![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan9.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/morse2.jpg)
A little bit o’ lovin’ on the side
UK newspaper The Independent has a feature on Deep Purple, with a review of =1, and an interview with Ian Gillan.
It’s also, I suggest, a surprisingly lusty record for a band who long since swapped the Jack bottle for the travel kettle. “You mean salacious?” Gillan chuckles. “It’s a bit naughty in places I suppose, but it’s only very mild and at my age [78], really, come on. [But] I’m a night person, I live the nightlife, I’m in rock’n’roll and I mix with exciting people. We don’t live in the conventional world.”
He cites “A Bit on the Side”, the true story of meeting a beautiful young woman in an “adult club” in Germany. “I poured her a glass of champagne and she sat down, we talked. She said her name was Charlene from Berlin, and we had a lot of interesting things [in common] – I had been to some interesting places and so had she. We were winding down and I noticed that she needed a shave. It turned out she wasn’t really Charlene from Berlin. She was Charlie from Belfast.” “I don’t care which way you lean,” Gillan sings, mingling the political with the overtly sexual with a tongue-lapping wail, “I don’t want no left or right/ I want front ’n back/ and a little bit o’ lovin’ on the side.”
Read more in The Independent.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Ah, so Big Ian has written his own little Lola, Ray Davies would approve!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_xA6sH9kkQ
July 23rd, 2024 at 22:29interesting interview
July 23rd, 2024 at 22:39I am starting to wonder about Gillan’s lyrics & Uwe’s fascination with them. However I must maintain a decorum of strict discipline. For now at least. Cheers.
July 24th, 2024 at 06:02With revealing of Charlene as a Charlie from Belfast the song becomes even more sinister with getting a new shade to the colour if the story…. The bit of wry laugh of Ian’s after the verse “It might be good to consider Charlene, you might be not much different to me – hye hee” now gets totally new context and shape (almost literally). Still love the song!!! It’s exponentially Gillanous now.😆😅
July 24th, 2024 at 09:29Friggin‘ binary Aussie prude and Sunday School goer! 😂
July 24th, 2024 at 13:47Do the German community here still remember this one then?
https://youtu.be/iGCjzXVPgtQ
July 24th, 2024 at 13:52From exotic ping pong dancers to chicks with dicks – where will it all end 🙄 and, more importantly, what will the Tasmanian all make of it? 😑
July 24th, 2024 at 15:11@5 Hey Uwe! Hold it Mister, just hold it! Hetero norm is not the whole of the universe.
Just take a careful note of the lyrics:
“You’ve got to learn a livin’
With the tools that you’ve been givv’n
Don’t we all? If you see what I mean
Everyone just follows their dream”
Ian might be inclined to be attracted to and thus as well understand – all sorts of performers just as HIS dream was to be a performer himself back since 1964.
So be it either Charlie in the drag of Charlene, Mitzi Dupree or strange kind of woman… He’s telling story of them all.
And not forgetting full blown men (in synergy with their carnal equipment) in the galery of glory – as Ted Vavoom The Mechanic story shows! And is a favourite of many.
And to remind you – one of the IG’s announcements of the live songs (precisely 28th Sept 1988, Hamburg) to steer your mind back on track to his twisted wit:
“Here’s a story if a ethereal pink bits of the body… Of a one, out there, somewhere… Bitch you can never get hold of… Here’s a song called “Child in Time”.” An epic 13 minute rendition of the track follows, complete with Blackmore-Lord jam in the middle, and the next day, unbeknownst to anyone Gillan plays his last show of the 80’s with Deep Purple. Fate is twisted, Uwe. Always was.
Peace to all points on the ever floating axis of the sexual personality!
July 24th, 2024 at 19:38I can’t tell from the lyrics and Gillan’s interview here if Charlene is a transgender woman, a boy who likes to cross dress, or somewhere in between – either way, Ian doesn’t seem to mind – which makes him a bit more queer (or at least not as ‘straight’) than I previously thought he was. The song, I think, reveals a bit more about Ian’s sexuality than it does about Charlene and who she is (at least that’s my take away!) – which honestly, I didn’t see coming on my 2024 bingo card! Ian, it seems, is full of surprises…
July 24th, 2024 at 20:12Well I kneeeew right awaaaaaay
That I’d seen her act before
In a room…….behind a kitchen in Bangkok
And three or four times more in Singaporeeeeeeeeeee
what an incredible blues with incredible lyrics!
July 24th, 2024 at 21:41I miss you I love you Mitzi Dupree
July 24th, 2024 at 21:49My darling Mitzi Dupree
I now have a permanent HALO above my head Uwe. I am devoid of all sin & have no idea what you are talking about. Cheers.
July 24th, 2024 at 22:42Yo,
Leiber Uwe asked…
qt.”What will the Tasmanian’s make of it” ?…
I have mentioned before, that Singapore has an extraordinary night-life / scene, where you will come across people such as Mitzy & Charlene…For reasons unbeknownst, that’s simply how they choose to earn a living.
Peace !
July 24th, 2024 at 23:40I sure prefer Big Ian singing about his chance encounters with members of the LGBTQ community to Ronnie Dio serenading his imaginary pet dragon! 😆
Someone in another forum once said: “Gillan is the type of guy who takes a dump in the morning and then in the afternoon writes a song about it.” And I replied: “And exactly that makes him brilliant.”
July 25th, 2024 at 03:51One of my favorite lines from Big Ian introducing a song during Abandon Tour “I can’t remember the name of the album it’s on but the song is called Fireball”! 🙂
July 25th, 2024 at 10:45@ 14 – and you would call that suggestion from someone at a forum an anecdote for ‘brilliant’ lyrics Uwe? Please, most people would prefer to hear about pet dragons I would think. Cheers.
July 25th, 2024 at 21:44Songs about dragons are real crap.
July 25th, 2024 at 23:55Quite frankly I’d like to hear about both lol
July 26th, 2024 at 02:19Ok, let’s settle then for more songs about dragons taking a dump. I am a man who can be reasoned with after all.
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Typruye-Dragon-Pooping-Bathroom-Restaurant/dp/B0CGCVC9K6#immersive-view_1722003962473
July 26th, 2024 at 14:27