Dress for Success


The Gilbert O’Sullivan video last week also got me thinking about Leo Sayer (as you do). Both of them were decent singer-songwriters who didn’t have any hits until they dressed up in silly costumes. O’Sullivan like a 1930s Yorkshire schoolboy, and Sayer in a ridiculous Pierrot outfit with all the make-up. I imagined them both going to a record label and being told “Your songs are great, kid. But what you need these days is a gimmick!” but the disappointing truth is that they came up with those looks themselves — maybe out of desperation for success, but they certainly worked. The modern equivalent would be Ed Sheerhan going on stage dressed as as Hobbit — which wouldn’t take much effort, he’s halfway there anyway.

Pop stars reinventing themselves with new images is nothing new of course, but it was especially popular in the early 70s when every week’s Top of The Pops was like a contest to see who could wear the most outlandish outfit.

Both O’Sullivan and Sayer eventually dropped their fancy-dress looks for more ordinary outfits and carried on being successful, but without that initial visual splash they might not have been noticed in the first place. Another thing they have in common is that they both recorded some right old rubbish, but I always liked this song — I just wouldn’t admit it in company.

Download: Moonlighting – Leo Sayer (mp3)

Has Morrissey covered this one too?

8 thoughts on “Dress for Success”

  1. Is it ever OK to admit to liking Leo?

    Thanks, Lee – I remember liking this a lot too, haven’t heard it in an age though so I’ll have to see if it stands up like “The Show Must Go On” still does…

    Didn’t he go a little odd in recent years? A look at t’internet and it seems he has a new LP out and will be touring the UK! Is this what prompted your post?

    Phil

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  3. The Pierrot get-up may seem ridiculous in retrospect, but Sayer’s debut on TOTP with ‘The Show Must Go On’ is indelibly etched on my memory because of it. A genuine WTF moment, if I’d known WTF that meant at 13.
    To the best of my knowledge Mozza has given ‘Moonlighting’ a body swerve – thus far at least.

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  4. Great song. I also, somewhat secretly (or did the secretness only start recently), liked Leo Sayer’s early output. Just browsing his discog on 45cat. Memories. I think his early run of singles were all pretty good. I browse an awful lot of charity shops and car boots and thinking about it I have come across hardly any Leo Sayer records which is odd as he sold a lot in the 70s. I saw him live once i think, and met him once too – in Disc Empire at the end of the King’s Road. We chatted at the counter for 20 minutes whilst listening to the latest jazz-funk imports. I seem to remember he had cycled there, he had yet to pass his driving test.

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  5. Not Morrissey but I can hear Springsteen and the E Street Band giving that song a run for its money. Lyrically it’s straight outta Borntorun. “Only ten miles to Gretna, they’re 300 behind, tonight on Thundering Road”

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