might be said to represent a proto-punk variant of disaffected-yet-affectionate musical remaking. So too might Hills’s “Busy Signal” cover. Born in 1944, Hills deserves to be recognized, belatedly, as an influential progenitor of the punk-pioneering Blank Generation (1944–1953).
The blank affect heard in “Tut, Tut, Tut, Tut…” is also on display in Hills’s film work. Discovered at 14 by Roger Vadim, she was cast in Les liaisons dangereuses (1959), before coming to notice via such UK youthsploitation films as Beat Girl (1960), as well as via Antonioni’s Blowup (1966). Another memorable film appearance would come via Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), in which she portrays a young ptitsa sucking away at an ice-stick. Hills grew up fast, and we can hear it in “Tut, Tut, Tut, Tut…,” the protagonist of which — like the protagonist of The Queen’s Gambit, in which this song appears — seems blasé, yet not depressed, about her chances of ever finding fulfillment. Who needs it?
One gets the impression that to Hills, the absurdist phrase tut-tut-tut-tut may signify the unfulfillable desires and aspirations of life itself.
Also check out this video.
STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mandy Keifetz on The Trashmen’s SURFIN’ BIRD | Nicholas Rombes on Yoko Ono’s MOVE ON FAST | David Cantwell on ? and the Mysterians’ 96 TEARS | James Parker on The Modern Lovers’ SHE CRACKED | Lynn Peril on The Pleasure Seekers’ WHAT A WAY TO DIE | Lucy Sante on The Count Five’s PSYCHOTIC REACTION | Jonathan Lethem on The Monkees’ YOUR AUNTIE GRIZELDA | Adam McGovern on ELP’s BRAIN SALAD SURGERY | Mimi Lipson on The Shaggs’ MY PAL FOOT FOOT | Eric Weisbard on Frances Faye’s FRANCES AND HER FRIENDS | Annie Zaleski on Suzi Quatro’s CAN THE CAN | Carl Wilson on The Ugly Ducklings’ NOTHIN’ | Josh Glenn on Gillian Hill’s TUT, TUT, TUT, TUT… | Mike Watt on The Stooges’ SHAKE APPEAL | Peter Doyle on The Underdogs’ SITTING IN THE RAIN | Stephanie Burt on Pauline Oliveros’s III | Marc Weidenbaum on Ornette Coleman’s WE NOW INTERRUPT FOR A COMMERCIAL | Anthony Miller on Eno’s NEEDLES IN THE CAMEL’S EYE | Gordon Dahlquist on The Sonics’ STRYCHNINE | David Smay on The New York Dolls’ HUMAN BEING | Michael Grasso on the 13th Floor Elevators’ YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME | Holly Interlandi on Death’s ROCK’N’ROLL VICTIM | Elina Shatkin on Bobby Fuller’s I FOUGHT THE LAW | Brian Berger on The Mothers of Invention’s WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE? | Peggy Nelson on The Kingsmen’s LOUIE LOUIE.
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