The RAH Band, “Clouds Across the Moon” and The Sap Is Rising!

Another month seems to have whizzed by so we are approaching our next possible sighting of a full moon (cloud cover permitting). Since discovering at the end of last year that all full moons have a name given to them by the Native Americans who kept track of the months by the lunar calendar, I have written about the:

Beaver Moon – November
Cold Moon – December
Wolf Moon and Blue Moon – January

There were two full moons in January because the cycle between them is 29 and a half days, so just the way it landed, one at the beginning of the month and one at the end. A slight quirk this time is that there will no full moon at all in February (although there should have been a Snow Moon) but skip to the night of the 1st/2nd of March and we should witness the Worm Moon. I don’t know about where you live, but here in the North of Scotland it has been feeling quite springlike of late with lighter nights, crocuses appearing in the garden and a general feeling that mother nature will soon wake up from her winter slumber. (Ok, so there is also a weather front called the Beast from the East giving us a bit of trouble at the moment but freakish for the time of year.)

The Worm Moon

Crocuses opening up in the morning sun

As for the Native Americans, this spring full moon was given the moniker Worm Moon because the ground was beginning to soften and earthworm casts reappeared inviting the return of robins. It is also however known as the Sap Moon, as it marks the time when maple sap begins to flow and the annual tapping of maple trees begins. Not many maple trees where I live but yes, it seems the sap is indeed rising!

But this is a music blog and I always include one of the many songs that refer to moons in their titles. Right at the start of this series of what will end up being 13 posts, I picked out all the songs I was likely to use to accompany each full moon, but as is wont to happen such worthy choices can often be replaced along the way with new discoveries. This is to be one of those occasions and most definitely not something I had remotely considered at the outset.

Last Saturday night, before heading to bed, Mr WIAA and myself stumbled upon an old episode of TOTP. Always a bit of nostalgia there and can be a bit of a laugh as we witness some of the acts we had long forgotten about, dressed in what now seems ridiculous looking clothing. The episode we watched was from 1985 and although there were quite a few great songs that have stood the test of time (we loved watching Godley and Creme’s Cry), there were also an awful lot of men dressed in oversized suits, jackets and bizarre trousers. The decade that fashion forgot I think.

King

Dead Or Alive

DeBarge

In amongst all of these highly colourful acts was one I had totally forgotten about but their song has the word moon in the title and because it’s led to a pesky earworm this week, I’m going to include it in this series. Who said all the picks had to be critically acclaimed anyway and always a place in the world for what might now be construed as a bit of a novelty song. I used to like it when there was a bit of spoken word dialogue in a song and this one has it in bucketloads. Yes, not one many of us will remember, but in March 1985 the RAH Band reached No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart with Clouds Across The Moon. A common feature of songs from that era was the (one-way) “telephone conversation” however in this case it is highly unlikely that the futuristic exchange would be carried out via a bulky handset. But hey, the days of the compact mobile phone had not even remotely begun, and people did on the whole still speak to each other rather than simply text or Snapchat, so probably seemed apt at the time.

Clouds Across the Moon by the RAH band:

What I hadn’t realised until revisiting this song was that the RAH Band was in effect one person, Richard Anthony Hewson, an English producer, arranger, conductor and multi-instrumentalist. After graduating from The Guildhall School of Music in the late ’60s, Richard met Peter Asher whose sister Jane was going out with Paul McCartney. Through that contact he was hired as an orchestral arranger and worked with musicians such as The Beatles, The Bee Gees, James Taylor, Supertramp, Carly Simon, Art Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac and Chris Rea, so quite a pedigree. Apart from his own RAH Band project, he was a producer in the 1980s for Toyah Willcox (makes sense) and in recent years has written music for television shows and advertising slots.

Hewson founded The RAH Band (which obviously took its name from his initials) in 1977 to release an instrumental called The Crunch. This record I do remember as I was chart-obsessed throughout the ’70s – Funnily enough it also reached No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. As for Clouds Across the Moon, the vocals were provided by his wife Liz, also known as “Dizzy Lizzy”! In an interview at the time, Richard said that the song took place in the future where there was a 100-year-long war going on with Mars. Telephone calls were very expensive due to the privatisation of British Telecom (bit of politics, love it) thus the premature disconnection of the “valuable deep space communication link”.

So, an unusual song to have picked for this series but one that fell into my lap last weekend, so had to run with it. I wonder what the Native Americans who named the full moons that we see in our skies would have thought of it? Lets hope on the 1st March there will indeed be no clouds across the moon!

Until Next time….

Clouds Across the Moon Lyrics
(Song by Richard Anthony Hewson)

Good evening
This is the intergalactic operator
Can I help you?”

“Yes. I’m trying to reach flight commander P.R. Johnson, on Mars, flight 2-4-7”
“Very well, hold on please (beeping) you’re through!”
“Thank you operator!”

Hi darling!
How are you doing?
Hey baby, where’re you sleeping?
Oh I’m sorry, but I’ve been really missing you!

Hi darling!
How’s the weather?
Say baby, is that cold better now?
Oh I’m sorry, is there someone there with you?

Ooooh… since you went away, there’s nothing going right!
I just can’t sleep alone at night…
I’m not ashamed to say I badly need a friend…
or it’s the end.

Now, when I look at the clouds across the moon
Here in the night I just hope and pray that soon
Oh baby, you’ll hurry home to me.

Hi darling!
The kids say they love you
Hey baby, is everything fine with you?
Please forgive me, but I’m trying not to cry…

Ooooh… I’ve had a million different lovers on the phone
But I just stayed right here at home
I don’t think that I can take it anymore this crazy war

Now, when I look at the cloud’s across the moon
Here in the night I just hope and pray that soon
Oh darling, you’ll hurry home to me

“I’m sorry to interrupt your conversation,
but we are experiencing violent storm conditions in the asteriod belt at this time
We may lose this valuable deep space communication link
Please, be as brief as possible
Thank you”

Ooooh… since you went away, there’s nothing going right!
I just can’t sleep alone at night…
I’m not ashamed to say I badly need a friend…
or it’s… it’s…

“Hello?”
“Hello operator?”
” Yes, we’ve lost the connection!
Could you try again please?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we’ve lost contact with Mars 2-4-7 at this time”

“Ok. Thank you very much…
I’ll… I’ll try again next year…
next year…
next year…
next year…”

Postscript:

I have a friend with an all singing, all dancing camera who has been roped in to provide pictures for this series but as yet we’ve not been able to come up with anything that captures the full moon alongside some our unique Highland scenery. Hopefully in due course. In the meantime here are a few shots he took from outside his house last night – The moon still a waxing gibbous one at this stage (more than half full and always illuminated from the right) but pretty impressive how you can get such detail with the right equipment.

Pictures courtesy of R.J.

Author: Alyson

Whenever I hear an old song on the radio, I am immediately transported back to those days. I know I'm not alone here and want to record those memories for myself and for the people in them. 58 years ago the song "Alfie" was written by my favourite songwriting team, Bacharach and David. The opening line to that song was, "What's it all about?" and I'm hoping by writing this blog, I might find the answer to that question. View all posts by Alyson