This is one of my favorite songs by the English Beat. A busy and innovative melody, clever lyrics and deft keys.
“I Confess,” a hidden gem on the 1981 album Special Beat Service might almost sound like any early synth-rock pop song. What sets it apart is the wordplay of frontman David Wakeling as he tells the tale of a career cad shot dead in the heart by Cupid’s arrow. It’s tongue-trippingly well-rhymed and rife with irony. “I confess that I ruined three lives. Did not care, till I found out that one of them was mine.”
It all sounds like a well-timed comeuppance of a Casanova. You have to pity him, though, poor boy, when you hear his sob story delivered via Wakeling’s octave-straddling vibrato.
What really elevates the song, though, is the deft saxophone of the late Augustus Martin, aka Saxa. He’s versatile, easily following Wakeling’s mercurial moods, from dark and ominous tales (“Mirror in the Bathroom”) to happy-sad love songs. The latter is the kind of music that’s great to listen to when you’ve had your own heart broken.
At any rate, unloosing that unpredictable sax is just what the song needed. It infuses a sweet-noted pop ballad with a stony, improvisational feel. The sax chases the brisk pace of the song, at times echoing the melody and at others adding stray moments of optimism, the jaunty slide of island dance music, marching band bravado and just a touch of keening. It’s no pity-party being offered by that sax. Saxa knows the bloke will get over it in the end.
In this old favorite, Saxa manages to grab a memorable sax solo and do throughout what a great horn player should do. Enhance the ambiance of a song while every so sparingly changing the mood–and even occasionally the subject– for a few wild notes.
–Sarah Torribio
Find more songs of the day curated by Sarah Torribio HERE
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