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♪ Dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer ♪

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! ♪

♪ I said dreamer, so you are a dreamer ♪

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! ♪

♪ I said: Far out ♪

Instrumentally, no one was quite like Supertramp.

It's a thinking man's rock.

If the British press couldn't see the stress of these guys,

well, that was their loss.

Zeppelin was music for the boys. Purple was music for the boys.

Supertramp was certainly music for the boys trying to get the girls.

They were not a sex, drugs and rock and roll band.

Led Zeppelin were, Supertramp weren't.

♪ I said: Far out, what a day, a year, a laugh it is! ♪

♪ Your know, well you know you had it comin' to you ♪

♪ Now there's not a lot I can do ♪

For many people, "Dreamer" is still the Supertramp song.

It was their first hit.

It was a big hit and it also had all the elements of their sound

that perhaps they tried to clone a little bit too much

in the passing years.

Dreamer really personified everything

that Supertramp represented and the sound,

that whole kind of roll and keyboard, electric piano sound.

Really had been taken by from people like Joe Sample

and had more of a jazz vibe to it.

But it was put in a pop setting

and I don't think people had really heard

that in mainstream terms before.

♪ I said: Far out, what a day, a year, a life it is! ♪

They were creating a new band sound

and Dreamer's the example on the record

of their ability to pen a brilliant pop song that was clever.

The lyrics are great and the keyboard sound

it works excellently with Roger Hodgson's voice.

You can clearly hear is very, very clever what he's doing.

No one else was actually singing falsetto.

Most of the other singers of the day were singing high,

but in full voice, so he just took it into falsetto,

almost like a choir boy thing.

But over this sort of strange electric piano part,

where he was very insistent. Again, it's a quaver's notes part.

So... [mimics sound]

Quite unusual and I wouldn't have done that.

It's a wonderful, it's a very light kind of summery color

is the song dreamy, you know.

And it does have like a very English whimsical kind

of element to it, you know, And it's just very successful,

very hooky, very instant for the consumer,

really just straight in.

♪ Dreamer, you know you are dreamer ♪

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! ♪

♪ I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer ♪

Dreamer is actually one of my favorite Supertramp songs,

because it's got that electric piano,

that road to electric kind of rhythmical kind of attached sound

that drives the song.

And as soon as those first few notes are heard,

it's it's unmistakably Dreamer by Supertramp.

So we get this.

[piano playing]

It couldn't be anything else. That's the only song it can be.

And then we get this fantastic shift.

[piano playing]

So playing around with time, moving across the beat

and then the chorus part, again, it shifts.

Shifts again, we finish the verse with F and G,

and then we move down to F minor.

[piano playing]

Up to B-flat,

G minor, then C and we end on C, so that when we go back

to the verse, which is in D, we get that fantastic shift

where you think you ended on chord one,

but actually that's chord seven.

We move up to the verse, so I'll demonstrate. So...

[piano playing]

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! ♪

♪ I said: Far out, what a day, a year, a life it is! ♪

You have to remember, this was in the days of the Moog synthesizer,

an electric piano was considered to be a little bit basic.

But the combination of that Bob Siebenberg's percussion,

the backing vocals, and also the production, Ken Scott,

who produced Ziggy Stardust for David Bowie.

He's often forgotten about, but it was his production I think,

that really helped make Dreamer the hit it was.

With Dreamer it was definitely one of the driving roads, keyboards,

something Supertramp do all the time is

they drive you with just a keyboard.

And that is the classic example

of a really compact song, which is a perfect single.

It's a brilliant, brilliant pop song because up until this point

on the record, the songs have been complex,

experimental mixing elements of prog, jazz,

heavy rock and thingies of pop.

But Dreamer is pure pop, and it's all the better for it.

♪ I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer ♪

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! ♪

The first two Supertramp records were, to be brutally honest,

somewhat lump and prog rock,

and they introduced a much more stronger pop element

to their sound with Crime of the Century.

It's a fantastic album, it's definitely the album really,

that broke Supertramp in the first place, you know.

That was the one that really made people stop and wow,

you know, hearing this sort of thing.

Crime of the Century, whichever way you look at it,

was one of the best British rock albums of its era.

♪ I can see you in the morning when you go to school ♪

♪ Don't forget your books, ♪

♪ you know you've got to ♪ ♪ learn the golden rule ♪

It's kind of a very atmospheric thought.

And you've got the harmonica and in 30 seconds

you've got the atmosphere of the album there.

And Roger Hodgson's kind of desperate but beautiful vocals,

which are very provocative, and the song building behind the intro,

which they're very good at, Supertramp, are very good at that,

that kind of bring the intro, the rhythms from underneath.

Before you know it, the song is really kind of rocketing along.

♪ After school is over you're playing in the park ♪

♪ Don't be out too late, don't let it get too dark ♪

♪ They tell you not to hang around and learn what life's about ♪

♪ And grow up just like them, won't you let it work it out ♪

♪ And you're full of doubt ♪

School was one of several tracks on Crime of The Century,

where dynamics were very important.

The tempo and the intensity would increase, decrease.

Bringing you into the song, leaving you there,

bringing you back up again at the end.

