Just to continue a bit on a theme I’ve been touching on. What I truly admire in an artist is when you see a hidden talent expressed begrudgingly. The softness of Lou Reed, Camel’s obvious pop talents, and in the case of my pick of the day Pye Hasting’s seriously melodic chop. I don’t say this lightly, but Caravan (a Canterbury Prog Band) had an immensely talented pop writer in lead singer/guitarist Pye Hastings. I even would say he could rival Paul McCartney’s talent for crafting a good pop song on any given day. He could just knockoff these Lewis Carroll-like songs that had a huge chasm of meaning, much like the master Paul. The problem he had, which Godley and Creme had in 10cc, is that most of the time they were either too busy dicking around with instruments and/or making salty lyrical jokes that made their songs hard to take seriously.
However, begrudgingly they would try to deny their talents here and there, just these awesome pop songs, that in a perfect world should have been hits, would come out. 10cc obviously did so with “I’m Not in Love” truly the greatest love song, that never was one. Caravan, unfortunately, never struck that kind of gold but scattered among their albums there were always these little diamonds of tracks that Pye would bury for Caravan fans. “The World is Yours” from Waterloo Lily is one of them, I always picture this as being a lost Ram A-Side…doesn’t it share that same humility and loving spirit that embodied Paul’s best tracks? Only Pye knows why he didn’t release tons more songs like this.
If you have some time check out Caravan performing another track, of the more challenging variety, “The Love in Your Eye” from Waterloo Lily here: