From OP: Cream at their heaviest and eeriest. At times, this song almost sounds like early Led Zeppelin, despite the fact that Eric Clapton is playing lead guitar and not Jimmy Page. The super bass and wailing, echoing guitar found later on Zeppelin's "You Shook Me" are all here as well. But it is 1966, not 1968. One may well wonder if this track in some way may have inspired the sound on Zeppelin's first album. I first heard this on Best of Cream, the very first Cream compilation in vinyl in 1969 (with vegetables on the cover). To say I was in awe at their wild, even frightening, rendition of Willie Dixon's classic blues number would be putting it mildly. The full, unedited version had never been available in the US until the '69 compilation album apparently. For UK listeners, it was the last track on side One of Fresh Cream in 1966, but absent on the US version, replaced by "I Feel Free." The song is as violent as some of the lyrics, the word "spoonful" used mostly as a metaphor for pleasure, in particular sex, love, and drugs but not limited only to these. The search can be a violent one, even a deadly one. But all this lyrical darkness was not available on the album sleeve or cover, and largely lost on this, at the time 15-year-old listener who, nevertheless, made contact with its meaning through the music: Cool, catchy and at times scary. The video seeks to visualize the sound as well as the meaning.
From OP:
ReplyDeleteCream at their heaviest and eeriest. At times, this song almost sounds like early Led Zeppelin, despite the fact that Eric Clapton is playing lead guitar and not Jimmy Page. The super bass and wailing, echoing guitar found later on Zeppelin's "You Shook Me" are all here as well. But it is 1966, not 1968. One may well wonder if this track in some way may have inspired the sound on Zeppelin's first album. I first heard this on Best of Cream, the very first Cream compilation in vinyl in 1969 (with vegetables on the cover). To say I was in awe at their wild, even frightening, rendition of Willie Dixon's classic blues number would be putting it mildly. The full, unedited version had never been available in the US until the '69 compilation album apparently. For UK listeners, it was the last track on side One of Fresh Cream in 1966, but absent on the US version, replaced by "I Feel Free." The song is as violent as some of the lyrics, the word "spoonful" used mostly as a metaphor for pleasure, in particular sex, love, and drugs but not limited only to these. The search can be a violent one, even a deadly one. But all this lyrical darkness was not available on the album sleeve or cover, and largely lost on this, at the time 15-year-old listener who, nevertheless, made contact with its meaning through the music: Cool, catchy and at times scary. The video seeks to visualize the sound as well as the meaning.