And that really was part of the charm of Supertramp at that stage.

School's experimental.

It's got this quirky rhythm changes

where it's sort of building up

and yet it'll break out of one rhythm

and into something a bit more up tempo.

So in this song School, we get this riff

that kind of starts to fade out.

[piano playing]

And then we get this sort of a marimba sound going...

[piano playing]

building up, intensifying.

We've got, I think, a vocal [mimics sound]

on the off beat and also a kind of wailing guitar high,

high at the top end of the guitar.

The drums come in, the bass starts to move in

and it all sorts of builds up.

And then we go into this massive set of piano solo.

So in the piano solo, we're moving between

this kind of free blues sort of,

jam and improvisation sort of technique,

and also the very structured melody sort of...

I suppose it's to do with the idea of being at school sometimes,

you know, the blues bit would be maybe the kids messing around,

having fun and the regimented sort of,

"You shall do your work, but..."

[piano playing]

So we get this very sort of structured

and very unstructured sound moving between the two sections,

but always kind of planned and not just free-for-all.

There's never a dull moment.

As soon as something did stop, an adventure would start.

The bass would often drop out

and then come back in to stunning effect.

And when you thought that really nothing else was going to happen,

Helliwell's saxophone solo would come in

sort of big and proud and mixed very loud.

And again, it was another sort of gear change

and it'd be very hard to lose interest.

The changes in the tempo and rhythm of School,

I think if it was the first album you ever listened to of Supertramp,

it was indicative of the way the rest of it was going to follow.

The tempo changes are interesting, but they sort of

really let you know that they had prog rock roots.

So although it's interesting, some of it sounds a bit dated today.

Bloody Well Right really encapsulates

everything Supertramp kind of represented sonically

and lyrically, and I wouldn't really call it

a heavy rock song, but in Supertramp's world

it was about as heavy as they go.

♪ So you think your schooling is phoney ♪

♪ I guess it's hard not to agree ♪

Bloody Well certainly isn't a heavy rock song.

I don't think any Supertramp could ever be classed

as a heavy rock song.

Bloody Well Right is not just a heavy rock song.

It's got pop chorus. Quite right.

You know, it's got that sort of...

The lyrics aren't pompous, that they attain to a sort of cleverness.

Critics of the band certainly at the time

didn't like it got up their noses.

♪ 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 ♪

♪ Ha, ha, you're bloody well right ♪

Bloody Well Right starts with a portentous guitar solo,

which makes heavy use of the wah wah pedal,

but that actually stops it from being too pretentious.

The verses are quite heavy and aggressive,

reflecting the kind of frustration

at the English public school system,

which was something that Supertramp seemed

to have in common with Pink Floyd at that time.

They were obviously listening to a lot of rock themselves,

amongst other things.

But again, we're using their sort of recording techniques

and the producer, Ken Scott,

was a very, very accomplished producer, an engineer.

He'd got this great sound on the guitar.

The guitar and bass, make things very heavy and very menacing

and is a great sort of perfect foil

for that kind of slightly pretentious

pseudo trademark keyboard sound.

Bloody Well Right it was an interesting song.

Inasmuch as it's a very English expression,

something that the rest of the world

didn't necessarily know how to react to.

Supertramp took that to an extreme on stage, where John Helliwell,

who was the master of ceremonies as well as the sax player,

had a megaphone and he'd go around shouting,

encouraging the audience to join in.

We play our Pink Floyd at the end of the night, you know,

with the head between the speakers

and yet play Zeppelin,

but Bloody Well Right was one of those ones

where you all got together and you had your arms around each other,

bombed out of your brains and the drink...

You shouldn't have been drinking,

singing "Right, right. You're bloody well 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 ♪

Maybe it was our little way of having a, you know,

a dig at your parents and things like that.

This is a great song.

This is also a great example of how

technically competent Supertramp are

and how subtle they are, because even in the piano introduction,

we're playing around with a lot of different time signatures.

It starts with a few bars of 4/4,

then there's 5/4, back to 4/4, six even seven.

This is even before the song's begun.

So it's quite unsettling and quite technically challenging.

♪ Rudy's on a train to nowhere ♪

The song itself then begins in the E minor,

which is the relative minor to C,

it's just slightly subtly shifted the palette

to give himself that extra room.

And it comes across gorgeously.

♪ He ain't sophisticated, nor well-educated ♪

Having established this gentle introduction to the song,

we then want to to add an element of tension and aggression.

And that comes through a very choppy piano motif,

which is actually introduced in B-flat major.

So this is the first time we see the key change

and the vocal follows well, it's not as though as fast.

We've got this real choppy rhythm which is introduced

and at the same time we shift key.

♪ And the whole world's above him ♪

♪ Well it's not as though he's fat ♪

♪ No there's more to this than that ♪

As the rhythm begins to build and the tension begins to build,

we have another wonderfully constructed shift,

which again is very subtle.

We're going from B-flat major into D-flat major,

so we're introducing another three flats

at the same time as we're beginning to raise the urgency,

we're beginning to go into a key which is slightly more unresolved.

So it's asking questions.

