Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake
Encyclopedia
Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake was a successful concept album
by the English rock band
Small Faces. Released on 24 May 1968 the LP
became a number one hit in the UK Album Charts on 29 June where it remained for a total of six weeks.
The title and the design of the distinctive packaging was a parody of Ogdens' Nut-brown Flake, a brand of tobacco which was produced in Liverpool
from 1899.
cockney
knees-up
songs "Lazy Sunday
" and "Rene", the opening instrumental title track (which resembles their second single "I've Got Mine", which was a flop in 1965), and the soul
influenced ballad "Afterglow (Of Your Love)
".
The B-side is based on an original fairy tale
about a boy called Happiness Stan, narrated in his unique ‘Unwinese’ gobbledegook by Stanley Unwin
, who picked up modern slang from the band and incorporated it into the surreal narrative.
The plot of the fairy tale is that Stan looks up in the sky and sees only half the moon, he sets out on a quest to search for the missing half. Along the way he saves a fly from starvation, and in gratitude the insect tells him of someone who can answer his question and also tell him the philosophy of life itself. With his magic power Stan intones, "If all the flies were one fly, what a great enormous fly-follolloper that would bold," and the fly grows to gigantic proportions. Seated on the giant fly's back Stan takes a psychedelic journey to the cave of Mad John the hermit, who explains that the moon's disappearance is only temporary, and demonstrates by pointing out that Stan has spent so long on his quest that the moon is now full again. He then sings Stan a cheerful song about the meaning of life.
Due to the album's complexities, Ogdens' was never performed live; it was performed as a whole once on the BBC's television programme Colour Me Pop
on Friday 21 June 1968. Songs featured were "Song of a Baker", "Happiness Stan", "Rollin' Over", "The Hungry Intruder", "The Journey", "Mad John" and "Happydaystoytown". Although the band mimed to the studio recordings, their microphones were left on to capture little ad libs.
The award-winning artwork for the album cover was done by Mick Swan who was a product of the sixties art school scene. Any other work by him is unknown but he is known to have worked as a fine arts tutor at Lowestoft
F.E. College in 1974.
issued an advertisement that parodied The Lord's Prayer. It caused uproar in the British press and outraged readers wrote in and complained.
Small Faces
Which were in the studios
Hallowed by thy name
Thy music come
Thy songs be sung
On this album as they came from your heads
We give you this day our daily bread
Give us thy album in a round cover as we give thee 37/9d
.,
Lead us into the record stores.
And deliver us Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake
For nice is the music
The sleeve and the story
For ever and ever, Immediate
on the advert for Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake that parodied the Lord's Prayer.
The 2005 3-disc "tobacco tin" Special Edition includes fully remastered mono and stereo mixes complete with segue, plus an episode of the BBC Radio
documentary series Classic Albums in which the band discuss the making of the album.
On many reissues, the cover design still spells the title as Ogdens' , but the label and sleeve copy gives it as Ogden's .
The album was featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
.
Rolling Stone
gave the album a positive review.
Allmusic gave the album a 5 out of 5 star review.
.
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
by the English rock band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
Small Faces. Released on 24 May 1968 the LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
became a number one hit in the UK Album Charts on 29 June where it remained for a total of six weeks.
The title and the design of the distinctive packaging was a parody of Ogdens' Nut-brown Flake, a brand of tobacco which was produced in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
from 1899.
Album profile
The A-side is a mix of early heavy rock with "Song of a Baker"; psychedelicPsychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
knees-up
Knees Up Mother Brown
"Knees Up Mother Brown" is a song, published in 1938, by when it had already been known for some years. It dates to at least 1918 and appears to have been sung widely in London on 11 November of that year, Armistice Night, at the end of the First World War...
songs "Lazy Sunday
Lazy Sunday (song)
"Lazy Sunday" is a song by English beat band Small Faces, reaching number two on the UK singles chart in 1968 . It was written by the Small Faces songwriting duo Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, and appeared on the band's 1968 concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake and preceded the album as a...
" and "Rene", the opening instrumental title track (which resembles their second single "I've Got Mine", which was a flop in 1965), and the soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
influenced ballad "Afterglow (Of Your Love)
Afterglow (Of Your Love)
"Afterglow Of Your Love" is the unofficial final single released in 1969 by the English Rock group the Small Faces. The song managed to reach #36 in the UK Singles Charts....
".
The B-side is based on an original fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
about a boy called Happiness Stan, narrated in his unique ‘Unwinese’ gobbledegook by Stanley Unwin
Stanley Unwin (comedian)
Stanley Unwin , sometimes billed as Professor Stanley Unwin, was a British comedian and comic writer, and the inventor of his own language, "Unwinese", referred to in the film Carry On Regardless as "gobbledegook".Unwinese was a mangled form of English in which many of the...
