un-Bear-able

One of the first pop songs I can remember that wasn't the Beatles. 

My mum liked it and sang it a lot, in part because the word "Simon" appeared in it.  She also liked that Alan Price - nice looking fellow. 

Alan Price had this sound that I think of  as "rock without guitars" and that descends from the Paul McC side of Beatles - "Hey Jude", "Lady Madonna". A little bit too ingratiating.  Cosy.

Only recently realised "Dancing Bear" was written by Randy Newman, one of those crit-beloved (American-crit beloved, really) artists I've never got to grips with. The shadow of "Short People", perhaps. 

(You gotta love the sloppy disregard of Decca's design people, misspelling Alan on the single cover)

I guess it's one of these songs that if not exactly anti-showbiz, is perhaps ambivalent about the indignity of entertaining a bunch of paying strangers?   

Apparently for Newman it had some kind of secreted meaning to do with how showbiz is a way for minorities - Jewish or Black - to find acceptance in White America. 

This other big hit for the Alan Price Set is this "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"-ish knees-up. Also has more than a tinge of vocal blackface about it.  

Alan Price is all over the soundtrack of O Lucky Man, the Lindsay Anderson movie. 

Warm Horlicks Englishy sound, very 1971. 

That flat cap. 

I always remember Price unfondly as the one who joins Dylan in bullying the earnest student journalist in Don't Look Back -  (at 45.50)

(Student aka Terry Ellis, who went on to co-found Chrysalis Records)