KEY Fit Me In LP Beatles McCartney Badfinger pop psych

$

103

One of the joys of collecting vinyl LPs is when you come across those proverbial "buried treasures" that have been on the planet for the past 30 or 40 years, but you'd never even knew existed.  And yet, now after all these years, you take a chance and the thing knocks you for a loop.  Well, here's a scarce little "buried treasure" that, were it not for a laudatory article on the Sweet Floral Albion website, I would NEVER have taken a chance on - I would NEVER have expected Beatles/Badfinger catchy pop psych from an album a) from 1978, smack dab in the disco days, b) from West Germany, where krautrock and metal reigned supreme, and c) with a horrid Air Supply/Little River Band album cover like this one.  But that's what makes these treasures so "buried" in the first place, right?  If you're a fan of catchy pop in the Emmett Rhodes/Paul McCartney/Badfinger vein, take a chance on this minor masterpiece.  The band is called KEY, and the LP is "Fit Me In".  They were a German duo immersed in Beatlish pop stylings, and released their sole LP ONLY in West Germany, making this a tough little LP to turn up.  They clearly did their homework, because vocally and stylistically, this is a dead ringer for 1970-1972 McCartney in parts, while other songs (notably "That Game") go back even further in time to the days of 1967-1968 for some classic UK toytown popsike in the style of the Idle Race or late Beatles.  I'm not trying to say that this album is the second coming of "Abbey Road", "Sister Lovers" or "Straight Up", but for something like this to come out of Hamburg in 1978 is quite a minor miracle.  A good parallel for pop like this in the 70's would be the Canadian band Klaatu.  Anyway, here in its entirety is the article from the SFA website.  It got me to take a chance, so hopefully you'll discover the magic of this unknown album too.

KEY - 'Fit Me In' ([West Germany:)] Emily 1C 064-45 137) 1978.
Key were a late '70s Emitt Rhodes-style McCartneyade. A Beatles/Macca soundalike from the same alternative universe as Truck, Aerovons, October Cherries, We All Together, Gerry Morris.
Key were an Anglo-German duo comprised of Volker Langefeld (German) and Alan Warren (English). The album was recorded between February 1977 and June 1978, in Germany at Rüssl (Hamburg), Star (Hamburg), Rudas (Düsseldorf), EMI Electrola (Kõln) studios and in the UK at Sawmills and Morgan studios. Some of the production duties were handled, for Francis, Day & Hunter, by Barry Guard (ex-March Hare, ex-Harlan Country) who also worked on (fellow ex-March Hare/Harlan County players) Gary & Stu's 'Harlan Fare' album. Barry also played sax on 'Fit Me In' and lead piano on 'And The Rain' and 'That Game'.
The album also came on music cassette (1C 264-45 137).
Alan's surname is mis-spelt on the LP (sleeve/lyric inner sleeve/labels) as "Warran", but is spelt correctly (Warren) on the picture sleeve of the 'Pamela' single. The album included an inner sleeve printed with the lyrics.
The tracks:

Side One:

'The Farmer And The Fisherman' is --and you're gonna have to put up with me saying this-- like the Beatles, most especially in its use of Pepper-era strings and effects. 'The Farmer And The Fisherman' is a real pop/pop-syke beauty! The lyrics are intriguing, with a slight suggestion of Learian nonsense verse:

"The farmer and the fisherman were sitting by the fire
And the wind was howling very, very loud
As soon as one began to talk the other one was still
'Cause what he said could have made both of them proud
Ooooh, and then the rain, the falling rain began to fall
Ooooh, you could hear them bragging as the days went by
One by one

The farmer said, he wasn't bad and if he was allowed
He'd sow some Fison's Quickly-Growing Corn
The fisherman told where he'd been with Captain Curry Cloud
And how they used to fight against the storm
Ooooh, and then the water on the stove began to boil
Ooooh, you could hear them bragging as the days went by
One by one

