Surprise (Lynsey de Paul album)

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for music. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (September 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Surprise is the first album released by Lynsey de Paul on the MAM record label in 1973.^[1][2][3] In Australia, the album name was changed to Sugar Me, after de Paul's first hit single.^[4] All of the songs on the album were written or co-written by de Paul (half the tracks were re-recordings of her songwriting demos),^[5] who was accompanied by some of the UK's leading session musicians including Terry Cox, Ralph McTell, Ray Cooper, Jeff Daly, John Gustafson, Chris Rae, Danny Thompson, Gary Boyle, Barry de Souza, Dick Katz, Robert Kirby, Francis Monkman, John Richardson (who would later become the drummer in The Rubettes) and violinist Johnny Van Derrick.^[6][7][8] The album front cover is a portrait photo of de Paul photographed by Clive Arrowsmith, and a gatefold sleeve with illustrations provided by de Paul, a nod to her previous career of designing album sleeves and song lyrics.^[9] It received favourable reviews from the mainstream music press with adverts proclaiming "the first album from this enormously talented artist" being placed in most of them.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} Gramophone (magazine) stated "she has a neatly effective knack of songwriting and puts the numbers across in a competent manner.^[15] The Sunday Herald wrote "...her first album, Surprise, demonstrated a ready facility for melody and catchy hooks, but also a knack for sidestepping the most predictable pop clichés."^[16] Record Mirror stated "Surprise for many. They said she was a Top 50 single maker. Album with many goodies. Not a dull track. Sexy as well".^[17][18]

Surprisingly, her debut single "Sugar Me" was re-recorded for this album and has a much longer fade out with de Paul being the producer on this version rather than Gordon Mills, who produced the hit single version. This song was covered by many artists over the years, most notably in the USA by Nancy Sinatra and Claudine Longet.^[19][20] Another surprise was that neither the recent follow up hit "Getting a Drag" nor the third single "All Night" (released just one month after the "Surprise") were included on the LP. Although no other tracks were released by de Paul from the album as singles in the UK, Europe and US, the track "Water" was released as "Agua" in Chile and Peru, with "Rockerdile" as the B-side.^[21][22] The album's last track "Just Visiting" sees de Paul speculate that spacemen visited prehistoric man and gave continued guidance in mankind's development and that we might find ourselves in the same position,^[23] a theme taken up by Chris de Burgh in his later song "A Spaceman Came Travelling". "Just Visiting" was included on the French duo Pilooski & Pentile's (aka Discodeine) guest mix released to promote their album Swimmer (2013).^[24][25]

De Paul performed live versions of some of the tracks from the album on television including Top of the Pops (and an album was released to BBC radio stations around the world containing these tracks),^[26] as well as on the first episode of the German TV program, Musikladen performing "Sugar Me", and later on episode 5 performing "Doctor, Doctor".^[27] She also performed "Sleeping Blue Nights" on the German TV program Hits-a-Go-Go on 24 June 1973.^[28][29]

Many of the tracks on Surprise were also recorded by other artists, including the jazz tinged "Mama Do" (recorded as "Papa Do" by Barry Green,^[30] the Daltons^[31] and also Cardinal Point);^[32] "Ivory Tower" (co-written with Elizabeth Sacks in 1971^[33] and released as a single by Caroline Hall in 1973;^[34] "Crossword Puzzle" (recorded and released as a single by Dana Rosemary Scallon);^[35]"Rockerdile" was recorded and released as a B-side to the de Paul/Blue penned single "Mona" by Winston;^[36][37] and a Japanese version was released as the B side to a single by Fumiko Ishida,^[38] plus "Sleeping Blue Nights" recorded by Zig-Zag.^[39] In an interview with "Melody Maker" about the album, de Paul revealed that "White Plains (band)" recorded a version of "The Way It Goes".^[40]

More recently, Japanese artist Nickey recorded a version of "Water", which was the last track on her 2013 album A Taste on Honey.^[41][42][43] Smoove & Turrell borrowed from the backing track to "Water" on their single "You Don't Know" and its various remixes in 2009, with permission from de Paul, who also received a writing credit for the song.^[44][45][46] This version was included on their 2019 greatest hits album "Solid Brass: Ten Years Of Northern Funk".^[47] The British rap artist Twiggz also released the song in 2018 completely with new spoken vocals, but featuring the de Paul backing track and her vocals repeating "Water".^[48] "Sugar Me", the album's international hit single has been covered by over 20 artists including Nancy Sinatra, Claudine Longet and Nydia Caro.^[49][50]

In 2005, the album was released on CD for the first time in Japan on the AIRAC label, and featured the following additional bonus tracks on a second CD: "Storm in a Teacup", "Getting a Drag", "Brandy", "All Night", "Blind Leading the Blind", "Won't Somebody Dance with Me", and "So Good To You" i.e. all four hit singles and B-sides recorded for the MAM Records label.^[51][52] It also featured the original gatefold sleeve artwork cover. In February 2020, a CD version of the original album was released in Russia.^[53]

Surprise is considered one of the best albums of 1973,^[54] and was featured as the "Album of the Day" on the music site "Todaysalbum" on 1 October 2017.^[55] Online site "Best ever albums" list Surprise as one of the top albums released in 1973 as well as one of the top 1000 albums released in the 1970s.^[56] Tracks from the album are still played on American radio.^[57]

Track listing[]

All tracks composed by Lynsey de Paul; except where indicated

A side

1. "Mama Do" (de Paul, Barry Ian Green)
2. "Ivory Tower" (de Paul, Liz Sacks)
3. "Doctor Doctor"
4. "Crossword Puzzle" (de Paul, Barry Ian Green)
5. "Water" (de Paul, Barry Ian Green)

B side

1. "Sleeping Blue Nights" (de Paul, Barry Ian Green)
2. "The Way It Goes" (de Paul, Malcolm Roberts)
3. "Rockerdile" (de Paul, Barry Ian Green)
4. "Sugar Me" (de Paul, Barry Ian Green)
5. "Just Visiting"

References[]