Earlier entries of this series can be found here: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ive#p45337
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“High in the sky is a bird on a wing/ Please carry me with you”
99. The Springfields – Island of Dreams
The facts:
Year: 1962.
Genre: Folk.
Country: United Kingdom.
Released as a single.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #9872.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 1st, the only one.
Ranks higher than Everyday by A$AP Rocky, featuring Rod Stewart, Miguel & Mark Ronson, but lower than Ramble Tamble by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: Unranked.
The people:
Produced by Ivor Raymonde*.
Lyrics by Tom Springfield.
Vocals by Dusty Springfield, Tom Springfield & Mike Hurst.
Guitar by Tom Springfield & Mike Hurst.
Note: Yes, I hear strings and percussion too in this song, but no artist is credited for them.
* Ivor Raymonde is nowhere explicitly stated to be the producer of Island of Dreams, but since he was the producer of everything else the group did it is likely he is the producer here too. Another name is not given.
The opinion:
Before her solo career Dusty Springfield was part of the British folk group The Springfields. Before The Springfields she was part of The Lana Sisters. It is interesting to note that Dusty Springfield was not a sister of any of members of that group. None of them was named Lana for that matter. Now The Springfields were another matter. The group’s leader, Tom Springfield, was actually Dusty’s brother, although they were born as Mary O’Brien and Dion O’Brion. Dusty was her nickname growing up, because she was frequently dirty from playing football with the boys.
This name stuff has sometimes come up as a signal for Dusty’s hidden personality. It is been said that Mary is shy and Dusty outspoken. Besides, Springfield was very likely a closeted lesbian or bisexual and all this hiding behind artificial names (as well as extravagant gestures, hairstyles and clothes) is seen as something of a giveaway. Perhaps. I think those early days of Springfields career signify something else too: a passionate musician looking for her music.
The Lana Sisters are a forgotten pop group, but were important for Dusty in finding a feminine persona. Once she took a spot in the limelight she became afraid to be seen as butch and came up with those enormous wigs and exaggerated make-up that she is now famous for. The Springfields had a more lasting impact on her musical growth, mostly because it gave her more to do with her voice. The Springfields are a vocal harmony trio, as so many folk acts of the early days were. The group consisted of two male and one female vocalists, a setup that worked for Peter, Paul & Mary and was basically imitated by The Springfields. In no song is Dusty the sole lead singer, but every now and then she gets her own verse.
One of those songs is Island of Dreams, one of the groups biggest hits (but to be sure, not the biggest). It starts as a harmony where Dusty’s soft voice gets lost a bit behind the sound of the two men. Then, in the second chorus, she suddenly takes centre stages, with the two other members only giving humming support. The two choruses are then repeated once more in the same way. It is hardly a revolutionary approach, but it is well done and it works very nicely. It might be were the interest of the song nowadays lie, because it gives a hint of the Dusty to come, perhaps more so than other songs by The Springfields.
Indeed, I give a lot of focus to Dusty Springfield here, because she is the name we now recognize, but it should be said that this at the time was really Tom Springfield’s group. Dusty apparently listened to a big variety of music in her youth, but was mostly drawn towards what was then referred to as black music. Tom was the real folky of the family. He wanted to start a folk trio and decided the musical direction of the group. Half of the songs they performed were traditional and the other half was original, written by Tom Springfield.
His was not a hardcore type of folk, but a very poppy one. If you look at the traditionals the group performed you notice that he goes for the most up-tempo ones. His own compositions would lend themselves well for folk ballads, but it seems he needed to have a touch of swing in every track. Like most folk the lyrics have a certain sadness to them, but the musical style of this group is always upbeat. This was really a style that was in vogue at the moment. “Pure” folk wasn’t popular, pop folk was.
Island of Dreams exemplifies this style. The lyrics have something traditional about them. There is a longing to go back to nature, far from the “mad rushing crowds”. Indeed, Dusty is made to ask a bird flying over to carry her to the island of the title. A bit corny when you write it like this, but done with enough taste to work well. Besides, although the hustle and bustle of city life is mostly referred to in these lyrics, there is also one random line were the singers sing that they want to get away from the memory of someone, very likely a lover.
It hardly seems to matter that we basically hear someone whose heart is broken and who wants to go somewhere impossible, the feeling of the song is hardly sad, even if the longing to travel is still apparent. Tom Springfield arranged the music so that the folk sound gets mixed with a touch of swing, making the whole thing not just light as a breeze, but also very catchy.
At the end of 1963, a year after Island of Dreams, The Springfields broke up when Dusty left the group. Tom Springfield initially had a good career ahead of him. He quit as a performer, but became a songwriter and producer for other people. He even got an Oscar nomination for writing Georgie Girl for the film with the same name. Nonetheless, after a duet with Dusty in 1970 on the song Morning, Please Don’t Come, Tom quit the music industry. Nowadays he is mostly remembered for The Springfields and as the writer and producer for the group The Seekers. In fact, he let The Seekers perform Island of Dreams too, with less swing and without the emotion of Dusty.
And that emotion is what helps elevate this song somewhat above the big chunk of sixties folk. I really don’t want to make any sort of claim for Island of Dreams as some sort of lost classic. But there is honest yearning in Dusty’s voice in those solo moments that is missing elsewhere in the song. The reason Dusty broke up with the trio was because folk wasn’t the music for her. Island of Dreams may be light, but it is still more emotional than much of The Springfields’ output. Dusty was drawn to soul and would become a pioneer in blue-eyed soul, soul music as sung by white people. The Springfields brought her early success (fun fact, this was the first British group to crack the American Billboard top 20, just before The Tornadoes and The Beatles), but there is a reason why it now seems like a footnote in her career. More and better was to come.
On a side-note, if after reading this and perhaps listening to The Springfields tracks in the playlist below you wished you could have heard them live, I have good news! This year the group finally started anew again! Of course, Dusty Springfield is dead and Tom Springfield hasn’t returned to music since 1970, so they won’t be part of this revival. But third member Mike Hurst has finally decided to reboot the group. This is the first mention of Mike Hurst here, outside of the credits. I haven’t found a single hint that he had any creative input in the group. Still, it seems he thought this was the moment to revive a semi-forgotten hit group from more than 50 years ago, so if you desperately want to, you can see The Springfields again! In preparation I added all their charting singles to the playlist below, plus personal favourite Goodnight Irene.
7/10
Other versions:
Since early sixties folk was a lot about recording the same songs over and over again there is a surprisingly low amount of covers from this hit. I already mentioned The Seekers, but it mostly evokes the question why Tom Springfield bothered to record this song again with another group. Not that there is anything wrong with their version; it just mirrors the original too much.
Other versions have one thing in common: they are slower than the Springfields take. The (admittedly pretty) melody is turned into a ballad. Whereas the original is a typical folk pop song, the covers are all typical traditional folk. It’s hardly worth it to highlight one. They are all proficient if lacking that extra spark.
Also, there are a lot of dance songs named Island of Dreams, always referring to places like Ibiza and other party heavens. These are far less metaphysical dream islands than Tom Springfield likely had in mind.
The playlist: