Songs They Never Play On The Radio - James Young

SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO – 

JAMES YOUNG

As you go through life and the more books that you read, the more you will find that the plaudits and the quotes from reviewers as displayed on the covers are more often than not mere hype, baloney and product endorsement dressed up as literary criticism. You will find that though they may well be genuine quotes, they are mostly written by either acquaintances of the author or by critics with a vested interest in delivering positive feedback be it from simply following 'guidance' as laid down by their employers (their editor), or to simply ensure they remain on book publishers lists of favoured reviewers so as to continue being sent free books. You will even find more often than not that the reviewer whose quote adorns the cover seems to have read a completely different book to the one you're holding in your hands – as if they've not actually read it at all?

This may come as no great revelation to those employed within the book selling/publishing industry but to many others it might well be something they've never really considered. No matter how passionate you might feel about books, at the end of the day the publishing and the selling of them is a business just like any other particularly when you get to the Waterstones mass retail level. There, a book is a product just like a tin of baked beans, nothing more and nothing less than just another unit to shift.

It comes, therefore, as something of a surprise when the plaudits and the quotes on the cover of Songs They Never Play On The Radio by James Young for once ring absolutely true because it is indeed an incredibly well-written book. It may even possibly be one of the best music books ever written? Possibly.

'A coolly literary masterpiece' – Greil Marcus. 'The greatest rock and roll book' – Tony Wilson. 'Sad, funny, brilliant' – Tony Parsons. 'Anyone who reads this book will be moved by the lyrical poignancy, intimate detail and near mythic quality the author captures' – Danny Sugarman. 'A work of comic ingenuity' – David Sinclair.

Praise indeed.

James Young was the piano player in Nico's backing band during the 1980s and Songs They Never Play On The Radio is his memoir of those years. There are so many anecdotes within its pages that it's nigh on impossible to pick out any particular ones as highlights or as examples of the quality of the writing. It is quite simply a funny, rollicking, rolling train of quips, quotes, anecdotes, vignettes, observations and asides that capture Nico and the world around her during her Manchester heroin years in all its debauched, sordid and comic glory.

Nico's personality and the array of characters who gravitate toward her is a gift that keeps on giving, so much so that the story could almost have written itself but it's the fact that it's been captured by someone who actually knows how to write that takes it to a whole other level.

Nico, of course, once sang with the Velvet Underground before being unceremoniously thrown out, and that in itself grants her legendary status. By the time of the 1980s, however, she had washed up in Manchester of all places, virtually penniless and alone apart from a healthy heroin habit to support. Though she had suffered tragedies in her life, Nico was never a tragic figure as such and isn't depicted as one in the book. She was too singular, too selfish, too Germanic for that.

Throughout the book she instead comes across at times like a German version of Margot (as played by Penelope Keith) from the BBC comedy series The Good Life but without the etiquette and without the snobbery. Rather than floral skirts she is dressed instead in leather jacket and biker boots, armed with a foghorn voice – and on heroin. Stuffing packages of it up her backside every time she approaches the border of a new country when on tour and has to go through customs. Declaring very loudly to one and all that it wasn't the only thing she put up there: "My father was Turkish... you know what that means, don't you? I like it the Turkish way..."

Nico might well have been gullible and at the mercy of being used by those around her but one thing all her hangers-on knew was that she was their meal ticket, and without her they didn't really have a hope. Her heroin dependency was obviously a major issue to continuously contend with but it was also the thin spider's web that they all hung by and the fuel that kept everything going.

Into the book James Young weaves appearances by such characters as John Cooper Clarke, linking up with Nico purely through their shared special interest. Gregory Corso shares the same interest but whilst John Cooper Clarke is likeable, Corso comes across as a diminutive junky hoodlum. Then there's John Cale, brought in to produce Nico's new album and introducing a level of professionalism only matched by his paranoia but eclipsed by his utter, complete and total meanness. Allen Ginsberg disappoints Nico by failing to get naked though his own personal special interest in anything anal remains undiminished. Towering over all of them, however, is Nico's erstwhile manager, Dr Demetrius, otherwise known as Alan Wise, the legendary mover and shaker in the Manchester music scene. Dr Demetrius' behaviour is often shocking yet other times touching, his love for Nico remaining forever unrequited apart from an incident involving a sleeping Nico on the bunk of an Intercity train. 'Naturally, I wiped it off afterwards.' he's quoted as saying 'Wouldn't wish to leave a stain on her character.'

Whether or not Nico was likeable as a person is besides the point - because she was a legend, a muse of both Federico Fellini and Andy Warhol who had fallen from grace and ended up as a drug addict in Manchester. As James Young puts it in his preface: 'She influenced us all. It may sound absurd but, despite the monstrous egotism and the sordid scenes, there was something almost pure about her. A kind of concentrated will. Not pretty, sweet or socially acceptable, certainly, but intense, uncompromising and disarmingly frank.'

There is indeed a lot in Young's book that is sordid, not pretty, not sweet and certainly not socially acceptable but there are also moments of genuine loveliness such as when Nico's paddling along the shoreline on a beach in Australia, singing 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do,' swishing her feet in the water, happy in the sunset.

Yes, Nico was indeed a legend. And this is indeed a very good book.

John Serpico