It's a fucking dark day today made darker still by the death of Chas and a day of pressure on CFC at the top of the table. Gotta make some sense of it all and, with a drum intro that preceded the much lauded "In The Air Tonight" percussive outburst by at least a year, there aren't many good singalong tunes whose lyrics tell a story of deception and falseness like "Ain't No Pleasing You" - on the surface a simple affectionate little ditty enjoyed by many a bevvied punter around the piano in those rare boozers that still house a piano. Did I say deception and falseness? Well, yeah, it's deeper than just the poor put-upon 'old fellow' whose missus gives him non-stop rabbit about leaving the toilet seat up or letting the fire go out. This a man's entire life on show here.
Take the first line : "Well, I built my life around you." Not just his work, not just his socializing, not just his sleeping pattern - all of it. He went into this as he would ago into an agreement with the devil, no backing out, no wavering, just total commitment. If he strayed he was reprimanded but the essence and foundation of what he was building around her stayed the same, no question.
"Did what I thought was right." In as many words, what he really believed to be right.
"But you never cared about me, now I've seen the light." Well, she must have cared about him at some point. This is a smart guy here. He got wise. But what drew him in in the first place? Witchcraft? Sorcery? Her Sunday roast? No, she herself. What he perceived her to be. You don't go headlong into something without weighing up what you're getting into even whilst being unashamedly hoodwinked. There's always that measure of objectivity surely. And he perceived that she cared. She probably did, I say, while caring was on the agenda. The light he's seeing now has been switched on only by her own sloppiness. The veil is slipping and the cracks of deceit are showing. This act is open and can no longer hide from the spotlight of his realization.
"Oh, darling." And yet he still refers to her as 'darling'. There's something of her still inside him that'll never go away - memories, memories of her from a past now revealed as an act, part of an agenda, the first chapters of a story bound to end in disappointment and mediocrity. At this point the song "Darlin'" by the Scottish fellow Frankie Miller comes to my mind (another artist sadly neglected from the Music Board on here) But Miller's (or his character's) past is not made clear in the lyrics. He's not with her. He's missing her. He still calls her darling, either offhandedly, habitually or affectionately - I suspect the latter and that Miller's disaffection from the woman is less muddied than the man I speak of in this post. Did she walk away or did he? It's not revealed, unlike in the unflinching reveal in the narrative of "Ain't No Pleasing You."
"There ain't no pleasing you." He speaks in the present tense but he's referring to the past. There was never any pleasing her, even when he was pleasing her, because how can you please someone when it is not pleasure they really want but adherence?
The whole song is there in a nutshell in the first verse.
He goes on to rue what he should have known all along, that whatever he did would be wrong in her eyes. But there must have been a time when she thought he was doing right - only she probably never told him so. Agenda. Act. Charade. Rather like CFC unveiling a new striker who at first displays all the winning traits of a Costa but who ultimately reveals himself to be nothing but a second-rate version of a Morata. Had the crowd fooled for a while. Potted a few goals to start with before descending into nothing more than a selfish sideshow.
The underrated musical talent of the duo is enjoyed further still with the swinging mid-song bridge where he reminds her of her loss. Say the word, I'd do it. I was right there where you wanted me but you went and blew it. Now you can go and do whatever takes your fancy. Without me.
His bags are packed by this point. "I ain't gonna be made a fool no more." Is he bluffing? She's got another thing coming if that's what she believes. "I'm telling you that for nothing!"
What happened next? The answer may lie in the first verse of a later song by the duo :
I wonder in whose arms you are tonight
I wonder does he think he's doing alright
I don't really care but still I wonder
Just how long he takes to see the light
Ladies, Gents, and decent folk everywhere...
