Chart entered : 12 May 1984
Chart peak : 28
Number of hits : 21
The Cocteau Twins were quickly followed out of the indie charts by this duo.
Both of the pair had released records before they came together as Everything But The Girl.
Ben Watt was born in London in 1962 and signed with Cherry Red Records as a singer-songwriter in 1981. He released his first single "Can't" in June that year produced by maverick songwriter Kevin Coyne. I say produced but it's so lo-fi it's hard to believe Coyne did much more than push the button on a tape recorder. It's hard to know which is the more off-key Ben's unlovely singing or his recorder playing.
In the autumn of that year he met English student Tracey Thorn at Hull University. After a brief stint in a punk group called Stern Bops, Tracey had formed The Marine Girls while in the sixth form and they were still an active concern despite Tracey's move north from Hatfield. They released their first single "On My Mind" in December 1981 which is just as primitively recorded as Ben's effort. Tracey does the lead vocal on this tale of romantic obsession sounding like a ragged Helen Shapiro with support from the lighter voice of Alice Fox. Despite the rudimentary musicianship there's something there in the mournful delivery - knowledge of Tracey's appearance, the Jimmy Hill chin , the freakishly large head on a skinny frame usually topped off with a staggeringly unflattering haircut, always gives her songs of unrequited love extra bite.
In March 1982 they released their debut LP "Beach Party" recorded quite literally in a garden shed by their friend Pat Bermingham. The Marine Girls have been posthumously lionised since Kurt Cobain name checked "Beach Party" as one of his favourite albums. Comprising 16 short songs checking in at 28 and a half minutes, it has its moments but given the rough and ready musicianship and lack of a drummer that's long enough. Tracey and Fox share the vocals on a set that borrows from The Shangri-las in the form of spoken word teen dramas and there are hints of The Slits' bolshiness. The wallflower spite in songs like "Marine Girls" doesn't do them any favours. It registered on the indie charts and caught Peel's interest.
Around the same time Ben released his second single, the "Summer into Winter" EP. Recorded with the help of Robert Wyatt who contributes vocals to the first track "Walter and John", a tale of childhood friends grown apart, it comprises 5 wintry pastoral songs vaguely reminiscent of early seventies Pink Floyd . Again Ben's vocals make it a testing listen.
In June 1982 Ben and Tracey first recorded together as Everything But The Girl with an acoustic samba cover of Cole Porter's "Night And Day". The night time DJ's loved it but to me it sounds dull as ditch water. Nevertheless it brought Tracey to the attention of the new jazz brigade and a certain Mr Weller became a fan.
Her next project though was a 23 minute solo album "A Distant Shore" released in September 1982. Tracey was unsure whether these new personal songs about her burgeoning relationship with Ben were suitable for The Marine Girls and recorded them alone with just her guitar and a few overdubs. Cherry Red's Mike Alway decided to release them as they were. If you like minimalist bedsit introspection it's hard to think of anything better to recommend but it is essentially a collection of demos that would sound better fleshed out. The single "Plain Sailing" got a lot of airplay from David Jensen and featured on Cherry Red's "Pillows and Prayers " compilation which retailed at 99p and was a modest hit. My words from the review of that album were :
Tracey Thorn's "Plain Sailing" ( which Jensen played to death ) is ultra-minimalist , just her inexpertly strummed guitar and double-tracked vocal. There's an intriguing tension between her dolorous voice and the lyric of surprised delight that a blind date has worked out so well but then comes the devastating pay-off line - "Tempting to think now it will all be plain sailing, old enough now to know there's no such thing". It's probably only second to At 17 as the ultimate girl in a bedsit anthem.
At the beginning of 1983 Everything But The Girl played a gig in London where they were joined on stage by Weller for a couple of songs. As this was his first public appearance since the demise of The Jam, it garnered a fair amount of publicity. As yet though neither of them was ready to make another Everything But The Girl record.
Ben's next single in February 1983 "Some Things Don't Matter" had already been released on "Pillows And Prayers". My review was :
sounds like an attempt to re-write The Girl From Ipanema with its languid bossa nova rhythm, jazzy sax solo and third person lyric. Watt's vocal is competent but unattractive and there's an excrutiating couplet - "This boy knows how to feel, the blood in his heart runs strong as cochineal" which doesn't even make sense ( I note that the lyrics web-pages all put a question mark in place of the last word ).
It was the trailer single for his album "North Marine Drive" and fairly typical of it . The nine spare songs are all minor key and dirge-y with some more terrible lyrics especially on "Waiting Like Mad" . Ben's voice remains a minus.
It was the trailer single for his album "North Marine Drive" and fairly typical of it. The nine spare songs are all minor key and mopey with some more embarrassing lyrics especially on "Waiting Like Mad". Ben's voice remains a minus.
The Marine Girls released their next single "Don't Come Back" , produced by Young Marble Giant Stuart Moxham, around the same time, a sort of I Will Survive anthem delivered laconically by Alice Fox with the introduction of rudimentary percussion - it sounds like coconut shells - hinting at a move towards conventional pop dynamics. The following album "Lazy Ways" is slightly more sophisticated than their debut but remains rooted in indie amateurism. The line from the title track - "We sit reading under the tree / Party life is not for me " - defines the whole mid-eighties indie aesthetic. Alas, The Marine Girls would not be around to see it bloom, splitting up shortly after the album's release when Tracey and Alice fell out at a concert in Glasgow. The Fox sisters would briefly re-surface in Grab Grab The Haddock before dropping out of the music business.
The demise of the Marine Girls left Tracey and Ben free to develop Everything But The Girl . They signed with Alway's new label Blanco y Negro which was run like an indie but supported by WEA. They then collaborated with Weller on The Style Council's debut LP Cafe Bleu with Tracey doing the lead vocal on "The Paris Match" a cod-jazz smoocher spearheading Weller's bid for Euro-sophistication.
After that they were ready to release their own material. "Each And Everyone" was the first single on Blanco y Negro and it's a reasonable introduction to the band's own songs, a mildly reproachful response to the overtures of an unreliable lover. Tracey's glum delivery is rather incongruous as she shimmies amid the chattering percussion and tasteful horn arrangements. Sade's producer Robin Millar was at the helm and the single was lionised by the same writers that lauded Your Love Is King.
It would probably have been a bigger hit had their planned appearance on Wogan gone ahead. Instead producers rejected outright the suggestion that they get married on the show as distasteful and the chance was missed. It would be another four years before they troubled the Top 40 again and over a decade with one of their own songs.
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