Music Monday: The Friends of Mr Cairo

Since I recently finished THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett, I thought this would be an appropriate song to share for Music Monday this week!

Jon Anderson, former lead vocalist for the band Yes, and Vangelis, composer of electronic music, first found each other in the mid-70s and discovered they had an unusual yet sympathetic musical rapport. By 1979 they had enough material together to release an album. “Short Stories” spawned the British hit “I Hear You Now.” A second album followed in 1981: “The Friends of Mr. Cairo.” This album featured their second British Top Ten single, “I’ll Find My Way Home,” as well as the song “State of Independence” which Donna Summer later covered. Around this time, Vangelis, hit the Hollywood big-time with his Academy Award winning soundtrack to “Chariots of Fire.” He followed up this success a year later with his highly-acclaimed score to the film “Blade Runner.”

Today’s featured song is the title track of Jon and Vangelis’ second album. It’s a 12 minute homage to classic movies, with particular attention to the films “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Thief of Bagdad,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The song consists of two distinct but related parts. The first part is upbeat, relating story themes common to many of the films of this era. It starts like a classic gangster movie with squealing tires and gunfire, followed by dialog reminiscent of such films. These voices return at various points throughout, adding to the ambiance of the piece. Part two is slower, more reflective, talking about how much these films mean on a personal level. The novelty of part one first drew me to the song as a child, but it’s part two that got me hooked to it. It’s not particularly complex musically, and even relatively simple in its arrangement. But it has a lovely, solid tune sung so passionately, and backed with an equally stirring Vangelis arrangement, its worth every moment of the seven minutes of part one it takes to get there.

I think I’ve mentioned before that when I was first learning to play, and I was not nearly as confident in my musical ear as I am now, I used to hunt down sheet music to songs or pieces I wanted to learn. Living in a small city with limited resources, and prior to the advent of the World Wide Web, it wasn’t uncommon for me to search in vain for my favorite music. I remember my Dad had a book, almost like an almanac, of hi-fi equipment and music resources. The copy I remember was from 1978, and I believe he had just finished working in a retail electronics store around that time, which might be how he came upon this book. In any event, one day as I was trying to figure out how to get hold of much sought-after sheet music, I was thumbing through this book when I noticed a section at the end listing the addresses of music publishers. Many of the names I recognized from Smash Hits, the popular music magazine I collected that printed the lyrics to Top 40 songs, crediting the writers and publishers for each song. It dawned on me that these publishers would probably have the sheet music to the songs, and might even be willing to sell me copies. I then did something that would be unheard of today, especially for a teenager:

I started writing music publishers. Hand-written letters. In envelopes. With stamps.

I would write something along the lines of: “Dear Sir or Madam, Do you have the sheet music to I Don’t Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats? If so, could you tell me how much it would cost for me to purchase?” I knew it was a long shot, and I didn’t expect a response. But not only did I get responses from nearly all the publishers I contacted, almost every response came with a copy of the sheet music I requested. Most of the time it was a hand-written lead sheet, but that was good enough for me! Some even had a note attached saying something like, “With compliments.”

One of the publishers I contacted was Warner Bros. Music asking for the sheet music to “The Friends of Mr. Cairo” by Jon and Vangelis. Here’s what they sent (click on the picture for the complete pdf):

This is clearly not the full 12-minute song, but is essentially part one. Even so, this was beyond my wildest expectations.

OK, this post is getting long, so here are the words and chords to the entire song, minus the spoken-word parts (click on the picture to download a three-page pdf):

A remixed version of part one was released as a single in Canada where it got to number one. Here’s the video:

Here’s the complete song:

As usual, if you have any questions or comments about the music for today’s song, please leave them in the comment section below. Also, if you have any requests for future Music Monday songs, let me know in the comments!