The Smoke | My Friend Jack | Columbia | 1967

THE SMOKE’S hit starts smouldering…

“My Friend Jack” / “We Can Take It” (Columbia DB 8115) February 1967

WITH a record called “My Friend Jack Eats Sugar Lumps,” the Smoke could have expected some sort of kerfuffle. But the stern rebuke from the “News Of The World” was only the iceberg tip of what went on behind the scenes. It cost EMI £750 and two months to re-record and change the lyrics four times before their doubts about its suitability were assuaged. The BBC was reported to have suffered qualms when Simon Dee played it.

Rumpus

Quite a rumpus for four young lads from Yorkshire to kick up in their first few months in London.

“But we didn’t set out to be deliberately controversial, although I suppose the meaning must be obvious to even someone who’s only seen LSD on his cheque book,” said Michael Rowley, 20-years-old and the lead guitarist. “In fact we only came to write the song by accident. It was a sticky time for us, nothing we wrote seemed to go right. To try to cheer the others up I began to sing this stupid phrase ‘My Friend Jack Eats Sugar Lumps.’ After a while nobody could forget this line and so we began building a song around it.”

Taste

The four had been members of rival groups at home, but joined forces on the strength of their shared taste in music and writing. They came to London just over four months ago and in between working as a dishwasher, salesman, flat cleaner and waiter completed 35 songs, good enough to get them in the recording studios a week after their recording test. Why the Smoke? “Everyone as the city has such a special significance for us we thought it a good name.” (Disc, 25/03/67)

The Smoke | My Friend Jack | Columbia | 1967

Early UK psychexploitation. “My Friend Jack” begins with a total reverb OD, before setting out its stall in the first line: “My friend Jack eats sugar lumps.” Points are awarded for the effete vocals and mystical lyrics, but everything comes down to the reverb, which slashes and shimmers throughout.

Bizarre connection: drummer Geoffrey Gill later worked as producer with Boney M who took this song and The Creation’s “Painter Man”, into the UK charts 13 years later.