It's a lot more uncertain than that gentle introduction we had.

Again, very subtle.

It's not obvious, but it's part of the fabric of the song.

We get this wonderful shift and this is a third key

we've introduced into the song.

Well now in this very flat, he also gives a more of a kind

of sense of grandeur to the melody.

It's asking bigger questions.

♪ All through your life, all through the years ♪

And then we have this wonderful shift from D-flat major to B minor.

And the reason for that is it helps to establish

this extra sense of urgency.

We're actually moving from five flats to two sharps,

and it gives the whole music an extra level of urgency.

And this nice subtle shift under.

♪ You'd better give and take now ♪

♪ You'll have to push and shove now ♪

♪ You'll have to find some love now ♪

We're kind of raising the stakes and the questions we ask.

And the music is also raising the stakes.

We're introducing: You better do it now.

And that's what they achieve wonderfully

when they shift the key just at that point.

So now in B minor, we've only got the two sharps

were asked the question.

We've built the whole temple and we've developed

this very great sense of urgency.

And what the band want to do now, of course,

is to bring us down and to resolve the song.

So what they do very, again, very subtly,

is to move key back to the E minor

that we started the song with.

♪ Now he's just come out the movie ♪

And we have this very gradual play out and it's a wonderful way

to resolve a song which is taking you through

five different keys and a number of different tempos

and rhythms, but done it all very subtly

and in a very, very natural way.

And that's what Supertramp largely are all about.

♪ Back on his train ♪

Rudy is the album's tour de force, with Rick questioning

whether he's made the right choices

and sort of seeking approval for this,

although actually, you know, he's not going to get it.

Rudy has a classic sort of adult-orientated rock sound

and the tempo changes at the time were interesting

and quite kind of unique, but I'm not sure it translates.

All these years later, they almost sound like they're a bit noodling

and trying to be a bit too clever for their own good.

They were masters of the tempo change and nine times out of ten

on a Supertramp record, their tempo changes worked.

For me, this doesn't particularly work.

I think they'd already gone into a format where

we know this works and it's going to work,

and they were maybe just being a bit sort of over-confident about it.

Rudy was a song that took a motif, the kind of railway,

the railroad motif that's been going ever since Chuck Berry

and gave it a bit of a new twist.

Once you put that into Supertramp's blender

and you brought in tempo changes, dynamics,

a little bit of taped sound effect,

you really had something that was quite unique to them.

So although the driving rhythm

gave Bob Siebenberg a chance to stretch out

and I don't think he's ever really been given the credit

that he deserves.

Funnily enough, he's American.

So anybody who thinks that perhaps is American sound,

maybe that's where it comes from.

I wouldn't say it's Americanized

as more sort of it's got hints of Las Vegas

and it's the orchestra, it's the strings,

are very, very cheesy and very syrupy.

Even though it's a very good string arrangement.

I think this makes it too cheesy, too Las Vegas, too kind of showtime.

There's like a little wah wah guitar kind of that comes in as well,

which also makes it incredibly cheesy

and it actually starts to turn me off slightly.

Rudy's another Rick Davies song,

and it's just like Asylum.

It employs these favorite styles of jazz and R&B,

and therefore, of course, it's going to have

a slight American feel to it,

but never is it too American

because Supertramp just never sounded American.

Supertramp obviously seen

where their market was going to be highly successful,

at least suspected it.

And they went for the throat,

they went for the American market and good on them.

They succeeded where many, many other bands didn't or couldn't.

So I don't think you can turn around and say that Rudy was too American.

Supertramp were a band that America took on board

and took on board, you know, open heartedly.

Sometimes Roger Hodgson has been compared

with Steve Winwood and in Hide in Your Shell

you could very much hear Steve Winwood perhaps writing and singing.

And interestingly, it was a song that came together

when the band were routining in Crime of the Century

in an old farmhouse in Somerset.

That was one of the latest songs to come together,

but it's one that's proved very enduring.

♪ Hide in your shell, 'cause the world is out to bleed you for a ride ♪

♪ What will you gain making your life a little longer ♪

Hide in Your Shell is something of a hidden gem.

But for many Supertramp aficionados, it's actually their favorite track.

It's a brilliantly constructed song by Roger Hodgson,

which brings out something of his darker side as he's pining for some

misguided object of affection.

We don't really know what.

♪ Too frightening to listen to a stranger ♪

♪ Too beautiful to put your pride in danger ♪

It kind of opens with a desperate angle,

the very sort of desperate angle on his vocals.

And the song is building, and there's a real drama in the chorus,

a real sense of sadness.

And the song is always building towards the end

where it kind of explodes with the end section.

It's just wait and it holds back, and then it just lets go completely

and it goes in a straight line.

Hide In Your Shell is is a wonderful example

of Roger Hodgson's songwriting.

Almost melancholic in a way, but not the sort of song

that ended up in the doldrums.

But there was just a hint of melancholy to it,

especially in his voice. Very distinctive voice, wonderful voice.

Yeah, it's not my favorite song.

It's very English, very cute, very English.

Kind of almost boring, self-indulgent,

but not quite lyrically.

