For the first eight or so years of my education I lived close enough to school to be able to come home for lunch every day. It was something to look forward to, a definite break in the schoolday where I could sit in my own living room, eat decent grub and watch ITV programmes like 'Handful Of Songs', 'Pipkins', 'Rainbow', Mr Trimble' and all the rest. Bliss. While it lasted that is - children's programming tended to stop at around 12:30 and after that things started to get a bit more serious when the likes of 'The Cuckoo Waltz', 'Follyfoot' and 'The Sullivans' kicked in to bore me back to school.To watch anything post 1pm though would be an edgy experience, something akin Charlton Heston heading into the forbidden zone in Planet of the Apes. It was a time and place I had no business being in; 'Crown Court', 'House Party' or 'Pebble Mill' - if I was watching any of this then something was amiss. The world as I knew it was out of kilter and I was either home ill or else playing truant.
'Van Der Valk' was one such example of post 1pm forbidden fruit. It was a show that had Barry Foster (implausibly) playing the titular Dutch detective busily cracking crime around the canals of Amsterdam. I can't say I was ever much interested in his capers as an eight year old. It all seemed pretty boring to me, but a run of one of the series neatly co-incided with a spell of me at home poorly with something that was 'doing the rounds'. With nothing else on, I watched it. And then I watched the next episode and ended up getting hooked.
And hooked not because I enjoyed watching Barry do his stuff, but on the theme tune that played over the credits - 'Eye Level'. And it's a tune that came to become scratched into my soul as a permanent reminder of my time as a lad to the extent that I can get quite emotional listening to it. It's a feeling akin to some long lost girlfriend looking you up on Facebook to say 'hi' and chat about the old days.
Ah, but before I get carried away I've just read that back though and I can see it may be somewhat misleading. You see I suddenly realised that I hadn't actually sat down to listen to 'Eye Level' for years, largely because I didn't think I needed to. "I know what bloody 'Eye Level' goes like" I thought, but playing it through again tonight I realised that I didn't. Not really.
Because after listening to it from start to finish there are three things that surprised me; firstly, just how unsuitable a tune it is to soundtrack a police drama. The theme tunes to other police-type shows like The Sweeney or Z Cars always had a sense of urgency and danger about them, something to let you know that a spot of heavy drama was coming so wise up. 'Eye Level' though could realistically be used to soundtrack almost anything. Watching the tune play over the opening credits now then Van Der Valk could be anything from an antiques dealer to international gigolo. Anything except a detective really. Very odd.
And linked to this, the second surprising thing is just what a busy little tune it is. The main theme provides the oomph and backbone throughout, but one minute it's a strident Sousa march and the next it's as soothing as Satie. A bit schizophrenic really.* Which leads to the final thing that widened my eyes - just what a godawfully clunky fist Simon Park and his mob make of it. 'Eye Level' as it played in my memory was as smooth and soothing as cool stream in summer, but on record it lurches along with the grace and finesse of a baby horse on ice. Some of the horns don't even seem to be in tune fer gawd's sake. It's not terrible, but it is a bit amateurish, a bit village hall when a tune this great needs the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam with Herbert von Karajan conducting to do it justice.
Well, perhaps not, but 'Eye Level' is a proper theme tune, just the way that the Lucozade the good doctor prescribed me that week I was off ill watching it was proper Lucozade, stuff that came dressed up like faux medicine in a glass bottle with sticky orange plastic wrapping. They don't make theme tunes (or Lucozade come to think on it) like that anymore. Or maybe they do - this is my blog so I'm allowed to manipulate the facts to fuel my own half baked theories. Proust had his biscuits, I had my Lucozade, and that's why 'Eye Level' will always remind me of fizzy glucose syrup in a sticky plastic wrapper. And sometimes you can neither expect nor want anything more from a tune. Can you?
* Matt Monro struggled with this on 'And You Smiled', which is basically 'Eye Level' with lyrics. The poor bloke doesn't sound like he knows if he's coming or going with all the tempo changes.
Have to laugh... Every ten years or so, when I'm bored enough, I Google 'Eye Level' to see what other – if any – shafts of critical light have been shed on it. What Andr3w appears not to realise is that the soundtrack of VdV's title music and the (no.1 hit) disc are one and the same performance and recording. If his memory discerns a difference between them then his critical faculties could do with a bit of fine-tuning. For the record (ha!) there are no tempo changes, all the brass is in tune – and Karajan wouldn't have touched it with a barge-pole (or even a very large baton). You are of course entitled "to manipulate the facts to fuel my own half baked theories". And I'm equally allowed to correct them... The less said about Matt Monroes version the better...
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what you are on about. Where do I say the soundtrack and the disc are different? If you put your pomposity to one side and actually read what I posted you'll see I was comparing a childhood memory from when I was about five to listening to properly some forty years later. The series intro is just over a minute long while the disc is well over double that length; hardly the same. So yes, my 45 year old self did hear something different from what I remembered as a 5 year old. I also said the brass 'seems' out of tune. And to me it does. If you think 'Eye Level' is the same tempo all the way through then you need to check your own faculties. But thanks for reading; I always welcome comments, even from the terminally up their own arses.
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