Moogies Bloogies

Moogies Bloogies, which also gets spelled Moojies Bloodgies, Moojies Bloojies Moogies Bloogis and Moodgies Bluedgies, is:

An unreleased perv-pop classic in the 1966 novelty vein, recorded with Anthony Newley. The future Mr Joan Collins was after an electronic backing track and called in Delia.

This electronic pop song is sung by Anthony Newley who also wrote the words. The piece is composed in a traditional musical way with melody, rhythm and harmony, and the musical parameters are all totally predetermined. The sources of sound are simple sine tones.

The late Anthony Newley told his label that he wanted to do something electronic. So they got on to me. So I produced this bloopy track and he loved it so much he double-tracked his voice and he used my little tune. The winking knees in the rain, and their mini-skirts. I'd done it as a lovely little innocent love song, because he said to me that the only songs are, "I love you, I love you" or songs saying "you've gone, you've gone."

I'd written this beautiful little innocent tune, all sensitive love and innocence, and he made it into a dirty old raincoat song. But he was really chuffed! Joan and Jackie Collins dropped him off in a limousine at my lovely little flat above a flower shop, and he said "If you can write songs like this, I'll get you out of this place"! It was only a single-track demo tape. So he rang up his record company saying "We want to move to a multi-track studio". Unfortunately the boss of the record company was on holiday, and by the time he returned Anthony Newley had gone to America with Joan Collins, so it was never released.

Delia spent 64½ hours working on this piece every day from the 2nd to the 11th of August 1966 including a single monster session of 16½ hours on the 9th. and a "radical rethink" on the night of Wednesday 10th

The author of delia-derbyshire.org writes:

Delia was initially disappointed with the recording, but as the years passed she became exceptionally fond of it.

Lyrics

La la lala la la
La la lala la lala la la la
La la lala la la

Rain keeps falling, no one's calling
I'll tell you straight, kid, I'm in a state, kid
I've got the moogies, the dreaded bloogies
It's raining. It's pouring. The old man's snoring.

A little sad in my head place, face
A little grey coming through
A little down in the mouth place, face
Rain keeps falling, no one's calling

I'll tell you straight, kid, I'm in a state, kid
I've got the moogies, the dreaded bloogies

La la lala la la
La la lala la lala la la la
La la lala la la

And it doesn't help when you're, when you're watching them floating by
and you look at those litle mini skirts and little pink knees knocking away
Wild hair lolloping about in the wind and those mad ear rings,
the clown faces and that gear! They're hip-hugged and plastic-macked,
goggled and helmetted, booted and spurred...
Thank God I can control myself!

A little dream in my heart place, face
A little scene tucked away in my memory
A little girl and me went case, face
Rain kept falling, she stopped calling

D'you think she's lonely and thinks about me
I've got the moogies, the dreaded bloogies
A little girl just walked by me, see
A little smile in her eye - Here we go again
A little rise in my blood rate, mate
It's stopped raining, who's complaining?
Goodbye moogies, bye bye bloogies

Oh, excuse me, sweetheart, er, my friend and I are having an argument
He says you're a fashion model, I say you're a film star
And as there's a few quid in it I wondered if...
and oh, by the way are you Mrs. Um...?

Analysis

Delia's backing is in a mixture of 3/4 and 13 time. In the "Rain keeps falling, no one's calling" phrase, she adds pre-echo with a delay of one and a half notes to turn a simple melody into something more complex.

Score

Score, typeset using Lilypond

Reverse-engineered from a spectrogram with semitone grid and available as

• The input file for the Lilypond music typesetting program
• The typeset score as a PDF (on the right)
• Lilypond's output as a MIDI file

Papers

There is a folder "Newley" in her papers containing:

• 

  DD083229 Cover "NEWLEY"

• 

  DD083253 Delia's list of final tapes

• 

  DD083321 "NEWLEY M/U": Delia's list of 20 makeup tracks

• 

  DD083403 DD083430 Delia's notes "poss. extension for concert"

• 

  DD083450 Delia's timesheet for 64½ manhours from 2nd to 11th August 1966

• 

  DD083521 Diagrams and general plan

• 

  DD083542 Notes "tone poems"

• 

  DD083621 Notes "24i each" and "DO SUNDAY"

• 

  DD083647 Notes "M1bd"1" shaped?"

• 

  DD083732 Notes "Melange (1)"

• 

  DD083757 Note sequences for "sop./top/bass/throb"

• 

  DD083815 Notes "masc. note/fem. note"

• 

  DD083844 Notes "Wednesday night - radical rethink"

• 

  DD083902 Notes "angels G"

• 

  DD083920 Notes and score fragments "find romantic chord"

• 

  DD083942 Notes and score fragments "PAR 0117"

Tapes

• DD016 (?) "Newley Copy Long Master"
• DD080 [...] "London lemons, Newley etc"
• DD141 "Newley 1"
• DD142 "Newley 2"
• DD143: "The Cloud 1 of 2 & Moodgies Bluedgies 3 of 3"
• DD147 "Fragments, Tarantella, Pot Pourri, Newley"
• DD196 "Unit Delta Plus Demo. On the Level, London Lemons, Newley etc."
• DD278 "Newley"

Spectrogram

A six-octave spectrogram of Moogies Bloogies from A2(110Hz) to A8(7040Hz)

Availability

• It was played at the Unit Delta Plus Concert of Electronic Music on 10th September 1966, then went unheard until 2001.
• It used to be available in the music clips at delia-derbyshire.org and here is a direct link to the MP3
• A clearer version remastered from Anthony Newley's tapes, a semitone lower, missing the first 1m10s and in false stereo was published in 2014 on 7 inch vinyl by Trunk Records and can be bought to download as MP3 or WAV at greedbag.com but the downloads are of awful quality, with all the bass in one ear and all the treble in the other.