Review: Roy Orbison - Crying (1962)

Tracks: 1) Crying; 2) The Great Pretender; 3) Love Hurts; 4) She Wears My Ring; 5) Wedding Day; 6) Summersong; 7) Dance; 8) Lana; 9) Loneliness; 10) Let’s Make A Memory; 11) Nite Life; 12) Running Scared.

REVIEW

For Roy Orbison, 1961 might have felt like the best year ever in his musical career — even if that year only yielded two new singles, with a hot new LP on their tail delayed until the first month of 1962. But it was precisely those two singles which not only proved to the world that Mr. Orbison was not going to remain a one-hit wonder, but also that Mr. Orbison was somewhere on the verge of revolutionizing pop music as a whole. With «sensitive art-pop for the younger generation» still being in its infancy, 1961 saw Roy stepping out as its principal troubadour, offering a much fresher, more creative, inventive, and genuinely emotional alternative to the «mature» (a.k.a. «stiff and old-fashioned») phase of Elvis Presley’s career. He did not have what it really took to send that younger generation into the throes of total frenzy — the added touch of crude rock’n’roll energy — and his singing voice was really as much of a curse as it was a blessing, since its naturally plaintive overtones kept sending him over and over again into the trap of the same stylistic formula. But within those limitations, 1961 made Roy the absolute monarch of that formula.

I am not aware if the rhythmic pattern of the Bolero (in its classical, Ravel-style form, not the faster and more danceable Latin one) was first employed within pop music in ‘Running Scared’ or not. I am aware that I myself know of no earlier examples — and the fact that the entire song is essentially one long chorus-less crescendo, gradually building up in power and intensity until Roy gets his triumphant release with that legendary high A, reinforces the Ravel analogy and further proves that Roy and Joe Melson were intentionally raising the stakes, aiming for ambitious, operatic teenage drama on a whole new level compared to ‘Only The Lonely’.

On the whole, I find the song a bit too rigid to genuinely fall in love with it, but maybe this is precisely because it puts such a heavy focus on its construction, going more for symbolism than raw emotion — and that’s okay, because sometimes you have to first shatter the form so it can be later filled up with new content. There is no chorus or bridge section here in the traditional sense, but the song does shift from the key of A to D around the 1:30 mark, becoming more dynamic and even mildly danceable precisely at the second when the subject matter moves from the protagonist’s internal torment to the actual «moment of truth» — this is as close to a «bridge» as the song gets, except that the bridge ends the song, eventually returning back to the now-triumphant A as the girl of Roy’s dreams makes the right choice and walks away with the shy, reticent nerd instead of the hunky captain of the football team (or something like that). Many people call ‘Running Scared’ a «two-minute opera», which is clearly an exaggeration (the honor of being the first two-minute teenage opera should probably go to the likes of ‘Remember (Walking In The Sand)’), but it is certainly not a coincidence that they tend to instinctively exaggerate in that direction. Clearly, the song is just a note-perfect symbiosis of melody, arrangement, lyrics, and vocals, on a level of ambition and intelligence rarely, if ever, heard of at the time; an almost too ideal template for an art-pop song that could diminish even the Beatles’ reputation (certainly the Beatles would not reach that level of structural sophistication until their «mature» period).

Unfortunately, the one thing that the impact of ‘Running Scared’ truly diminished were memories of the B-side, a cover of Boudleaux Bryant’s ‘Love Hurts’ that had only recently been released by the Everly Brothers. Stuck in between the famous original and the much later — and the much more over-dramatized, Seventies-style — Nazareth cover, Roy’s performance might arguably be the best of the three. The Everlys, with their quiet and intimate harmonies, sang it as a sort of soothing consolation for desperate lovers; their "I really learned a lot, really learned a lot" feels like young wisdom they pass on to you over a two-minute long hug. With Roy, though, you can probably predict even if you have not heard the song that it is going to be dramatic and deeply personal; and while I can guess that the sentimental strings and chimes might cause some demanding listeners to wrinkle their noses and run back to the safe hills of the Everlys’ sparsely arranged version, they are quite a natural fit with the timbre of Roy’s voice. So if you’re down on your luck and you need a couple of motherly figures, Phil and Don offer their services; but if you want somebody to amplify your own feelings for you, Mr. Orbison can be a puffed-up version of you for the measly price of... well, whatever amount you had to put in the jukebox back in 1961 (except that most people probably went for the A-side anyway).

