(...Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)
It was their last word, though was never strictly intended to be; caught up in the Christmas rush it peaked at #12 in our charts at the end of 1974, and in America it charted not at all. But "You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything..." still sounds like the most gracious and good-natured of musical farewells, and certainly marks the last audible occasion when Rod sounded as though he was enjoying making a record rather than clocking in to make one. The band's shared composer credits suggest an impromptu jam slowly shaping its way into a song, and the ebullience and spark of both playing and singing betray a group playing together and loving it.
Rod offers the reliable old lyrical raincoat of yes baby, I know I'm an irretrievably recidivist, womanising sot, but hey I always bring it on home to you; a scenario you would hardly accept from the subsequent Atlantic-crossing, tax-dodging solo Stewart but here his frequent exclamations of "ooh baby!" and the best "listen!"s this side of Kevin Rowland keep our sympathy afloat. "You can make me do just any old thing!" he proclaims in the chorus, and follows with the winking aside "...and I love it." He knows that summer will merge into winter and he'll never learn a thing, but "this old heart of mine" - he leaps at the paraphrase - "is far too proud not to keep on trying" and besides "I'd rather LOSE BOTH MY eyes/Than never see your smiling face again, girl."
Beside and behind him the band cook up most agreeably; Ian MacLagan's funky post-Stevie clavinet (and discreet Hammond asides) squirting in symmetry with Ronnie Wood's deadpan guitar responses to Rod's latest apology/justification, although the star here is Kenney Jones, thudding a definite foursquare beat on snare and floor tom as though this is his last chance to beat the beat. But the miracle of the song comes with the final turnaround; as Stewart murmurs "Keep on lovin' me baby" and the record appears to be reaching a natural quietude of an end, the key suddenly changes upward and late hope comes flooding in through the scratched French windows; refuelled, Stewart plays with the words "baby" and "darling," revelling in their implications as the band eagerly make their final push - the punctum coming with Jones' gavel-like quartet of cymbal/snare splashes/crashes answering Rod's four ascending "darling"s (who'd have thought the influence of Levon Helm would stretch so far?) and an unobtrusive string section enters with Oriental curlicues to take the record, and the band, out on the highest of highs. Nine months later, Rod was sailing and lost to wonder forever.
Rod offers the reliable old lyrical raincoat of yes baby, I know I'm an irretrievably recidivist, womanising sot, but hey I always bring it on home to you; a scenario you would hardly accept from the subsequent Atlantic-crossing, tax-dodging solo Stewart but here his frequent exclamations of "ooh baby!" and the best "listen!"s this side of Kevin Rowland keep our sympathy afloat. "You can make me do just any old thing!" he proclaims in the chorus, and follows with the winking aside "...and I love it." He knows that summer will merge into winter and he'll never learn a thing, but "this old heart of mine" - he leaps at the paraphrase - "is far too proud not to keep on trying" and besides "I'd rather LOSE BOTH MY eyes/Than never see your smiling face again, girl."
Beside and behind him the band cook up most agreeably; Ian MacLagan's funky post-Stevie clavinet (and discreet Hammond asides) squirting in symmetry with Ronnie Wood's deadpan guitar responses to Rod's latest apology/justification, although the star here is Kenney Jones, thudding a definite foursquare beat on snare and floor tom as though this is his last chance to beat the beat. But the miracle of the song comes with the final turnaround; as Stewart murmurs "Keep on lovin' me baby" and the record appears to be reaching a natural quietude of an end, the key suddenly changes upward and late hope comes flooding in through the scratched French windows; refuelled, Stewart plays with the words "baby" and "darling," revelling in their implications as the band eagerly make their final push - the punctum coming with Jones' gavel-like quartet of cymbal/snare splashes/crashes answering Rod's four ascending "darling"s (who'd have thought the influence of Levon Helm would stretch so far?) and an unobtrusive string section enters with Oriental curlicues to take the record, and the band, out on the highest of highs. Nine months later, Rod was sailing and lost to wonder forever.
