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   CLUB SANDWICH 73

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THE RETURN OF RED-STRIPED SUZY

She's back, after all these years. Spotted on a new CD for charity, Suzy has teamed up with writer, environmentalist and friend Carla Lane to record a new song with a very important message, as Mark Lewisohn reports

            The cause, as one might expect, is impeccable. I mean, who really agrees with the cruel treatment needlessly meted out to entrapped animals in a laboratory? And who really thinks that jamming living animals into a crate and sending them hundreds of miles by road, air or sea is still a seemly thing to do?
            Two people who, you can be certain, strongly disagree with these saddening and maddening realities of the late 20th century are Carla Lane and Linda McCartney. (Carla, for those who live beyond Dover's white cliffs, is the writer of some of the finest sitcoms seen on British TV over the past 25 years, such as The Liver Birds, The Mistress, Butterflies, Solo, Luv and Bread. She has also penned the "Green Corner" piece in this issue of Club Sandwich.) What Carla and Linda have in common, as well as a long lasting friendship, is a love of animals and a passionate hatred of man's abuse of its fellow Earth creatures.
            This friendship and mutual concern has now been extended into the recording studio with the release of a song co-written by the pair, 'The White-Coated Man', on Animal Magnetism, a various-artists CD issued (so far only in America) to benefit two laudable organisations, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and PAWS (Performers for Animal Welfare) In Harmony Foundation. The recording is credited to Suzy and the Red Stripes, and if you think you've seen that credit before you're right: it was the moniker adopted by Linda when, during the Wings period of the 1970s, she and Paul recorded and released a single, 'Seaside Woman'.
            But 'The White-Coated Man' started out life seven years ago, in 1988, as a poem, not a song, as Carla Lane recalls. "I picked up my pen, suddenly, in a fit of passion, and wrote a couple of pieces - 'The White-Coated Man' and 'Cow' - and happened to mention this to Linda and Paul. Linda asked to see them so I sent them to her, imagining that she was simply going to read them, but then she rang to invite me to the studio the following Monday. I went along and the first thing I heard, when I got out of the car, was the wonderful strains of Paul playing a musical version of 'Cow'. I thought, 'What a lovely tune!' and then, when I went inside, I heard this wonderful music being set to my poems. I couldn't believe it. We then proceeded to have a wonderful day putting the tracks together."
            The finished recording, produced by Suzy and the Red Stripes and remixed by Eddie Klein and Alvin Clark, has been arranged in a style not dissimilar to another Suzy track of long ago, 'The Oriental Nightfish' (which was the soundtrack for a short film but was never released on disc), and features Linda's lead vocal interspersed with spoken verses by Carla. The result is a touching track that pricks the conscience and tugs at the heartstrings. It's also a result that greatly pleases Carla Lane, who comments, "I've been fighting against cruelty to animals for 15 years, and getting a message across in poetry is an important method. But getting it across in music is so much better. I just want the word spread - cruelty to animals is wrong - and this song does it very well indeed."

            PETA, Box 42516, Washington DC, 20015, USA
            PAWS In Harmony, Box 533511, Orlando, Florida, 32853-3511, USA


Club Sandwich 73

            THE WHITE-COATED MAN

            Through the bars, the morning light
            What is this feeling? Why can't I move?

            Some time today they'll set me free
            I'll hear a voice and it will be my friend
            The white-coated man

            Where is the wind? Where are the leaves?
            What happened? Why this pain?

            Some time today they'll set me free
            I'll hear a voice and it will be my friend
            The white-coated man

            If man wants life and eternity
            Then man must pay, and man .must see
            That we are theirs to mind.
            For man is the voice, man is the law
            If man gets sick he'll find a cure
            Our friend, the white-coated man

            In the distance people are laughing
            Do they know about me? Why can't I see?

            And they will pay, the silent ones
            And they will pay, the silent ones will pay
            The silent ones will pay...

            L. McCartney/C. Lane
            © MPL Communications Ltd, 1988