It's, you know, as strange than the other Supertramp songs,

because lyrically, if you read the lyrics,

it's quite hard to sort of understand

what they're actually sort of saying.

Somehow it hangs together and it's slightly humorous

without being kind of frivolous.

Again, very good track, you know, on a good album.

Hide In Your Shell is a perfect example

of Roger Hodgson's songwriting.

It's got everything that he kind of represented as a writer.

And the sax solo makes a perfect counterpoint to the melody.

And it's a great sax solo, although it does sound like it's played

by some American session musician,

which maybe doesn't translate quite so well today.

But it's a great song and a classic Roger Hodgson song.

♪ Well, let me show you ♪ ♪ the nearest signpost ♪

♪ To get your heart ♪ ♪ back and on the road ♪

This song it's perhaps the first time we see John Helliwell's impact

on the band's sound with his saxophone.

It brings an extra dimension to the band.

The saxophone is the way that Supertramp music is almost a bridge

between the two styles of music that you've got going on there.

You've got this very raw, bluesy, kind of jazzy feel,

and then you've got this very sort of English kind of poetic,

you know, very sort of sincere, serious sound, really.

John Helliwell on the saxophone provides this wonderful,

supportive role where we get a vocal melody

and then the gaps that the vocal melody leaves,

he fills with this very simple,

yet wonderful counterpoint.

So we get this...

[piano playing]

From the vocal and then the saxophone comes in with...

And then we have the repeat.

♪ If I can help you, if I can help you ♪

♪ If I can help you, just let me know ♪

♪ Well, let me show you the nearest signpost ♪

His sax breaks were fantastic in every Supertramp song.

But because of the mellow clear feel of the vocal phrasing

on Hide In Your Shell, I think that

when I say that the song offers hope

that's come from the sax sound.

Helliwell was never liked by other sax players.

He wasn't a jazz saxophonist.

He had the ability to really make something very commercial

without it sounding trite.

He seemed to have an innate ability to know exactly what was needed

at any one time, particularly as they developed

and on the later albums.

He was particularly smart at knowing just what they needed

and providing that and nothing more.

♪ Jimmy Cream was keen ♪

♪ His brain was always winnin' ♪

♪ I can't keep tabs on mine ♪

♪ It's really quite a joke ♪

Asylum is a Davies composition as we know.

It was one that he had a big problem getting right.

It was perhaps the song that was most rehearsed

of Crime of the Century.

Perhaps it was a question of the other guys getting his drift.

But certainly once they did, it was a song that proved

very enduring for Supertramp.

Asylum is as good an example of the way Rick Davies

approached his music,

as Hide In Your Shell is to Roger Hodgson's approach.

It's complex, but never forgetting that it needs a hook

to draw in the listener.

Asylum is more of a trademark of Davies, though.

But it really in this day and age,

it sounds very much like progressive rock.

And it also sounds very much like an American pastiche, really.

I don't think it sounds too American.

Supertramp never really sounded American until Roger Hodgson left,

which would have been when Rick Davies' influence really sort of,

well, just basically took over the band.

Davies has a very R&B kind of voice and he's very much of jazz music,

very much appeals to him.

Those are two very American musical styles,

and they're bound to come through in what he does,

Asylum being a perfect example of that.

♪ The actors and jesters are here ♪

♪ The stage is in darkness and clear ♪

♪ For raising the curtain ♪

♪ And no-one's quite certain whose play it is ♪

♪ How long ago, how long ♪

♪ If only we had listened then ♪

If Everyone Was Listening is another song of loneliness

and frustration by Roger Hodgson.

Unlike most of the songs on this album,

it's piano based, which makes it a little meandering at times.

But in fact, it's saved by a Beatles vibe that Roger brings to it.

But then Roger was always a great Beatles fan.

If Everyone Was Listening was perhaps not the greatest song

on Crime of the century,

but it was a little bit of a lull before the storm.

You can't have the same amount of intensity all the way through.

And I think perhaps that's where its saving grace lies.

It's a song that asks a question,

Can we save the world? Perhaps.

Some say some detect sort of a romantic edge of the song.

I never thought of as that.

I always thought it was more a kind of introvert protest song,

more that the world, which at the time it was written,

was starting to move towards kind of higher tech places,

communications where suddenly satellites were being put up, etc...

And I think it's more of a protest song against the world,

maybe getting too well before its own good.

♪ There'd be a chance that ♪ ♪ we could save the show ♪

♪ Who'll be the last clown ♪

♪ To bring the house down ♪

♪ Oh no, please no, don't ♪ ♪ let the curtain fall ♪

Is Everyone Was Listening

a romantic song?

As romantic as Supertramp probably got.

I think it was Hodgson's voice that would always convey

that better than any anything in the music and the lyrics.

It was the pitch and the feel of his voice on some of the best tracks

that gets that across that

Supertramp could be romantic, I suppose.

If the mood took them and if no one was paying

too much attention to it at the time.

I think the vast majority of Supertramp songs

when you actually got down to it, were actually quite romantic,

which is why the band in a way

had the not-so-cool image amongst us guys in the seventies.

It was a little bit too much lovey dovey for some of us to admit.