With critical and popular tastes on the same line, ‘Running Scared’ hit No. 1, showing Orbison and Melson that they were finally on the right track — so it is not at all surprising that their follow-up to the big hit would go for more or less the same formula, even sticking to the same bolero-like rhythmic pattern and rehashing the trick of the final triumphant high note after a long crescendo. What is surprising is that usually this commercial pattern results in failure (either total or relative to the high start) — but every rule knows its exceptions, and in this case ‘Crying’ turned out to be the superior song, or at least every bit as vital as its predecessor. The reason is that while it is similar, it is also quite different — even more operatic, with a vocal melody that goes through so many twists and turns that it can only afford to repeat the total pattern twice (and even then, with some variations in the second run).

‘Crying’ is probably the greatest song Roy ever wrote and performed, just because it feels like such an ideal photoshoot of his complex artistic personality. It’s great right from the start: there’s the frozen-in-ice melancholic-emotionless state of mind ("I was all right for a while / I could smile for a while...") immediately triggered and shattered by the protagonist’s fateful re-encounter ("But I saw you last night / You held my hand so tight...") — Roy not only rises higher in pitch here, but gulps down a pint of extra gentleness so we know the «emotionless frown» is just a front. Then there are the several different ways in which he articulates the word "crying", almost as if mulling it over, seeking out all the different ways in which a grown man can shed tears. There is something magical in the way he repeats the word in the (pseudo-)chorus — crying, crying, crying — without even once breaking into anything that would resemble real crying (which would have been a cheap theatrical gimmick), but with each repeated instance of the word somehow, I don’t know, paying religious homage to the ancient art of crying, if you get my drift. There are enough subtle overtones here to make up for a good dissertation in the field of emotional psychology.

And then there’s the grand finale, patterned after ‘Running Scared’ but twice as intriguing. See, the end of ‘Running Scared’ depicts an actual, 100% certified triumph — simply by being himself, the guy gets the girl and emerges victorious. ‘Crying’, on the other hand, starts out as a tragedy and ends up as a tragedy, yet its coda ends on the same note of emotional triumph as ‘Running Scared’ — "walked away with me!..." and "crying over you!..." aim for the exact same emotional response from your brain, despite telling seemingly two opposite kinds of stories. Now the simplest solution would be to think of it as a technical flaw on the side of ‘Crying’, where the songwriters were told «we need the song to end exactly the same way as your previous big hit» and they had no choice but to go ahead and do just that. But as a listener who has every bit the same right to interpret art as its creator, I opt for a much more interesting solution — being a eulogy ode to, well, crying, ‘Crying’ ends on a triumphant note because the protagonist wants to cry. Because he’s spent half of his life seeking out the perfect way to break his heart, like other people seek out the perfect way to a perfect murder, and this is his masterpiece — the greatest love on earth broken and shattered in the greatest way possible, with a heart destroyed beyond repair once and for all, putting to shame even the most desperate and suicidal romantics of the 19th century. How’s that for a triumph? There might be far more psychological disturbance and darkness in the song than we’d normally care to admit — in fact, I could almost draw a straight line from here all the way to Nick Cave’s famous "all beauty must die" from ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’, though Roy himself probably would be too terrified to want to accompany me on that train.

Although ‘Crying’ got stalled at No. 2 on the charts (for a respectable reason — it was blocked by Ray Charles’ ‘Hit The Road, Jack’; what a time to be alive, eh?), its subsequent fame and reputation still overshadowed ‘Running Scared’, and it was actually used to open Roy’s new LP on the Monument label, while ‘Running Scared’ was sequenced to end it (perhaps because the label executives thought it would be good to have the album terminate on a positive note). It was also used for the title of the LP, suggesting to the entire world that C-R-Y-I-N-G is, in fact, Roy Orbison’s business, and that business is good like never before. I would have liked to know who precisely was responsible for putting that Greek-style tragic mask on the front cover: it’s one of those «okay, Roy, we can’t actually get you to shed real tears on your actual face, and even if we could, they’d never allow us to use the shot for an album cover, so we’re going for artistic symbolism here... perhaps some serious people might want to buy this record now, not just that Elvis Presley-lovin’ riff-raff!» moments.

