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GALAXY
1974
ZINC
ALLOY AND THE HIDDEN RIDERS OF TOMORROW
OR A CREAMED CAGE IN AUGUST 1974
This track often polarises people, for every number
who like it there seems to be an equal who do not.
In essence this track is about love, finding love and the banishment of
a harsh reality. In the chorus Marc changes the lyrics your world to my
world to indicate that they are one and the same, it’s perhaps no
coincidence that the track fades with this refrain.
The song lyrically is like the later track ‘Change’, in that
it surveys what is around Marc in 1973 and it comments on it, the harshness
of fame, the loneliness, then the song yearns for inner peace and love.
The song can be immediately linked with ‘Gloria Jones’, she
like Marc was a successful musician and producer, she had a reputation
in her own right and understood clearly the crazy pop star world Marc
was living in. As their love blossomed throughout 1973, Marc’s world
and Gloria’s world became your world, my world, and then one world.
In essence though the song is a plea to anyone, its Marc saying, hey this
is my crazy shambolic lonely world, what’s yours like? Marc who once
considered himself so in tune with a generation in song at least was starting
to appear increasingly distant.
Marc starts the track singing stridently,
‘Which galaxy are you from?’
‘Tell me how they bang a gong?’
This reference to previous songs was common throughout ‘Zinc Alloy’,
although to bang a gong was to have sex, for me it can be taking as simply
meaning, how do they get on? How do they live their life?
Shadows in the alley at midnight’
‘Metal clad rocker with the bent teeth’
The whole image of ‘Zinc Alloy’ was of a futuristic look with aluminium-affected clothes, shiny metallic colours; Marc adopted this look on tour during 1974. By 1974 on tour at least Marc had resorted to pastiche over the top guitar solo’s, Marc with his Zinc Alloy had become the ‘Metal Clad #Rocker with the bent teeth’.
Marc continues the dark images theme with the next verse.
My
planets like an angel with clipped wings
A river bed dump shed sweetheart
The track uses the strong urban imagery, the street poetry that Marc loved; almost apocalyptic in its bleakness and view on reality it suited Marc more than ever in 1973 at the time of the songs recording.
‘Do they have sickness in society?’
‘Do they have glitter crap gaiety?’
It’s a telling line that shows Marc’s complete disillusionment with so called Glam Rock, as Marc hopelessly tried to distance himself from the often poor bands who had shamelessly adopted imitations of his own glitter and clothes, there was little Marc could do, all he could do was hope that someone where there was an answer.
Verses are sung in an angry style, they are almost spat out, the anger and disillusionment pushed to the forefront. Marc sings with a high degree of vitriol. The soft gentle Marc of 1971 had been consumed. By the recording of Zinc Alloy in 1973, Marc was increasingly taking on the guise of an emotional wreck dependent on drink and drugs. The bitterness in the song is obvious, but during the chorus with Gloria backing him the song becomes soft and melodic again, a sense of inner peace returns which in fact was what Gloria managed to return to Marc’s life. Some of the production techniques and the individual noises on the track are not that far removed Zip Gun.
As of yet no full demos have come to the public’s ear, it would be interesting to hear how the song continues. It is a short song, under two minutes in duration. For many people its shortness just gives the impression that it was an idea that runs out of steam early on. The fragment of a home acoustic demo that exists also confirms that this was an idea taking beyond it’s natural destination, retaining the basic chord and tune with some of the finished lyrics it comes across as more of an idea, as opposed to an outright finished song. Like many of Marc’s though it retains a sensitive quality strangely absence form final studio recordings.
I find the strident angry verse, melodic chorus combination interesting, Gloria’s singing sounds superb and enhance the song. But by the end I am always wondering if maybe it was just a weak structure, which meant that the song was limited in direction.
As with all the tracks on Zinc Alloy the cosmic choir are used, but on this track they definitely work, had the song being developed further then it would have perhaps worked better.