Album: Crime of The Century
Year: 1974
. . .
The first thing you should know about “Bloody Well Right” was that it wasn’t really intended to be the lead single from Crime of The Century, which featured that trippy “jail in SPACE” album cover, a marked improvement on the probably infamous and now problematic cover of their previous album, Indelibly Stamped, which I’ve still never heard anything from. Or their first, self-titled album, for that matter.
Anyways, the first single from Crime of The Century was actually “Dreamer,” which I thought about writing about because I have memories of a teenage frenemy singing it to my face because I had a crush on a girl who he also liked, and then did everything to sabotage the whole thing. But I’m not, because fuck that dude. ANYWAYS, “Bloody Well Right” was the b-side of the “Dreamer” single, which for reasons that are lost to time got flipped here in the U.S. and became Supertramp’s U.S. breakthrough. (In the U.K., where “bloody” was a curse word, “Dreamer” stayed the single and made it to #13.)
It’s a weird breakthrough, though, because “Bloody Well Right” isn’t really a conventional pop song. I mean Supertramp were basically a prog group who worked in a pop vein, so when I say it wasn’t a “conventional” pop song, I mean that it was 1:38 before Rick Davies even opened his mouth to sing, which is basically unheard of.
Now, it’s possible that there were radio promo edits of “Bloody Well Right,” but I honestly have no idea which version 13 KYNO-AM was playing in 1974 when I first heard it, so I’m just going to assume they played the version that everybody is familiar with. Which starts with a long, bluesy electric piano solo from Davies, which dips in and out of the song’s melody until the full band comes in, with Roger Hodgson playing a wah-wah solo over drummer Bob Siedbenberg and bassist Dougie Thompson’s stately beat.
Electric piano and wah-wah guitar. It must be the mid-1970s! Finally, with Hodgson playing muted power chords, and overdubbing leads Davies starts singing.
So you think your schooling is phony
I guess it’s hard not to agree
You say it all depends on money
And who is in your family tree
And then all of that goes away, and we’re just back to Davies and his electric piano for the chorus.
Right, (Right), you’re bloody well right
You got a bloody right to say
Right, you’re bloody well right
You know you got a right to say
And here’s how you know Supertramp is a pop band: that chorus is incredibly catchy, with the topper being the call-and-response of “right (right!)” which sounds hilarious and startling even after all these years. The other way you know they’re a pop band is that they have the band come in with Hodgson adding commentary on the guitar as they extend the chorus another time around, with Davies snarking “Me, I don’t care anyway” at the end of it.
And here’s how you know Supertramp is a prog band: instead of going directly to the second verse — which remember, we’re now 2:30 into the song — Hodgson tosses in another cool riff that I don’t think he revisits during the rest of the song as Davies doubles down on the snark of “me I don’t care anyway.”
Write your problems down in detail
Take them to a higher place
You’ve had your cry, no, I shouldn’t say wail
In the meantime, hush your face
Ouch!! And yet, it’s all redeemed in the final chorus, which starts with yet another hilarious call-and-response.
Right, (Quite right), you’re bloody well right
You got a bloody right to say
Right, you’re bloody well right
You know you got a right to say
Ha-ha, you’re bloody well right
You know you’re right to say
Yeah, yeah, you’re bloody well right
You know you got a right to say
I’m sorry, everything about that “QUITE RIGHT!” utterly kills me, and even Supertramp realizes that that’s basically the peak of the song, as the rest of this song is Davies repeating “you got a bloody right to say” over and over again as sax man John Heliwell — who’s been lurking around the edges of the song, and who looks like 75% of the guys who worked at Tower Records in the 1970s — takes a long, incredibly calm solo for the outro, because 1974, a prog-pop song had to have a sax solo. But it didn’t have to have handclaps, which Supertramp endears themselves to me forever by adding under that sax solo until the song fades.
I remember absolutely loving “Bloody Well Right” when it was a single, though I didn’t buy the Crime of The Century, my brother Joseph did.
Here’s the thing: I remember both “Bloody Well Right” and Crime of The Century as Supertramp’s breakthrough, but the single only made it to #35 and the album to #38. Still, it felt like they were everywhere for the rest of the decade. Was that because I lived in Fresno, CA, a Supertramp hotbed? Probably, but more on that later.
“Bloody Well Right”
“Bloody Well Right” Live 1977
“Bloody Well Right” live in Paris, 1979
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