329 Hello Chris Rea - Fool ( If You Think It's Over )

Chart  entered : 7  October  1978

Chart  peak : 30

Number  of  hits : 29

Like  Kate  Bush, though  on  a  less  spectacular  scale, Chris  broke  into  the  charts  at  a  time  when  his  music  didn't  seem  to  fit  with  anything  else  that  was  going  on.

Chris  Rea  was  born  in  Middlesbrough  in  1951  to  an  Anglo-Italian  father  who  owned  a  chain  of  ice  cream  shops  and  Irish  mother.  He  was  already  in  his  twenties  by  the  time  he  bought  his  first  guitar  and  taught  himself  how  to  play  from  listening  to  blues  records. In  1973  he  joined  the  local  band  Magdalene  who  never  got  a  deal  then  formed  his  own  group  The  Beautiful  Losers.  They  did  achieve  some  recognition  but  when  Magnet  Records  came  calling  they  wanted  Chris  as  a  solo  artist.

Chris  released  his  first  single  "So  Much  Love "  produced  by  Peter  Shelley  ( the  other  one )  in  May  1974.  It's  a  beefy  pop  rock  effort  with  melodic  similarities  to  Children  Of  The  Revolution  in  the  main  riff  and  a  strong  chorus. Chris  addresses  the  song  to  a  girl  who's  playing  hard  to  get  but  it  sounds  more  like  a  threat  than  a  plea, a  sign  of  the  dark  edge  prevalent  in  much  of  his  early  work. It  didn't  get  much  attention  possibly  because  his  raspy  vocals  are  too  low  in  the  mix.

Then  there's  a  four  year  gap   before  his  next  single  which  has never  been  fully  explained. There  seems  to  have  been  some  conflict  with  Magnet  over  his  artistic  direction. They  wanted  a  singer-songwriter  with  a  suggested  new  name  of  Benny  Santini  while  he  saw  himself  as  primarily  a  guitarist  who  wrote  his  own  material.  And  so  he played  on  records  by  folk  group  Arbre, Hank  Marvin  and  Catherine  Howe  before  delivering  anything  more.

Finally  in  March  1978  he  came  up  with  this  one.  "Fool ( If  You  Think  It's  Over ) "  was  written  as  a  compassionate  consolation  to  his  teenage  sister  who'd  just  been  dumped  for  the  first  time  and  its  sincerity  is  plain  in  both  the  lyric  and  Chris's  husky  delivery. "New  born  eyes  always  cry  with  pain  at  the  first  sight  of  the  morning  sun"  has  to  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful  lines  in  pop. The  melody  is  equally  gorgeous.

But  Chris  himself  has  always  been  ambivalent  about  the  arrangement  by  RAH  Band  man  Richard  Hewson  and  producer  Gus  Dudgeon. He  says  it's  the  only  record  he  didn't  play  any  guitar  on and  re-recorded  it  for  his  greatest  hits  LP. I  agree  with  him  that  there's  a  lack  of  bite  there; you  have  a  lazy  sax  break  from  Steve  Gregory  where  a  guitar  solo  would  have  been  better  and  though  I  like  the  choppy  percussion  hook  for  the  intro , its  persistence  through  the  song  does  anchor  it  in  a  mellow  AOR  groove  which  doubtless  helped  its  prospects  in  the  US  where  it  reached  number  12. That  in  turn  led  to  its  belated  appearance  in  the  charts  here.

It  was  something  of  an  outlier  hit  for  Chris  and  returned  to  the  charts in  a  cover  ( actually  a  bigger  hit  ) by  Elkie  Brooks  long  before  he  had  another  Top  30  hit.