The Records formed out of the ashes of the Kursaal Flyers, a pub rock group featuring drummer Will Birch. In 1977, John Wicks joined the band as a rhythm guitarist, and he and Birch quickly started writing songs together, Wicks as composer, Birch as lyricist. The Kursaal Flyers dissolved three months after Wicks joined, but he and Birch continued to write songs together with the hopes of starting a new four-piece group with Birch on drums and Wicks on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Birch soon came up with a name for the formative band: The Records. The group's line-up initially included bassist Phil Brown and lead guitarist Brian Alterman, whose guitar riffs have been compared to that of the Byrds. Alterman played on two early demos that were later included on the album Paying for the Summer of Love, before joining another band. Alterman was replaced by Huw Gower in 1978. Like Birch and Wicks, Gower and Brown were music veterans: Gower had played with a band called the Ratbites from Hell and Brown had been the bass player for the Janets.
The new group was heavily influenced both by British Invasion bands like The Beatles and The Kinks and early power pop groups such as Badfinger, Big Star, and Raspberries. Power pop was experiencing a renaissance on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks in large part to the burgeoning punk/new wave movement.
They were hired to back Stiff Records singer Rachel Sweet on the "Be Stiff Tour '78". The Records opened the shows with a set of their own. Birch and Wicks also wrote a song for Sweet's debut album entitled "Pin a Medal on Mary". The songwriting duo also penned "Hearts in Her Eyes" for the Searchers, who made an unexpected comeback with their power pop oriented album The Searchers in 1979.
Based on their demos (later released as Paying for the Summer of Love), the band was signed to Virgin Records in 1978. Their debut single, "Starry Eyes", was released in the UK that December and has since become their best-known song and an oft-covered power pop standard. Allmusic called it "a near-perfect song that defined British power pop in the '70s". Due in part to its clear influence by American power pop, the song was a bigger hit in the US than in the UK; it peaked at No. 56 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1979.
The group prepared their debut album with producers Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Tim Friese-Greene. Huw Gower produced "The Phone", which was added to the album in preference to one of Lange's efforts, a cover of Tim Moore's "Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter". The debut LP Shades in Bed yielded another single, "Teenarama", their second-best known song. The album was released in the US in July 1979 as The Records with different song sequencing and with the original single version of "Starry Eyes" replacing Lange's re-recording that appeared on the UK edition. The album was sufficiently well received to peak on the Billboard chart at No. 41. Gower also produced the bonus four track disc of cover tunes included in the album release, which also received FM airplay, notably the version of Spirit's "1984", which was strong enough to become short-listed by Virgin as the second single off the album.
That was the pinnacle of their success. Returning to the UK, Will Birch engaged the services of producer Craig Leon to record two new songs and to remix two tracks from Shades in Bed for a possible single release. Huw Gower acted as co-producer. After an aborted German tour with Robert Palmer, Gower left the band and relocated to New York, where he joined forces with New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen. Their collaboration led to the successful album Live It Up.
Jude Cole, a 19-year-old American, who had been in Moon Martin's backing group The Ravens, joined for the album Crashes (1980). The album was not a hit, and did not yield any successful singles, and record company support for the band dried up during the Crashes tour. Cole stayed in the US, while the core of Birch, Wicks and Brown returned home to England.
The trio expanded into a quintet with guitarist Dave Whelan and lead singer Chris Gent. Previously, most of the songs had been sung by Wicks, but with other members frequently taking lead vocals for individual songs. Birch has since declared that the decision to recruit a lead singer was made "perhaps unwisely". This line-up recorded a third album for Virgin, 1982's Music on Both Sides. Like its predecessor, the album was not a hit.
After this, the band effectively broke up. Birch turned to tour managing, running 'Rock Tours', a sightseeing London Bus venture, producing and writing. In 1990 the original band briefly reformed to contribute a track for the 1991 Brian Wilson tribute album, Smiles, Vibes & Harmony. Birch, Brown and Wicks cut the basic track for "Darlin'" in London; Gower added his parts and mixed it in New York. The same year also saw the US release of Paying for the Summer of Love. Both recordings received great press, but were not enough to outweigh unresolved past issues within the core membership, which effectively killed any possibility of restarting the group. Wicks relocated to the US in 1994 and was writing, recording and performing both solo and with a new incarnation of the band up until 2018.
John Wicks died on October 7, 2018 in Burbank, California.
Starry Eyes
The Records Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Left to fall apart amongst your passports and your files
We never asked for miracles, but they were our concern
Did you really think we'd sit it out and wait for your return?
I don't want to argue, I ain't gonna budge
Won't you take this number down
Before you call up the judge?
Get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
While you were on the beach
Were you dreaming all about your share?
Planning to invest it all to cover wear and tear?
We paid for all the phone calls, the money's off the shelf
Don't you know that while you're gone away
I've got to help myself?
I don't want to argue, I ain't gonna budge
Won't you take this number down
Before you call up the judge?