I wouldn't admit to.

♪ Now they're planning the crime of the century ♪

♪ Well, what will it be? ♪

If any song of Crime of The Century solidifies

or exemplifies what Supertramp wanted to be about

at that particular moment in time,

it's got to be the title track itself.

It harks back to the sort of music that they were trying to create

on the first two albums, but weren't necessarily succeeding.

Whether that was down to the personnel at the time

or whatever, I don't know. But for a lot of people

Supertramp musical evolution starts with Crime of The Century.

In this song Crime of the Century there's a guitar solo

and then things die down.

And out of the ashes come this little pattern on the piano.

[playing piano]

Not only do we get very simple harmony,

but we get a very wonderful melody that's running through that.

And because it's a constant,

it's something that you can concentrate on and then leave.

And as other instruments come in the strings, for example,

and then the guitars and drums, the mind wanders onto different things.

And with great bands you can really pick what you want to listen to.

And this is the case in Crime of the Century.

It's very sophisticated.

There's a lot of complex, very, very efficient string orchestral work.

And on the song, they avoid the trap of the orchestra

making it sound too kind of quasi orchestral.

It actually is a brilliant arrangement

and it works really well.

The album's title track, Crime of the Century,

is also its climax, as it sums up in a nutshell really

what the album is all about.

Revolt and revolution and builds with great passion and intensity

towards the end of the song, which finally finishes with perhaps

one of the most haunting fade outs on any record anywhere.

And a gorgeous sax solo from John Helliwell.

For me, it's the best song in the record.

Even though Dreamer is a wonderful little pop song

and School I think it's a great way to open the record.

It's got epic written all over it

and it's personal taste.

But when Supertramp did Epic, I loved it.

The title track isn't really the musical highlight

of Crime of The Century.

It's not as catchy or as accessible

as Bloody Well Right, and School, and Dreamer,

which are the standout tracks on the album,

but it still sounds good today.

It shows the band that their full force, their full power,

all very competent musicians, you know,

being driven by two songwriters that were very educated,

good songwriters, had traditional songwriting skills,

but also were listening to a lot of rock, a lot of modern music.

They were, you know, had their finger on the pulse.

When Supertramp came off with Crime of the Century tour,

they had to get a new album together straight away.

They hadn't really had time to do it.

For Crime of the Century they had three months

to put the album together.

With Crisis, What Crisis?

They'd only really had a month when they've been off the road,

I think, due to Roger breaking his hand.

So they really had to look at what they'd done and say,

"Well, how can we do this a little bit different?"

So Sister Moonshine, with its acoustic guitar figure,

was one way of layering the Supertramp vocals,

the Ken Scott production and all the ingredients,

but putting it on a slightly different base.

So really what they were trying to do was say,

"We can still do this, but we can do it differently

and it's just as good."

♪ Oh, when I was a small boy ♪

♪ I could see the magic in a day ♪

Sister Moonshine is definitely a Roger-Hodgson-led acoustic.

You know, it's the 12 string, the classic 12 string,

the way he plays it, very rhythmical, very driving,

and he drives a song for a certain length of time.

And then the whole band comes in on the underneath,

like with a lot of their other songs, you know,

you don't hear the rhythm coming, it's just there

all of a sudden, halfway through the song.

And they have an ability to carry a song with just an acoustic guitar.

You know, for, say, a minute and a half, 2 minutes,

and you don't miss any other instruments

because it's so driving and so positive and so well arranged.

The guitar is actually doing a similar kind of job

as the keyboard does in Dreamer and other songs.

It's leading the rhythmic side of it,

so that you don't necessarily need to have a drum beat

in from the start of the song,

which is great because when the drums do come in,

you will get that lift.

♪ I said: Hey, Sister Moonshine ♪

♪ I'm a stranger to everyone ♪

♪ So make us all cry, make us all try ♪

♪ Give us the secret show us the lie ♪

There's always a quirk, always someone who shines.

And this is a kind of song where there's no quirk at all.

But then suddenly on the outro, just the last minute or so,

it's a very mad dash scat recorded solo that,

you know, how did they think of doing that?

Surely the other guys in the band when he suggested

went, "What are you crazy?"

But they went with it and it's actually very, very effective.

And yeah, so it's interesting to hear and it's nice to hear

a Supertramp track without Hodgson's works sort of chugging away,

ever-present loud in the mix.

It's quite nice to hear sort of acoustic guitars

instead providing sort of main rhythmic, sort of backing.

Crisis? What Crisis? was a classic cover.

I mean, you know, sitting in his seat,

lying on his bed in the middle of a trash heap

or the world as a trash heap.

Very good cover.

When it comes to the artwork of Supertramp albums,

they're always quite a statement, really.

You know, you've got this Crisis? What Crisis?

And you've got this guy sat there amongst the wreckage,

sipping his cola, by the looks of it.

And yeah, it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek-ness

about it really as well.

It's like we might be serious at times,

but almost gives like a bit of a, I don't know,

slight comedy element to it.

It sort of depicts the contrasts

that are going on within the music as well, you know.

Sort of a serious thing going on.

And then there's a touch of humor with it on top.

