Song Lyric Sunday: Make Me Smile

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Jim has returned from his break and has resumed his role in leading us for Song Lyric Sunday. I hope you enjoyed your time away, Jim. This week’s challenge, as outlined in his post Selling More Music, is to share a song that made it to the top of the charts. My choice for this was #1 in early 1975 here in the UK, and also in Ireland, but only made it to #96 in the US – it was the band’s only US chart entry so I’m guessing it might be unfamiliar to many over there. Guys, you really missed out on a classic!

These are the main lyrics:

You’ve done it all
You’ve broken every code
And pulled the rebel to the floor
You spoiled the game
No matter what you say
For only metal, what a bore

Blue eyes, blue eyes
How come you tell so many lies?

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, running wild

There’s nothing left
All gone and run away
Maybe you’ll tarry for a while
It’s just a test
A game for us to play
Win or lose, it’s hard to smile

Resist, resist
It’s from yourself you have to hide, oh

Come up and see me to make me smile
Oh, or do what you want, running wild

There ain’t no more
You’ve taken everything
From my belief in Mother Earth
Can you ignore
My faith in everything?
‘Cause I know what faith is and what it’s worth

Away, away
And don’t say maybe you’ll try

And this is the song:

That may sound like a bitter response to a broken love affair, but it isn’t. Cockney Rebel had already had a couple of top ten hits in the UK and had just finished a tour in summer 1974, when three of the band approached Steve Harley and told him that they wanted to write songs for the band too – he had written everything until then. He basically told them to go away and do that, and then broke up the band. To emphasise his role as leader he recruited three new members to join him and Stuart Elliott, the original drummer, and renamed them Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, in case anyone hadn’t taken his point. He wrote this song shortly after the break up, and it is his commentary on how he felt the ex-members had treated him, and how he would respond if they came to see him now. Look at the lyrics again: it seems as though he would have enjoyed seeing them squirm, doesn’t it!

The song was originally written as a slower, bluesy piece, but it changed after Harley played it to the newly reformed band while they were recording their album The Best Years Of Our Lives, on which the song is included: the album came out in March 1975 and got to #4 in the UK. After producer Alan Parsons heard the song, he suggested speeding up its tempo, as he felt this would suit it better. Harley then developed the song further, introducing tacets (pauses), dead stops and gaps into it. Harley recalled in a 2014 interview: “Alan was great, he didn’t try to dissuade me, he just said, ‘Do it’.” And in an interview in 2010 on the BBC’s The One Show, he said “Suddenly it was swinging, and bopping, and ‘ooh-la-la.’ We saw a hit record being built here, there was no doubt.” He was right!

The new band members were Jim Cregan (guitar), Duncan Mackay (keyboards), and George Ford (bass) and they can all be seen in this video. Jim Cregan plays the acoustic guitar solo in the break, and as Harley has since recognised it is a difficult one to master. It had originally been intended to be a saxophone piece but after they heard Cregan noodling on it in the studio they recorded his version, and an iconic song was complete. Cregan had previously been with the band Family, and after his Cockney Rebel stint he played for many years in Rod Stewart’s band. Alan Parsons, who produced this song, went on to form his own band who enjoyed massive success, particularly in the US but less so here in the UK. This song has been re-released on several occasions, and has been awarded a Gold Disc here in the UK. To date it has sold over 1.5m copies worldwide.

For me, this was part of the soundtrack to my final year at university. It was released in January 1975 and was all over the radio at that time. As someone who liked to have the radio on as background while I was studying I heard this a lot! I loved it then, and I still do.

Song credits:

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Steve Harley

Make Me Smile lyrics © Finchley Music Corp

36 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Make Me Smile”

  1. Happy memories of a double date for this one Clive. I wanted to dance and this was playing, but the only free space was on a raised platform on the dance floor. My date turned on a sixpence and went back to this seat. I shrugged my shoulders and danced on my own. I can even remember the outfit I was wearing…….. pink trousers and a navy blue top! I was 20.

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    • Mine too, a real pop classic. I never really took to their Here Comes The Sun cover: for me it was too stylised and lost the delicate feel of the original. Each to their own!

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      • You’ve made me aware of many unfamiliar songs over the past few years. I think you do a nice balance of choosing pieces that are familiar with ones you know that many of us will never have heard. Keep doing what you’re doing, my friend.

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  6. This song brings back great memories. It was my penultimate (3rd) year at Uni and around the time I met my wife. It didn’t realise what it was about. It is a great quirky and cleverly constructed song!

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  7. It has an odd structure, what with the pauses and acoustic break, but it all works. A song that does get under your skin and make you smile at the prompt.
    Ah, musical differences; what band hasn’t had ’em?

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    • It’s cleverly constructed and I think it all works so well. A great song, which deserved success outside the UK but didn’t get it.

      True, and there have been many bands where one member dominates the rest, too!

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  10. Hi Clive, I am from the UK and remember both versions of Cockney Rebel well especially Come Up And See Me…..he obviously wanted to be the writer of the group… luckily it worked out. 1975 I was 22yrd had been married 4yrs had two of our three sons and if I remember it was a hot summer . Great choice 💜😂😂

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    • Thanks, Willow, I’m pleased you enjoyed this one. I hit 22 in September that year, and we got married at the end of August. It was a hot summer: it rained every day until we finished our final exams then didn’t rain again until the day we were married! 1976 was even hotter: earlier signs of climate change and the current heatwave here!

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