99: TRAFFIC
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush/ Coloured Rain
(Island, 1967)

MY FAVOURITE sweetly dated knockabout sex comedy from the ‘60s also features a theme tune with my favourite intro of all time.

That slow fade-in of see-sawing Hammond and flute is quite the most perfect aural evocation of a sunrise imaginable. It sounds like hope, rebirth and renewal, mystery and wonder, love and laughter. Whether or not this was their intention is beside the point – they may just have slung it together at the last minute and thought ‘sod it, that’ll do’ – but it doesn’t half do the business.

Traffic, as many of you will know, were formed in early 1967 after Steve Winwood’s defection from The Spencer Davis Group. The teenage musical prodigy with Ray Charles’ voice was evidently growing frustrated within the confines of the SDG’s brilliant but straitened repertoire of soulful blues, and to this end had hooked up with like-minded grail seekers Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason.

They bequeathed to the world the concept of ‘getting it together in the country’ – by which I don’t mean dogging, but rather the notion of moving one’s band into a rural property miles from nowhere, setting up the amps and drum kit, and blowing well into the night.

Lest we forget, they also left us with some remarkable music over the years, swirling and heady. Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush probably doesn’t count among their favourite compositions or performances, but it’s a lovely beacon from a time when singles were allowed – nay, expected – to flex their muscles, shift time signatures and textures, and generally take the listener on a bit of a journey.

In this instance, the journey was through the tiled, freshly-scrubbed underpasses and sunny shopping squares of new town Stevenage, where Mulberry Bush was filmed.

New towns still looked like new towns in those days, and the optimism fair leaps off of the screen. And before we get too misty-eyed about those salad days, it will hopefully cheer you to consider the fact that just as Mulberry Bush was being released, Harold Wilson was forced to devalue the pound by more than 14 per cent in an attempt to tackle the UK’s economic problems.

We lived to fight another day after that sorry episode: maybe, just maybe, we can navigate our way through the current economic meltdown also.