The farmer poured a bit of rum into his cup of tea
The fisherman was feeling very old
The farmer's wife knocked at the door and shouted at her son
And as she entered the room the air was getting cold
Ooooh, and then the moon was on its way across the hill
Ooooh, you could hear them bragging as the days went by
One by one

[Refrain:]

Oooh, how they bragged
And the days passing one by one"

'The Farmer And The Fisherman' fades into 'And The Rain' (The B-side of their single). Full of deftly applied touches of rococo piano, this is a baroque Macca-style pop treasure.
'Pamela' The A-side of their single ( ([West Germany] Emily 1C 006-45 136] 1978) is pure Beatleseque pop. Most delightful. It's also something of a soft pop cult item, and so is probably Key's best known song.
'Lazy Bird' is a McCartney-style ballad, folky, with a weirdly delicious acappella "human-tuba" section (they clearly took Peter Pumpkin Pleases People's advice to heart! - see last month's 'Discog')
'Pretty Little Star' truly sparkles, as it should. It's a Klaatu/Beatles-style hybrid. Great strings and keys and a touch of phasing help bring out the magic.
'Old Fashioned Boogie' is Maccaesque pop, with a whiff of 'Lady Madonna', but in a rag time/1920's form,. The same 1920s nostalgia which added so much colour to non-mod 60's music, but unfortunately reached its unholy nadir in the Ofarims' 'Rockerfeller Feller'.

Side Two:

'Half As Much' is yes....a McCartney-indebted ballad.
'I'd Really Go For A Lady' is Macca-meets-Klaatu. Full of sweeping strings, plus a tiny weeny bit of phasing, and a delicious great dolloping guitar break. And even the addition of Mexican/ Spanish brass. Dig that delicious sustained melisma fade-out. A weird song, posed from the perspectives of Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler, proposing the novel idea that these guys would much rather have been out pulling chicks instead of waging war. Hmmm….. I wonder.
'That Game' is Beatles/Aerovons sounding, with lovely harmonies and some 1920's style piano

The bizarrely titled 'Dragonamania' is nothing more than a lamely jiving '50s rock n roll pastiche. A blot on Key's otherwise immaculate copy book.
'Fit Me In' is in a Macca/Kinks-style (yes, it's possible, or am I just very lazy in my choice of comparisons?); a rocker with an unlikely marriage of sax and flanged guitar.
'Sometimes' sounds like Paul McC****** doing an acoustic ballad.
This magical album closes with one of its highlights. 'Western People' is fab, in a Fab Four sense! An excellent anti-capitalist broadside all wrapped up in silken sheets of purest 'Walrus'-style pop:

"We're the western people
Time is money
We admit that money's all we've got

[...]

We've invented fags and Coca Cola
And we're going to sell it to you too
We're the expert-team for Gorgonzola
Satin stola
Silver dollar

Yes, we do believe
That money's all you need
As long as you can breathe

[...]

Multi-media and television
That's our mission
Politician

Wouldn't you agree
That money's all you need
As long as you can breathe
Whoever's worrying you
We can get him out the way
As long as you can pay"

Key's music is something of a minor triumph. Always commercial and light, full of warmth and the maudlin sentimentality of McCartney, it is beautiful, enhanced with crystal clear productions and delicious harmonies. Key create and maintain a genuine Beatlesque sound-world. Heavily indebted as they clearly were to the late '60s Beatles and the early '70s Macca solo work, they nevertheless had a great deal of talent, cut some excellent tunes and wrote cool lyrics. They were clearly deserving of great success. And judging from the no-expense-spared productions they and EMI were also expecting great success. Despite the odd synth blast (always subtle) and 70's studio value Key always sounded far more 1970 than 1978. For that alone SFA-ers will love this album.

As it said on that sleeve: " KEY - das "Schlüsselerlebris" Für brilliante popmusik! "

Original 1978 pressing on the German EMI label.  Cover and vinyl both in EXCELLENT shape.  Winning bidder pays $3.00 media mail shipping in the US, $6 air mail to Canada, $11 air mail everywhere else.  Paypal, Bidpay, cash, checks and money orders accepted.