Rea window

I'll send you all my love

Hello! Thank you for signing up to, or stumbling on, this no-news-newsletter written by me, Ashley Clark. If you do choose to subscribe—and it’s free—you’ll receive bulletins about whatever’s on my mind: usually some combination of art/film/music/literature/football. If that sounds good, hit the button!

---

This week’s quick rec is The Black Tower (1987) a superb, 23-minute short film by the avant-garde British filmmaker John Smith. It’s a spare and genuinely eerie, but dryly amusing fable about a London man who comes to believe that he’s being stalked by the film’s eponymous structure. The fun comes in discovering the formally and tonally adventurous ways that Smith brings this absurdist premise to life—Chris Marker’s La Jetee by way of Mike Leigh isn’t quite accurate, but it’s close enough for the purposes of this letter!

---

A couple of months ago at the Cannes Film Festival, I was in the 2,300-seater Grand Théâtre Lumière waiting for Ali Abbasi’s serial killer thriller Holy Spider to begin. It was very hot in there, I was seated way up in the gods, and sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News. So I did momentarily wonder if I was hallucinating when the PA system started booming out the incongruous sounds of Chris Rea’s “Josephine (French Edit)”, a thumping remix of the British guitarist and singer-songwriter’s 1985 ode to his daughter:

I first came to this version of the song via a Spotify playlist compiled by the Norwegian producer and DJ Todd Terje (about whom I’ve written in this letter previously), and fell for it instantly—the absurdly attenuated, multiple-false-starts intro, the oceans of space, the rubbery bass noodles, the indulgent bongos, the Nile Rodgers-channelling rhythm guitar, and then the euphoria when the dam of tension finally bursts around three minutes in, and Chris enters with his whispery smoker’s croak: “There's rain on my window / But I'm thinking of you / Tears on my pillow / But I will come through.” It’s a lovely and simple tune about a dad missing his daughter, but this remix takes it up a level—in fact, back when, “Josephine (French Edit)” became a Balearic classic, earning heavy rotation alongside slamming early house and techno.

I was amused to discover that Chris Rea was a secret dance music star in Ibiza, because one would be hard-pressed to think of a less likely candidate for the role. A gruff blues rocker from Middlesbrough (a former steel and shipbuilding town in the Northeast of England), Rea enjoyed a string of hits in the 80s and 90s, including the terrific, flamenco-flecked “On The Beach” (what a riff!), and not one but two anthems about roads: the wistful, poignant “Driving Home For Christmas” (for my money one of the best ever Xmas songs), and the ostentatiously miserable “The Road to Hell Part 2”, a catchy, chugging four-minute moan about being stuck in traffic on the M25 motorway. It remains Rea's biggest ever hit, which tells you everything you need to know about the artistic sympathies of the British public.

I remember Rea being a notably grumpy guest on irreverent BBC gameshow Shooting Stars in the late 90s, and also—weirdly—starring as the lead in the 1998 film Parting Shots, directed by Death Wish helmer, restaurant critic, and outspoken defender of lesbian parents Michael “Calm down, dear!” Winner. In Parting Shots, Rea plays Harry Sterndale, a failed photographer who is diagnosed with cancer and told that he has three months to live. He does what any normal person would do upon receipt of such news, and decides to murder everyone who has ever crossed him.

I don’t know if Winner cast Rea because of his (extremely) passing resemblance to Death Wish’s Charles Bronson, but it’s safe to say that his decision failed to propel Rea into the acting stratosphere. I never saw Parting Shots, because it received uniformly scathing reviews, but I did watch the trailer just now, and I can confirm that it features a scene in which Chris Rea attempts to drown Bob Hoskins. Look:

As it happens, Rea in real life has experienced his own pretty horrifying list of serious health run-ins, including peritonitis, pancreatic cancer, diabetes, and a stroke. At the time of writing, I’m happy to say that he’s still hanging in there.

To close, why not watch this incredibly funny clip from British TV gameshow Would I Lie To You?, in which comedian Bob Mortimer (a fellow Middlesbrough man) spins a tall tale—or is it?—about Chris Rea, a bath, and an egg. Trust me, it’s worth the click.

---

Before I go: since I haven’t dropped an Italo Disco banger in a while, here’s “Barbara” by Enzo Carella, from 1979. About as jaunty as music gets:

Until next week!

---

Thank you for reading. Please consider subscribing to this newsletter if you’ve yet to do so, or, if you have, spreading the word. I appreciate it!