, who picked up modern slang from the band and incorporated it into the surreal narrative.
The plot of the fairy tale is that Stan looks up in the sky and sees only half the moon, he sets out on a quest to search for the missing half. Along the way he saves a fly from starvation, and in gratitude the insect tells him of someone who can answer his question and also tell him the philosophy of life itself. With his magic power Stan intones, "If all the flies were one fly, what a great enormous fly-follolloper that would bold," and the fly grows to gigantic proportions. Seated on the giant fly's back Stan takes a psychedelic journey to the cave of Mad John the hermit, who explains that the moon's disappearance is only temporary, and demonstrates by pointing out that Stan has spent so long on his quest that the moon is now full again. He then sings Stan a cheerful song about the meaning of life.
Due to the album's complexities, Ogdens' was never performed live; it was performed as a whole once on the BBC's television programme Colour Me Pop
Colour Me Pop
Colour Me Pop was a British music TV programmebroadcast on BBC2 from 1968-1969. It was a spin-off from the BBC 2 arts magazine show Late Night Line-Up. Designed to celebrate the new introduction of colour to British television, it was directed by Steve Turner, and showcased half-hour sets by pop...
on Friday 21 June 1968. Songs featured were "Song of a Baker", "Happiness Stan", "Rollin' Over", "The Hungry Intruder", "The Journey", "Mad John" and "Happydaystoytown". Although the band mimed to the studio recordings, their microphones were left on to capture little ad libs.
Packaging
The album was originally released on vinyl in a circular novelty package of a metal replica of a giant tobacco tin inside which was a poster created with 5 connected paper circles with pictures of the band members. This proved too expensive and was quickly followed by a paper/card replica with a gatefold cover. Two limited-edition CD releases (including a three-disc deluxe edition in 2006 that included the original mono mix of the album on CD for the first time) went even further by packaging the disc(s) in a circular tin (as the original vinyl release had). However, most CD releases use conventional packaging, superimposing the circular artwork on a square booklet.The award-winning artwork for the album cover was done by Mick Swan who was a product of the sixties art school scene. Any other work by him is unknown but he is known to have worked as a fine arts tutor at Lowestoft
Lowestoft
Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...
F.E. College in 1974.
Track listing
Chart positions
| Chart | Year | Peak position |
|---|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
1968 | 1 |
Controversy
To promote the album ImmediateImmediate Records
Immediate Records was a British record label, started in 1965 by The Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder and concentrating on the London-based blues and R&B scene.-History:...
issued an advertisement that parodied The Lord's Prayer. It caused uproar in the British press and outraged readers wrote in and complained.
Small Faces
Which were in the studios
Hallowed by thy name
Thy music come
Thy songs be sung
On this album as they came from your heads
We give you this day our daily bread
Give us thy album in a round cover as we give thee 37/9d
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
.,
Lead us into the record stores.
And deliver us Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake
For nice is the music
The sleeve and the story
For ever and ever, Immediate
"We didn't know a thing about the ad. until we saw it in the music papers. And frankly we got the horrors at first. We realise that it could be taken as a serious knock against religion. But on thinking it over, we don't feel it is particularly good or bad. It's just another form of advertising. We're not all that concerned about it. We're more concerned in writing our music and producing our records"- Steve Marriott
Steve Marriott
Stephen Peter Marriott , popularly known as Steve Marriott, was an English musician, songwriter, and frontman of several notable rock and roll bands, spanning over two decades...
on the advert for Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake that parodied the Lord's Prayer.
Vinyl and CD versions
The original vinyl album includes a segue between the end of "Afterglow" and the beginning of "Long Agos And Worlds Apart". Most CD editions have a different stereo mix, and use the single version of "Afterglow" without the segue. There is also a segue between "Long Agos and Worlds Apart" and "Rene", and this is retained on the CD. Some CD editions also include one or more bonus tracks.The 2005 3-disc "tobacco tin" Special Edition includes fully remastered mono and stereo mixes complete with segue, plus an episode of the BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
documentary series Classic Albums in which the band discuss the making of the album.
On many reissues, the cover design still spells the title as Ogdens' , but the label and sleeve copy gives it as Ogden's .
Reception
In 2000 Q magazine placed Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake at number 59 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.The album was featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a musical reference book edited by Robert Dimery, first published in 2005. The most recent edition consists of a list of albums released between 1955 and 2010, part of a series from Quintessence Editions Ltd...
.
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
gave the album a positive review.
Allmusic gave the album a 5 out of 5 star review.
Appearances in other media
The title song was played during the debut trailer for the video game Grand Theft Auto VGrand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V is an upcoming open world action-adventure video game being developed by British games developer Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. The game will be the first major title in the Grand Theft Auto series since Grand Theft Auto IV , which started the fourth "era" in the...
.