If Crisis What Crisis isn't regarded as a great Supertramp album,

then Just A Normal Day might be a good example of why.

♪ Woke up cryin' with the break of dawn, and, ♪

♪ I looked up and the sky, ♪

It's actually a very beautiful song,

but it kind of lacks the hook

that would draw people in with their best known songs.

With the line up that Supertramp had a song like Just A Normal Day

could possibly sound a little middle of the road.

Part of the problem was obviously finding John Helliwell

something to do with his saxophone.

So if you didn't have something that was cutting-edge,

then it could be perceived to be a little bit sugarcoated.

But Supertramp were clever enough to realize that this would get them

a wider audience than otherwise they would have.

And certainly when they made their first two albums

as a progressive rock group, they couldn't get arrested.

So when it came down to sweeten the pill

and maybe getting a few of the older listeners listening,

they weren't averse to that.

[saxophone playing]

Just A Normal Day is a ballad by Rick,

in which he enters into a dialog with Roger on the vocals.

Rick is the seeker,

while Roger plays the part of the skeptical melancholic really.

And it's an unusual trait which Supertramp developed very successfully,

and it's not one that you hear other bands doing.

You can't imagine Lennon and McCartney doing that.

There's a huge contrast between the two vocals within Supertramp.

You know, you've got this really sort of

heavy, crunchy, bluesy sound in Rick Davies,

and then you've got this really mellow sort of, I don't know,

very gentle, sort of passionate voice in Roger Hodgson.

And the contrast is massive.

I mean, Hodgson's voice was floored and Davies's voice was floored.

They would often sing their songs at a pitch

where they couldn't quite get every note, but that was part of the charm.

It wasn't mainstream.

It was definitely left of center, left field,

and I think that's what hooked people in.

And they were clever enough to recognize that.

When they sang their individual songs,

those songs were tailored specifically to their own style.

But it's testament to the talent that was inherent in both men

that they could then meld both of those approaches,

and it would come out as something that was great in itself,

which was the defining, I think, Supertramp sound.

♪ At least twice, that's how I feel ♪

♪ Well, I just don't know the answer ♪

♪ I don't know what to say ♪

I wouldn't say Just A Normal Day was more easy-listening

than any other Supertramp sound,

but it did introduce strings into the sound,

which kind of gave them more of a lush, orchestrated vibe.

And maybe that took them away

from what they'd already become known for,

which was sort of pure pop hits at that point.

The orchestra, which they use a lot, is particularly syrupy on this track

and maybe might not be to the prog rock fans liking so much.

♪ Well, I just don't know the reason ♪

Strings, well, strings.

Lot of ballads of Supertramp would use strings

and I would normally find strings bolstered the song.

But this is an example of, I think,

maybe the success that they'd suddenly had

could confuse them.

And they weren't quite sure what to do about it.

I think this is a good example of that.

Supertramp discovered a formula for themselves

and they worked it very, very well,

and some might say they even milked it.

Well, if they milked it, good on them.

You know, they made themselves extremely rich out of it,

both in monetary terms and musically.

♪ You saw me in the first place, ♪

♪ Who do you think I am ♪

♪ How can you be so two-faced ♪

♪ And tell me where I stand ♪

♪ Yeah, we've been here once before, ♪

♪ I see you by the door, ♪

♪ You said you knew and all were calling, ♪

Another Man's Woman was possibly not the most adventurous

song on Crisis What Crisis.

It kind of went back to the railroad beat of songs like Rudy.

But then I think we mustn't underestimate

Dougie Thomson and Bob Siebenberg,

who certainly on stage and also in the studio,

were one of the better rhythm sections of the time.

So it gave them the chance to stretch out,

push the band along, maybe take the focus off

the two main headlining guys

and really give a bit of drive to things.

Another Man's Woman is a fairly straightforward rocker

that doesn't add a lot to the Supertramp character

that we already know.

And the lyrics are also somewhat convoluted,

in contrast to the more precise way they were used

in Crime Of The Century.

I think Another Man's Woman is a good song.

It's good lyrically.

It's a fun song, but it deals with a topic

that's usually pretty serious to most of us guys.

No, I don't think it's a non-adventurous song,

but it's not anything particularly special either.

♪ You ain't nothing but another man's woman, ♪

♪ Living on another man's land; ♪

♪ At night I hear a hound dog calling, ♪

♪ A callin' me a cheatin' man ♪

It doesn't really work for me. It's sort of a bit too cluttered.

The guitar part, which features heavily, is not Hodgson at his best.

And then they get to the chorus and it's suddenly

the classic Supertramp again.

So it sounds a little bit uneven.

It sounds to me like they've probably written the song

and then revised it because it doesn't, you know,

if you listen to the verse,

it doesn't sound like Supertramp so much.

Even though there's a couple of trademarks,

it's much more generic

and much more kind of American rock

than what you'd expect from Supertramp.

♪ You ain't nothing but another man's woman ♪

It suffers again from the whole feeling

I think that runs through Crisis What Crisis

of a band not 100% certain where they were going,

not what they were doing,

but where they were going.

They tasted success with Crime Of The Century

and everything seemed to work superbly there.

