Song of the day: Mr. George – "My Temperature’s High"

A couple of days ago I had a little* chat with a chap called Darren on Twitter (Hi, Darren!) about an Australian band from the 1970s called Mr. George.

T.F.D. (Twitter Friend Darren) told me about a Mr. George mini-documentary he produced. It lasts approximately five minutes and eight seconds, and it’s the shortest music documentary I know of. Although it managed to tell me a few things in its five minutes (and eight seconds), it didn’t tell me why the band decided to call themselves “Mr. George”. But it did tell me other things.

Now, because this post is meant to be a Song of the day, I’ll play you a Mr. George track and then sneak in the documentary after it:

Mr. George – “My Temperature’s High” (1974)

But back to the song:

“My Temperature’s High” was written by the splendid Ted Mulry, who recorded it himself the same year. I posted the original Ted version ages ago, but if you’re someone in a hurry and don’t have enough time to click on this link, I’ll put it here:

Ted Mulry Gang – “My Temperature’s High” (1974)

(*Due to the 140-character limit imposed by Twitter, little chats are pretty much the only kind you can have there.)

Song of the day: Ted Mulry – "So Much Love In My Heart"

My friend Stonefish (Hi, Stoney!) recently posted a song called “So Much Love In My Heart”, a catchy little number from the 1970s by an Australian band called Mr. George. Because it has a rather catchy chorus I was rather tempted to post it here, too, but discovered that I already had.

The song was written by the magnificent Australian songwriter/recording artist Ted Mulry, so I thought to myself: “No problem – I’ll just play the original as performed and recorded by Mr. Mulry”.

I tracked it down (pun almost intended), had a listen and thought: “Hmm, I don’t think Ted’s version is as good as the one by Mr. George – maybe I’ll skip it and not put it on the blog”.

But then I listened to it more intently (i.e., properly) and discovered something rather surprising: a glaring mistake played by the guitarist.

I don’t know if I’ve told you this before (I probably have), but I love hearing mistakes on records – not for any sense of schadenfreude (I don’t wish ill on anyone, or derive any joy from people doing embarrassing or regrettable things) but because it lets me know that actual human beings were involved in the recording process. You know – people. Not machines. People. Playing music.

Hearing a mistake also gets me thinking about the recording session, and then I start to wonder a few things:

• Did anyone at the session (musicians, producer, engineer) notice that mistake?
• If they did, why didn’t anyone at the session (especially the producer) suggest re-recording it? (It was the 1970s – where re-recording little bits of a song was relatively easy.)
• If everyone involved in the recording knew about the mistake, did they decide to leave it in thinking that no-one else would notice it?
• I’m guessing that the guitarist knew he* made a mistake. If no-one else noticed it, why didn’t he pipe up and say “Uh, sorry guys – can I do my part again?”

It’s for all those reasons (and the catchy chorus of the song) that I’m playing it to you today:

Ted Mulry – “So Much Love In My Heart“ (1972)
[The guitar mistake occurs at 0:17]

And if you want to hear the Mr. George version but don’t want to go to my old post or visit Stonefish’s, here it is:

Mr. George – “So Much Love In My Heart“ (1973)

(*The guitarist was a he. It was either Billy Green or Phil Manning.)

Song of the day: Mr. George – "So Much Love In My Heart"

Here’s Mr. George with the nicely catchy “So Much Love In My Heart“:

Mr. George – “So Much Love In My Heart“ (1973)

By the way, Mr. George was a band, not a person. I must admit that I have very, very hazy memories of this song when it was released in 1973 (well, I was 12 at the time), but apparently it charted fairly well: it reached #22 in Sydney, #23 in Brisbane, and #26 in my hometown, Adelaide.

“So Much Love” was written by the estimable Ted Mulry, and it has a chorus that’s effortless in its ability to stick in your head for an entire day, week, or even a month – depending on how catchy you find the chorus. It’s certainly stuck in my head. (One more time: “So much love in my heart…”)

As far as I can tell – which in this case is not very far at all – Mr. George released only two singles in 1973 and only one album, On The Bandwagon in 1974. (Believe it or not, there was a vinyl copy of the album over at OZtion which sold recently for $8. Bargain!)

Here’s that other single:

Mr. George – “Lazy Susan” (1973)

(Thanks yet again to Stonefish for the suggestion. I now want to borrow his entire record collection.)