Amusingly, what they kept off the record was the B-side of ‘Crying’ — ‘Candy Man’ — which is pretty much everything that ‘Crying’ is not. Co-written by Fred Neil (of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ fame) and Beverly Ross (of Bill Haley’s ‘Dim, Dim The Lights’ fame), it is probably the sleaziest song ever performed by the Golden Voice. Neil himself stated quite openly that candy man was the preferred appellation applied by New Orleanian hookers to their pimp, and although the lyrics of the song never provide any specific hints and, on the whole, pretend for it to merely be about obsessive courting, I think that Roy got the idea — he does deliver the goods in his most earnest simulation of the «pimp voice». "Come on woman, gonna treat you right / Give you candy kisses every single night" might feel almost stalker-ish in this context, if it weren’t for the fact that there is no evil or mental instability on the radar — just sleazy light-heartedness, the kind that may be directed from an easy-going guy to an equally easy-going gal. But while I certainly wouldn’t want to write Roy off as a one-mood pony, or insist that he was pathologically incompatible with the idea of «having fun», I am not sure that he was the most natural candidate in the world for the role of a «candy man». Over in the UK, the song would become a hit on its own as performed by Brian Poole and the Tremeloes — who learned it from Roy himself while touring with him — but they were a mediocre band and their cover is appropriately limp. The perfect version of ‘Candy Man’, in my opinion, can be found on the Hollies’ debut album, with Allan Clarke finally finding just the right delivery tone and getting that "aah, your own candy-cande-e-e-e... candy ma-a-a-a-n!" to sound exactly how it’s meant to (which is, presaging the classic message of Lou Reed’s "I’m just a gift to the women of this world" years later).

I still find it tremendously hilarious, though, how it is possible to have one and the same single whose A-side is so totally and utterly in line with the artistic sensitivities of the 21st century and whose B-side represents just about everything that these artistic sensitivities of the 21st century are not — the perfect trolling material for the modern young progressive. (I also love how you can hear both of them 27 years later at the same legendary Black & White Night concert, not only having lost none of that spark, but even increasing in their efficiency: ‘Crying’ amplifies Roy’s original voice power to even more unbelievable heights, and ‘Candy Man’ takes a few hints from all those UK covers to gain in amicable sleaze).

Most of the Crying LP was recorded during the same June 1961 sessions that yielded ‘Crying’, with just a few titles selected from earlier sessions in May and February of the same year — and while I agree with Richie Unterberger (writing for the All-Music Guide) that none of the other songs are up to the same standards as ‘Crying’ or ‘Running Scared’, I think that on the whole, the LP stands up pretty well. It is true that far too often, he slips back into old-fashioned formula, but then again, not every song one writes can be expected to revolutionize pop songwriting. Expectedly melancholic material like ‘Wedding Day’ (which, as you understand, never comes to pass) and ‘Summer Song’ (which, as you understand, has come and gone) rests on tried and true doo-wop chord progressions, but the arrangements are tasteful and the singing passionate — it’s just that the songs are not distinguishable from covers of old material such as the Platters’ ‘Great Pretender’, which Roy succeeds in making his own but not in reinventing it for a new decade.

The second side of the LP is preferable to the first because it adds more diversity: the A-side is literally five depressing ballads in a row, only interrupted by the comparatively corny serenading of the Bryants’ ‘She Wears My Ring’ (if you don’t listen to the lyrics too much, you might mistake it for a depressing ballad, too, though Roy tries to simulate happiness as best he can). The B-side, however, throws on a few danceable pop-rock numbers, starting with a song actually called ‘Dance’, a mid-tempo little twist in which Roy suggests that his partner put "bells on your toes" and mentions something about "the dancing fever", even if the song never rises above room temperature. Still, it’s kinda fun and the Boots Randolph sax solo is fabulous — and I also think the Rolling Stones ended up totally stealing Roy’s "dance, baby, dance, come on dance, baby, dance" for their own ‘Dance Little Sister’ fifteen years later, even if unconsciously so.