I have a feeling that they might have found themselves, sat there thinking,

"Well, that worked really well, but we've got to take it a step further".

But they didn't know what step to take.

It's probably their least effective album of the lot.

And this probably shows you why.

♪ Lady, you're comin' 'cross the water ♪

♪ Well, don't you think you oughta ♪

♪ Be waiting a while? ♪

Lady is similar in style to Dreamer.

Perhaps in some ways too similar,

which is perhaps why they didn't release it as a single.

The song is carried along by the characteristic keyboard pulse

that Supertramp were now refining,

but the piano solo in the middle

is really not quite strong enough to carry it.

It's almost like a poor cousin's version of Dreamer,

and I think you can hear Hodgson possibly starting to sort of

parody himself without knowing it.

He knows that this is a winning formula.

He works the electric piano playing the quaver notes parts.

We have again, the electric piano doing the rhythmic parts.

This sort of [piano playing].

Very tacked, very rhythmical.

And we also have a bass line that moves underneath it.

[piano playing]

And that follows the chords. So we start from B minor.

[piano playing]

We go to A major.

Then F sharp minor.

Back to B minor.

♪ Are you acting ♪

♪ On what your heart has told you ♪

♪ Is nothing gonna hold you ♪

♪ From flying away? Ah ha ♪

Lady works well and you know, is it too similar to Dreamer?

For me, no.

I think Supertramp were a band that were very clever at getting

hit singles written and issued, and it was certainly, you know,

something that was very catchy.

Just as Lennon McCartney used to say.

"Let's write a swimming pool. Let's write a car".

I think Hodgson and Davies probably felt, "Well, we've had a hit.

We've managed to end the years of struggle", which they did have,

the years when they couldn't sell records.

I think they clearly felt that if an album had to have a hit single,

why not write it?

♪ Ooh la la la la ♪

♪ Ooh la la la la ♪

♪ Ooh la la la la ♪

♪ Ooh la la la la ♪

♪ Aah, aah, aah ♪

I think what you're hearing is a signature sound.

You know, I think once a band sort of establishes a style,

they move around it, you know?

But I think it's very honest that you get something like Lady

sounding like Dreamer, you know,

you can see a pattern forming.

And I'm sure it would be more contrived for them

to say, "This sounds like Dreamer, we shouldn't do this".

You know, I think it's a very honest, very natural kind

of thing for them to have another song sounding like that.

Dreamer was kind of a more lighter version of a single,

whereas Lady was heavier.

Personally, I think Dream was a much better

construction for a single,

if I can use them terms,

whereas Lady was kind of something to me more

like an album track, but it had the same driving keyboard lines,

different to Dreamer, a different vibe,

I think a bit, a little bit darker, I feel.

♪ Aah, aah, aah ♪

Give A Little Bit

works so well because it's just a joyously uplifting,

simple little song.

Like many songs, it's absolutely simple.

It's so simple that a lot of songwriters think that's too easy.

Give A Little Bit is one of those classic songs

that became the favorite of buskers everywhere.

It was a lot more radio friendly than most of the rest of the album.

I don't think it can fail to put a smile on your face.

♪ 'll give a little bit of my love to you ♪

♪ There's so much that we need to share ♪

♪ So send a smile and show you care ♪

Give A Little Bit has been criticized in being lightweight,

but any Supertramp fan will tell you that their albums

build from the beginning.

There's a real dynamic there.

They don't put out all their goods on the show from the off.

So Give A Little Bit It was a good way to open an album.

And I think also you can hear perhaps an appeal

a lot of Supertramp songs observe

rather than engage.

And Give A Little Bit is asking you to give a little bit of your love,

so they're really bringing you in to the album,

to their songs, to their life.

And so I think it was a twist on a theme,

perhaps with Supertramp have often used.

♪ So give a little bit ♪

♪ Oh, give a little bit of your time to me ♪

The unusual element to a song like Give A Little Bit

with the acoustic guitar, you start to see like a folky kind of fusion

coming into the music as well,

which is something that we see sort of carrying on

into Roger Hodgson's solo stuff.

So it's something that's obviously very honest to him,

something very close to him, and it's just the way he writes.

Some days he writes on a keyboard

and some days he writes on acoustic guitar,

but again provides a wonderful contrast.

On this, there's very little production. They stripped it back down.

There's no orchestra.

The acoustic guitar parts are used very well.

And I think Hodgson sings it superbly.

I think it's a really, really, really great track.

♪ Give a little bit ♪

♪ Oh, give a little bit of your love to me ♪

♪ I'll give a little bit ♪

♪ I'll give a little bit of my life for you ♪

Give A Little Bit works well as much as anything because of the lyrics.

It's again that very typical of the period Supertramp,

intelligent lyric, it dealt with a topic that, you know,

for the record-buying public and often the people buying it

were sort of between 14 and 20 years old.

It was a lesson in life.

And I think a lot of Supertramp's music was.

Lyrically, the song is really a plea for mutual respect and affection

and to look behind the superficial image, to see what's below.

You could say they're back on track here,

Even In The Quietest Moments.

It's certainly a better record than Crisis What Crisis.

