America (2nd Amendment)
Posted in 1960s, Lyrics, Music, Nostalgia, Prog Rock, Rock at 22:03 on 23 February 2009
Since the nice Mr David O’List has commented on one of my previous posts about his early ground-breaking band I thought I’d link to the You Tube rendering of America (2nd Amendment) performed by the Nice – credited on the label to Sondheim, Bernstein, Emerlist Davjack – so you could hear what we were both rabbitting on about.
The embedding is of the long version as on the single. There is no video with the clip; just a picture of the band. I avoided the shorter four minute cut (which was given a play on Radio 2’s Sounds Of The Sixties a couple of months back) as it has, to my ears, a clumsy edit about ¾ of the way through.
The single is sub-titled 2nd Amendment. The second amendment to the US constitution is of course the famous one about the right to bear arms.
I was at school at the time of the single’s release and my music teacher expressed interest in the “rock version of the New World symphony” that he’d heard about – as I said in my previous post about it the track quotes from Dvorak – so I brought America in and he played it to the class. All went well until the spoken bit at the end where he went ballistic about “ruining a perfectly good piece of music with political rubbish.” So much for social comment.
Not only was this single over twice as long as was then common, the track was also, except for the spoken outro, an instrumental. By that time in the sixties, unlike earlier in the decade, instrumental releases had become unusual and hits extremely rare. A doubly brave decision, then.
This, it seems, is where prog rock may have started.
The Nice: America
Onebrow
24 February 2009 at 10:30
I always find myself conflicted with older music. The song is undoubtedly very good and I enjoy listening to it, but the production and mixing just can’t live up to modern standards.
It’s also interesting that to this day (true) social comment remains unpopular in popular music.
jackdeighton
25 February 2009 at 20:25
They only had 4-track recording or something ridiculous like that.
Onebrow
25 February 2009 at 23:38
I know and it’s a real shame. You can’t help but wonder what the older artists would be capable of in the modern era (assuming they were given the chance to relive their creative prime).
Imagery - A Son of the Rock -- Jack Deighton
25 July 2009 at 14:05
[…] mentioned Procol Harum a few posts ago. When I wrote about America by The Nice I said, under the influence of a programme Iâd seen on the history of the form on BBC […]
Misheard Lyrics: Angel Of The Morning – A Son of the Rock -- Jack Deighton
2 April 2010 at 23:41
[…] Small Facesâ Tin Soldier which I featured recently, also had a great influence on The Nice whom I mentioned several months ago now. They were formed to be her backing band. However they quickly broke off to […]
Friday On My Mind 1. – A Son of the Rock -- Jack Deighton
9 April 2010 at 22:47
[…] Hotel by the true Nirvana, the real Nirvana (see my category and scroll down.) Or thereâs America by The Nice, with which I started off my prog rock musings, plus their The Diamond Hard Blue Apples […]
Reelin’ In the Years 119: RIP Keith Emerson – A Son of the Rock -- Jack Deighton
22 March 2016 at 19:10
[…] with that most unlikely of progenitors of the form, P P Arnold’s backing band The Nice. America, where his reworkings of classical pieces in a rock style perhaps began and which has a good claim, […]