John Ireland – Thinking Aloud

The South African Rock Encyclopedia > Rock Legends > 1970s > John Ireland > Discography > John Ireland – Thinking Aloud

Tracks

1. You’re Living Inside My Head (6:30)
2. Nicole (4:48)
3. Stars (7:29)
4. Remember June Last Year (6:04)
5. With A Bit Of Lu-lu-luck (4:27)
6. Sunshine Of Your Love (4:10)
7. Out Of My Mind (4:40)

All songs by John Ireland except ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’ (Jack Bruce/Peter Brown/Eric Clapton)

Produced by Peter Hubner/M.S.C. Productions
Recorded at Videosound Studios, Blairgowrie June/July 1978
Produced and Engineered by John Lindemann
Recorded at RPM Studios

Musicians

• John Ireland: Vocals, keyboards, synthesisers
• Jethro Butow: acoustic & electric guitars
• Gerald Stockton: bass guitar & trombone
• Richard Pickett: drums
• René Veldsman: Female vocals on ‘Stars’ and ‘With A Bit Of Lu-lu-luck’
• Mike Scott & Peter Hubner: trumpets
• Francoise Bax: Female voice on ‘Nicole’
• Maurice Tostee: French translation of ‘Nicole’

Release information

LP: 1978, Teal, JIC 9999 (South Africa)
LP: 1978, Ariola Records, 200 289-320 (Germany)
LP: 1978, Teal, 20011/R (Portugal)
LP: 1978, Boot Records, BRP 2103 (Canada)
LP: 1978, Ariola, 5005 (Greece)
LP: 1978, Ricordi International, SNIR 25074 (Italy)
LP: 1978, RCA, VPL1 4104 (Australia)
Cassette: 1978, Ariola Records, 400 289-352 (Germany)
Cassette: 1978, RCA, VPK1-4105 (Australia)

Comments

“With A Bit Of Lu-lu-luck” was not included on all releases.

Brian Currin

Fan message

Hi Brian – We have been searching for 25 odd years for the John Ireland Thinking Aloud and John Ireland albums!!

Then I stumbled across your site quite by chance – fantastic website!!!!

Brian do you know where I can buy these two albums – We named my daughter Nicole after the one song and she is 21 and has never heard it!!!!!

I would really appreciate your help.

Keith Millar, 9 August 2011

Reply to fan message

John Ireland albums have not been released on CD, but old records can be found at shops such as Mabu Vinyl in Cape Town.

Brian Currin, 9 August 2011

Press

POP STAR DOC SETS PULSES RACING

FAMILY RADIO & TV, December 25-31, 1978

by Lorraine Stuart, photographs by Yvonne Deacon

Some of his best friends at medical school don’t know about his success as a singer, and John Ireland wants to keep it that way.

It’s the stuff teenage dreams are made of — your favourite singer gently taking your pulse while you watch him perform your favourite song on Pop Shop. It could happen, too. John Ireland is a final-year medical student and he’s being groomed as South Africa’s next pop sensation.

John Ireland’s not his real name, of course. That would be against the medical profession’s very strict code of ethics. But there’s no way a pop fan could miss this handsome, multitalented rising star whose first LP has just been released in 18 countries.

His seven-single You’re Living Inside My Head, a mix of Greensleeves and contemporary rock, has shot to the top of the South African charts: his LP Thinking Aloud features seven cuts, five of which are entirely his own work.

Born in Ireland, John was schooled in South Africa and completed his military training here before deciding on studying medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand.

“Only now that my degree is finally in sight have I started to take my music seriously. Some people may be able to do two big things at the same time, but for me it’s one and then the other. When he was eight years old he wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll guitarist. His parents had other ideas and although he hated it, he learned to play the piano, “I’m now incredibly grateful to my folks for giving me a solid classical background. It means I can write my own music as well as play it,” he says.

He has no desire to be portrayed as the stereo-typed pop star. Nor does he plan to mix his careers. “I keep the two sides of my life strictly separate. One day I’m in in the recording studios and the next I’m at lectures or examining patients. Most of my medical friends don’t even know about my music, and that’s the way I’d like to keep it. “I don’t think I’ll give up either side. though. If my music goes well I may leave medicine for a while, but sooner or later I know I’ll go back to it.

He doesn’t fancy the Burt Reynolds image. That’s just not me. I want to be seen as an intelligent, sensitive thinker and songwriter who has a deep awareness of life and relationships.” At the moment, though, he hasn’t time for serious relationships.
“My life is unbelievably hectic and there just isn’t time for girls. I’m swotting for exams, later today I have a recording session, tomorrow I have lectures and an appearance at a hypermarket, and the next day there’s an exam.”

What little spare time he does have he spends composing or listening to records — “I buy about 10 LPs a month.” He says he enjoys discos in small doses but doesn’t enjoy having his head “continuously thumped by that monotonous beat.”

John shares a home on Johannesburg’s Berea with five friends. “People have such ridiculous ideas about communes,” he says. They conjure up images of radicals and communists when in fact young people are just living cheaply by sharing a house and having lots of fun. I lived in a hole in Hillbrow for three years and, believe me, it’s a short cut to schizophrenia.”

John’s whole family is talented. His mum, a trained nurse, was a modern and classical ballet dancer and has written numerous children’s books while his dad, a quantity surveyor, dabbles in amateur theatre. Sister Pami is a commercial artist.

