5. 'Take A Picture' by Margo Guryan (1968)
spending 30 minutes and 52 seconds with the voce d'ore of baroque pop
Fresh from a wonderful sojourn to the pop-up Numero Group shop in Shoreditch, I have at long last obtained one of my favourite albums on wax.
A perfect record. A real 5-bagger. I’m spinning it for the first time, and falling in love all over again. It seems only right to put in writing that I think this is one of the most magical and transfixing pieces of pop music ever recorded. It’s the first real day of Autumn, and everything feels like it is in its right place.
This is a relatively short post in appreciation of Margo Guryan and her only studio album 'Take A Picture’ (1968).
Margo Guryan came to pop music relatively late. Her roots as a songwriter were firmly in the jazz world of the early 60s – she was hanging out with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry before pop music was ever on her radar.
Whilst the list of collaborators and amigos before her brief-but-burning-bright pop career is eye-watering, the eureka moment came when she heard ‘God Only Knows’ by The Beach Boys. She immediately bought the record, and played it. Then she played it some more. Then she wrote ‘Think Of Rain’.
The sounds of ‘Take A Picture’ will be of immense comfort to any Brian Wilson heads – this is one of the only records that can really compete with the likes of ‘Pet Sounds’ (1966) and The Zombies’ ‘Odyssey and Oracle’ (1968) for that absolutely transportative 60s daydream quality. Guryan’s songs are very much little ditties in the style of Wilson’s writing ‘Smile’ (re: 2011), transient childlike songs of loves lost and won, and hallucinogenic musings that wilt with the weather. I don’t think many album covers encompass the music like
‘Sunday Morning’, the opener, begins with a doon-the-rabbit-hole flourish of oboe and flute, before Guryan’s vocals enter the fray. Her delivery is breathy and ethereal; her delivery wafts and breezes, much like Rachel Goswell, Laetitia Sadler or Sarah Cracknell’s would on the very best music from the 90s.
The lyrics are some of my favourite romantic lyrics ever; so simple, yet just right:
It's so quiet in the street
We can hear the sound of feet walking by
I'll put coffee on to brew
We can have a cup or two
And do what other people do
On Sunday morning
It’s also hard not realise that three of my favourite songs ever are different tracks called ‘Sunday Morning’, and were recorded within about seven years of each other – this, The Velvet Underground of course, and Amanaz, whose ‘Sunday Morning’ is the absolute crown jewel of Zamrock.
‘Think of Rain’ is another cut that could be my favourite on any given day. It sounds like a daydream; it’s a whimsical and tender composition that sounds exactly how the record’s eternal album cover looks, which is really the highest compliment I can pay a piece of music.
Meanwhile, closer ‘Love’ begins with a face-melting jam of avant brass and twinkling keys that brings to mind the LA-rock band Love and their skronking ‘Revelation’ before the human emotion. Psychedelia, in a more classic acid rock vein, before Guryan’s dreamy voice tumbles into the piece:
What does it mean
To live between
The beginning and ending of love?
There are traces of Guryan’s jazz background, whether that be the tinkling ivories all over ‘Love’, or the waltzing elegance of ‘Thoughts’, which wouldn’t be out of place on an Ella Fitzgerald or Carmen McRae album. The album is a thin place between the beautiful worlds of jazz and pop, but wholly its own thing
This whole album is just right. I love the music of the 60s, a hell of a lot more than most, and this one just absolutely gets me in the chest every time.
Genre purists generally term Margo’s schtick ‘sunshine pop’, whilst others go for ‘baroque pop’, but it does really just belong in the cannon of 60s pop music that defies genre tags; as wondrous and realised as my favourite records by The Beatles, and The Beach Boys, and Laura Nyro, and Gal Costa, and it simply cannot really be surmised by a single genre.
Sadly this wasn’t really the dominant narrative in the 1960s. Crazy, when you think of some of the trash groups in a not-totally-dissimilar world that became superstars (blackface hippie losers Jefferson Airplane spring to mind), but I don’t think Margo Guryan really wanted that for herself. She didn’t promote the album with any live shows, and she didn’t release another complete album again in her lifetime. ‘Take A Picture’ was largely unheard by the heads, until in Japan, and then everywhere else, it became a cult favourite in the 90s.
Numero Group, one of my favourite labels, are currently in the midst of reissuing all of Guryan’s material, odds and sods recorded at her peak, and it is fulfilling to see a real trailblazer finally have the legacy she deserves. Guryan only passed away a couple of years ago, so it’s likely she’d have known just how broad her influence is.
I think this is the kind sort of album I will listen to for my whole life, and I am so delighted to own a physical copy. As the first chilly sunny days of the autumn beckon, I cannot compel you enough to listen to this album right now – the only bad (less than perfect, even) thing I could say about it is that it is only 30 minutes and 52 seconds long.