I don't want to argue, there's nothing to say
Get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
While you were in the pool
We were meeting with the boys upstairs
Talking to the money men and carrying out affairs
We had no time for cocktails or working up a tan
The boys have all been spoken to
The writ has hit the fan
So I don't want to argue, I ain't gonna budge
Won't you take this number down
Before you call up the judge?
'Cause I don't want to argue, there's nothing to say
Get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
No I don't want to argue, there's nothing to say
Just get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
You get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
The lyrics to The Record’s song Starry Eyes tells a tale of an emotional breakup where one partner goes off to France, leaving the other stranded in the British Isles with passports and files to deal with. There is an underlying sense of abandonment and betrayal as the singer addresses their partner’s unrealistic expectations of their patience while they’re gone. The singer openly expresses their concerns that their former partner believed they could sit back and watch while they waited for their return.
The anger and hurt in the singer’s voice is apparent as they express their frustration with this behavior. The lyrics suggest that the singer has been left with a mess of responsibilities and unwanted tasks while their partner is off living it up. The singer is angry that they have been left to deal with everything while their partner is away, and it’s implied that the responsibilities have not been equally shared.
The chorus repeats the same line “I don’t want to argue” multiple times, with the singer wanting the other person to take responsibility for their actions and to leave them alone with their starry eyes. This suggests that the other person seems to be living in their own little world, ignoring the responsibilities they have left behind.
Overall, the lyrics to Starry Eyes are an expression of hurt and anger, as the singer feels abandoned and disregarded by their former partner, and the judgmental nature of their partner's actions has left them feeling alone and frustrated.
Line by Line Meaning
While you were off in France, we were stranded in the British Isles
While you were away in France, we were left stranded in the British Isles without your help or support.
Left to fall apart amongst your passports and your files
We were left to deal with the mess of your personal belongings that you left behind instead of being able to focus on our own problems.
We never asked for miracles, but they were our concern
We didn't expect you to perform miracles, but we needed your help to deal with our own issues while you were away.
Did you really think we'd sit it out and wait for your return?
We couldn't just sit around and wait for you to come back, we had to take action and try to solve our problems without you.
I don't want to argue, I ain't gonna budge
Won't you take this number down
Before you call up the judge?
I don't want to fight with you or go to court, but you need to stop threatening legal action and listen to me.
While you were on the beach
Were you dreaming all about your share?
Planning to invest it all to cover wear and tear?
While you were relaxing on the beach, were you only thinking about your own finances and investments, instead of considering the problems we were facing without you?
We paid for all the phone calls, the money's off the shelf
Don't you know that while you're gone away
I've got to help myself?
We had to pay for all the phone bills and other expenses while you were gone, and we couldn't just wait around for your help. We had to take matters into our own hands.
While you were in the pool
We were meeting with the boys upstairs
Talking to the money men and carrying out affairs
While you were lounging by the pool, we were having important meetings and making deals with people to try to solve our problems.
We had no time for cocktails or working up a tan
The boys have all been spoken to
The writ has hit the fan
We didn't have time to relax or enjoy ourselves while you were gone. We had to take care of business and deal with the consequences of your absence.
No I don't want to argue, there's nothing to say
Just get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
You get me out of your starry eyes and be on your way
I don't want to argue anymore, I just want to be free of any illusions or unrealistic expectations you may have for me. Please go your own way and let me handle my own problems without you.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: John Richard Wicks, Will Birch
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@mike196212
I'm 60 and still love this song. I still don't know why this wasn't a huge hit.
@southvaron757
It was a huge hit in my dorm room. Looks like you'll be 61 like me in a few Months.
@mike196212
@@southvaron6413 Really? I don't think I know anyone who's even heard of the band. Already 61(Feb.15).
@southvaron757
@@mike196212 I didn't have any older siblings, & about a week after I went away to college I went to a party where the guy was playing this stuff and some nu wave. I only had Rock & Southern Rock albums, so I asked him to make me a cassette of some of the good songs he was playing. This was on it, "Back of My Hand"- The Jags, "Turnin' Japanese" -Vapors, "Dance This Mess Around" - B-52s, "Freedom Of Choice" -Devo, " I Don't Like Mondays" - Boomtown Rats, but you're right, I really only ever heard this on that tape, until now.
@innovacraft
They played Toad’s in New Haven. It was great.
@timmy707707
It was played regularly in the Bay Area "a near-perfect song that defined British power pop in the '70s".
@dang2443
Decades later and I still never get tired of this song. It's just perfect.
@rickjoyce9272
wxrt still plays it
@benjaminpensiero8519
You said it! I re-discover this song from my college years every year or so, and play it over and over and over.
@roycewilliams3086
This is one of the greatest powerpop songs of all time. The problem with songs this good--perfect--is that a band just can't ever top it in their career. To me, there's nothing quite as high as the rush that is induced when you get this combination of melody and air guitar quotient. This is as good as early Who/ Kinks.