John’s pride is his “music room, a sound-proofed structure filled with synthesisers, microphones, an electric piano, huge home-made speakers and various other gadgets. In one corner stands a desk piled high with medical textbooks. The sound room is also a favourite spot for John’s dog Bonzo, an SPCA cross-breed special. “He follows me in and goes off to sleep when the music comes on, says John.

What does John want from the future? “What is everyone looking for in life? I think it’s to have peace of mind at the end of the day and to crack the world in your own way. I’m not into marriage right now, but I’m sure I’ll mellow to the idea later on. I want to be a psychiatrist that’s why I’m studying medicine because I believe it’s an unexplored field in which new developments are continually taking place. One song on my LP, Out Of My Head, relates directly to my studies.

“The treatment of psychiatric disorders using music has a great deal of appeal to me. Maybe I’ll eventually “find” myself and be able to synthesise both parts of my life into one.

Pop-Stop: Ireland Goes Gold

Although John Ireland’s Thinking Aloud album hasn’t yet sold in South Africa the 25 000 copies required for a gold disc, one has been awarded to Radio 5. Why? Well, on the strength of the album’s performance on Radio 5’s charts John’s record company has sold rights for its release in many other countries and advance orders bring the total sales up to more than the golden goal of 25 000. Seen at the presentation of the gold disc, are, from left John Ireland. Radio 5’s Pieter Human and John Smithers of the Teal Record Company.

Reviews

Thinking Aloud

by John Samson, November 2000

Opening with the disco classic ‘Living inside my Head’, John Ireland’s ‘Thinking Aloud’ is a great album moving from pure disco to pure rock to rock ballad and back to disco with ease. Released in 1978, the disco themes fitted in well with the then current international music scene with ‘Saturday Night Fever’ having been released the previous year.

‘Living inside my Head’ adapts the tune of ‘Greensleeves’ and puts it to a disco background. An epic song clocking in at over 6 minutes. Shades of Jean-Michel Jarre show through as SA’s master of the keyboard transports you on a space flight with the haunting oboe sound carring the old Henry VIII tune just below the surface of the disco beat.

‘Stars’ is another disco track, with the lyrics concentrating on star signs of the ladies, something which seemed to be important at that time. This is pure hardcore disco as opposed to ‘Living..’ which is more flighty and spacey.

‘Nicole’ and ‘Remember June last year’ are rock ballads. Both are well executed. The latter does at times border on becoming quite cheesy, but a strong guitar throughout keeps it from falling into that trap.

The pure rock comes in the form of ‘With a bit of Lu-Lu-Luck’ and a cover of Cream’s classic ‘Sunshine of your Love’. The guitar work on both tracks is great stuff and I am sure prompted a few air guitar solos in a few bedrooms of 1970’s South Africa. Jethro Butow is responsible for keeping the record rocking. Interestingly the traditional guitar lead of ‘Sunshine..’ seems to have been substituted with a heavy rock synth sound, while the guitar is left to ably fill in the background. This is all done to the background of a disco beat. Not the greatest cover version I’ve heard of this classic but it still rocks.

The album closes with ‘Out of my Mind’ parts of which seem to have been inspired by early Kraftwerk material with the funky bass sound coming from the keyboard in the “plink plonk” style of the early electronic pioneers. Fortunately a strong vocal over the top keeps this from becoming an embarrassing imitation.

This is a much stronger album than the later ‘John Ireland‘ which featured ‘I Like…’. and for it’s time should have contended for chart placing worldwide. It did get a release in Germany (with no references to South Africa other than that it was recorded at Videosound Studios, Blairgowrie… that must be Blairgowrie in Middlesex [grin]).

Perhaps with the disco sound enjoying a bit of renewed popularity, this would be a good time for a re-release of possibly the best album from South Africa’s keyboard wizard.

1001 South African Songs You Must Hear Before You Go Deaf

You’re Living Inside My Head – John Ireland

By John Samson, 26 February 2012

People my age probably only liked John Ireland, but those a few years older had him living inside their heads, and for the slightly younger of us, we were a little taken aback at the pounding disco beat that emanated from our speakers once we stopped tittering at the suggestiveness of ‘I Like…’ and tracked down Mr Ireland’s earlier hit.

‘You’re Living Inside My Head’ blends an old tune (Greensleeves – remember that one from 1580?)  with sci-fi whistling sounds and mirror ball spinning beats to create a floor-filler that incorporates both space and time. Ireland’s voice varies between almost whispered and at times somewhat creepy as he ‘Think(s) of you so much, you must be living inside my head’. He also manages to add a confident ‘big brother’ commanding tone that gives an overall edgy effect that leaves one feeling slightly ill at ease, yet intrigued.

The song peaked at Number 8 on the SA Top 20 in 1978 and remains one of the great SA disco tunes of the late 70’s. It’s hard to imagine King Henry VIII to whom Greensleeves is (wrongly according to Wikipedia) attributed, strutting his stuff in his white suit to this song, but I think I can picture Anne Boleyn pulling him onto the dancefloor saying, ‘You have to dance to this.’

Artwork

Thanks to John Samson, Discogs, Leon Rossouw and Facebook for the many and varied bits of information that appear on this page.