tres debonAyers

Some people have compared Kevin Ayers's debonair image to Bryan Ferry - the genuine genteel article as opposed to the faux. Some even see him as a prototype, glam just a little too early

Not sure about that, the music in the first three or four solo albums is nowhere near glam. But I am struck by the use of eye make-up in these Soft Machine appearances

There is another intersection with glam: the theme of decadence, broached by name in this double-edged tribute to Nico, and implicitly in the apocalyptic hedonism of "Song from the Bottom of A Well" - capturing the disillusion / dissolution / dissoluteness of the post-hippy backwash

Watch her out there on display

Dancing in her sleepy way

While all her visions start to play

On the icicles of our decay.

Fading flowers in her hair

She's suffering from wear and tear

She lies in waterfalls of dreams

And never questions what it means.

And all along the desert shore

She wanders further evermore

The only thing that's left to try¡

She says to live I have to die.

She whispers sadly well I might

And holds herself so very tight

Then jumping from an unknown height

She merges with the liquid night.

Lovers wrap her mist in furs

And tell her what she has is hers

But when they take her by the hand

She slips back in the desert sand.

But what she leaves is made of glass

And lovers worship as they pass

Each one says - now she is mine

But all drink solitary wine.

(drink it to Marlene)

This is a song from the bottom of a well

There are things down here
I've got to try and tell;
It's dark and light at the very same time,
The water sometimes seems like wine.

I learned some information way down here
That might fill your heart and soul with fear;
But don't you worry, no don't be afraid
I'm not in the magical mystery trade.

My imagination begins to purr
As things don't happen, they just occur.
Softly crackling electrical smell,
There's something burning at the bottom of this well.

Sitting here alone I just have to laugh
I see all the universe as a comfortable bath;
I drown my body so my mind is free
To indulge in pleasurable fantasies.

There's something strange going on down here
A sickening implosion of mistrust and fear.
A vast corruption that's about to boil
A mixture of greed and the smell of oil.

This is a song from the bottom of a well
I didn't move here, I just fell.
But I'm not complaining, I don't even care
Cause if I'm not here, then it's not there.

Glam can be nutshelled as "illusion and disillusion"....  a reversal, an inside-outing of the Sixties's belief in truth and revolution 

"Oh! Wot A Dream" captures that slide from Sixties inordinate hopes to 70s atomized numbness   - it's an elegiac tribute to friend Syd Barrett but also an entire era. Barrett being the decade's prime casualty, someone who had "too much to dream" 

Oh! you pretty thing - a pop star that should have been but never was....  and in the career slide twilight, he puts out a single titled "Star"

Not to be confused with the earlier much more stellar-sounding 1971 tune that was absurdly thrown away on the B-side of "Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes"

"Feel like a million sparkling stars"

More thoughts on our Kev