Then there’s ‘Lana’, a cutesy doo-wop rocker that could simply be the blueprint for Sha Na Na’s entire career if not for (a) Roy Orbison, the master of good vocal taste, delivering the product and (b) the odd-as-heck fuzzed-out bass line played by Bob Moore — no idea how they got that tone and whatever possessed them to leave it in, but the nearly synth-like resulting sound somehow adds a lot of weight to the tune. For accuracy’s sake it should be added that Roy originally gave the song to The Velvets, a short-lived vocal group from Texas, but their version swims in all the clichés of doo-wop without even trying to do something different. And this one... this one’s got the fat bass sound. It doesn’t exactly make it the grandaddy of ‘Satisfaction’, but it still makes it nasty enough to survive the cuteness.

And then there’s ‘Let’s Make A Memory’, a song that makes me picture Roy Orbison in a sailor uniform, planning to knock up some unfortunate lady in a faraway corner of the world: "Let’s make a memory together / One that will last and last forever" — I mean, that’s hardly any more or less gross than the message of ‘Candy Man’, but at least this one is delivered in a decidedly sweeter tone. However, what really catches my ear is not the lyrics, but the little descending guitar riff (probably played either by Hank Garland or Grady Martin or some other guitar wiz from Nashville) that first crops up at 0:34 into the song and then reappears for the short twenty-second coda. It is exactly the same riff that forms the backbone of the Beatles’ ‘It Won’t Be Long’ — and is it really a coincidence that they recorded the song less than two months after their joint UK tour with Roy Orbison? (Although I am not sure if he ever performed it live, but certainly the Beatles must have had all the records). Admittedly, the riff is kind of wasted in this song, so it was good of the boys to pick it up and put it to good use; but it’s odd that apparently no one seems to have made the connection earlier.

And speaking of connections, ‘Night Life’ certainly presages ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ with its brass riff that would later be reworked into the electric guitar melody of Roy’s trademark song; but more importantly, it also has a complex, somewhat baffling vocal structure that opens with an anthemic-operatic intro, magically turns into «grittier» pop-rock, then slowly works its way up to even more melodramatic-operatic heights, and then comes back full circle to the original brass riff, tickling the senses of both those who are in lust and those who are in love. It’s just that it doesn’t have a single, all-powerful hook, but repeated listens reveal it as another fine exercise in adventurous songwriting, well worth seeking out.

So much for the LP, which does have its share of filler, but whose worst problem, arguably, is the decision to put most of the slower ballads on the A-side and most of the livelier pop-rockers on the B-side — a fairly common decision for the time, but one that only works if you use your LPs for parties, with 20 minutes of dancing followed by 20 minutes of holding hands in the dark. If you’re just sitting in the dark, though, the filler on the A-side, with Morose Roy all over it, will feel particularly debilitating, and the filler on the B-side, with Toe-Tappy Roy at the helm, will feel a little silly. I would certainly prefer a different sequencing, though I do like the idea of placing the two biggest songs as bookmarks.

To complete the picture, one should probably throw in Roy’s first single from 1962, recorded around the same time that the LP hit the store shelves — which means that ‘Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)’, written for Roy by famed Nashville tune­smith Cindy Walker, appeared too late to make it on Crying. A simple, catchy piece of country-pop, it is worked over by Roy and his band until they turn it into a fabulous groove, with Floyd Cramer throwing in a piano line that sounds like a variation on either ‘What’d I Say’ or ‘Lucille’, and a general feeling of «yeah, this is country, but there’s no way in hell we’re recording it like a generic country song!» even if we’re still sitting square in the middle of Nashville City. The B-side, ‘The Actress’, written by Roy himself, is no slouch either, though it feels as if it were somewhat assembled from bits and pieces of his previous hits, without any truly fresh ideas.

Summing up, one might say that Roy Orbison found himself on Sings Lonely And Blue — and then took little old himself as high as he possibly could with Crying, stretching that formula to its maximum limits. For a few more years, he would still give us beautiful songs that were every bit as good as ‘Running Scared’ and ‘Crying’, but there would be no talk of ever surpassing that golden standard. But I suppose that in 1961–62, not a lot of people could even suspect that it might ever be surpassed by anyone or anything — and even for the aforementioned Beatles, writing a song as good as one of Roy Orbison’s must have been the ultimate songwriting fantasy. Like I said, what a time to be alive!

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