But there's still seem to be feeling their way in places.

But this isn't one of them.

This is where you can see that they're getting it right.

And there's almost a feeling on the on the song

it's that happiness. You always wonder whether that's

because they kind of know that it's coming back.

[cheers and applause]

♪ Monday has come around again ♪

♪ I'm in the same old place ♪

♪ With the same old faces always watching me ♪

From Now On is another good example

of how technically aware this band are.

It's written an F major and that introduces the mood of the song.

But halfway through we want to introduce this kind of

cocktail jazz feel.

So we very subtly shift key.

We modulate into B-flat major,

and that introduces this kind of jazzy,

smoky quality into the music,

a very widely used key in jazz circles,

and that helps to do it.

♪ Play hide and seek ♪

♪ Throughout the week ♪

♪ My life is full of romance ♪

But we have to remember with this band, we're actually a rock band.

We've introduced the jazz element.

We now need to say, "Hang on.

That was an interlude with Supertramp".

So again, they shift key back into F major

and the song is resolved an F major,

but it's very subtly done and very stylishly done.

And that's the essence of Supertramp.

From Now On is one of Supertramp's more optimistic songs.

It tells about an ordinary person who kind of has a fantasy life.

And it's almost as if Rick Davies was playing

the fantasy life of a pop star.

I say that because it's a song that actually dated back

quite a number of years.

It had been kicking around when John Helliwell had been

auditioning for the band.

So you might say either that Rick didn't have the time with Supertramp

as grueling tour schedule to write new songs,

or he saw something in that song that particularly intrigued him.

Obviously, it was worth resuscitating,

but maybe he had a little bit

of a laugh at the lyric.

From Now On is a really optimistic Supertramp song,

both lyrically and melodically.

It also features one of the best sax solos

on a Supertramp album.

It's actually memorable rather than,

most sax solos, I would say, are kind of not memorable at all,

whereas this one, you can actually hum along with it.

[saxophone playing]

Supertramp would use that melancholy feel in a very uplifting way.

And if there was an element of desolation to the lyrics

of some of their songs,

toying with themes of madness and things like that,

a song like From Now On is a perfect example

of the way the song slowly builds up and you end up full of hope.

Even if and I'm not saying they do it on this particular track,

but they have done on others.

They can start out leaving you thinking,

"Oh, this is a bit, you know".

And then that hope grows as the song develops.

♪ Living in a fantasy ♪

♪ That's the way it's got to be ♪

♪ Bring it out, so we can sing it out ♪

♪ Oh must you always remain a stranger ♪

What is it about lyrically, I have no idea.

♪ And I long for delusion to disappear ♪

♪ Then I see the reflection that's in your eyes ♪

♪ Is it time, is it time, is it time ♪

♪ Is is time, is it time, is it time ♪

♪ Is it time to know ♪

Babaji is dedicated to an Eastern guru

and Roger creates a mystical feel to the song,

and he sings the words with a sensuous, romantic feel

that's unlike most Supertramp songs.

I don't think Roger Hodgson would deny

that he's a bit of a hippie.

And there's certainly elements of that to this.

But it's certainly not one of my favorite Supertramp songs,

and I've really never spent much time

trying to figure out what the lyrics meant.

You've got to bear in mind at the time it was quite fashionable.

I mean, the Beatles had spent a few weeks,

a few years previously with a maharishi.

It was fashionable to adopt an Eastern sort of influence,

kind of mysticism or outright religion.

So I think he's sort of basically questioning, you know,

should he be there in that mansion,

sort of drinking that Jack Daniels

sort of snorting those class-A drugs,

with babes in the swimming pool outside?

Or should he be sort of in an ashram,

sort of on a higher spiritual level?

I think that's what the song was about.

♪ Babaji, oh won't you come to me ♪

♪ Won't you help me to face the music ♪

♪ Bring it out, so we can sing it out ♪

♪ Help us to find it before we lose it ♪

Musically, it's a very unusual Supertramp song.

It's got plenty of production on it

but you don't really notice the production, which is nice.

The drums are far less fiddly than on most Supertramp tracks.

They're quite linear, they're quite straight.

You don't really notice them.

Again, the bass is anonymous in a good way,

and there's no jagged edges, which you're used to

in a Supertramp song, you know.

Just as you think they're coasting along,

bush, there's a whole new section,

and it's like a kind of punk rock or prog rock type

of thing that happens.

And it's really interesting, but there's none of that.

It's much more like he's just speaking to the listener

and it's from the heart.

The solo in the middle has Roger's guitar

and John Helliwell's saxophone playing the same notes in unison,

which gives it an intriguing quality.

If you want to know what Babaji is about,

you really have to go and speak to Roger Hodgson,

because Rick Davies, who theoretically was the co-writer of songs,

hadn't collaborated with Roger since Crime Of The Century,

although it's a bit like Lennon and McCartney.

They'd written the early songs together,

but once they got the hang of it, they do their own thing,

no matter what the credit happened to be on the sleeve.

So Roger was looking for some kind of

inner truth, some kind of motivation.

And it's said that Babaji or he said that Babaji

is some kind of Indian guru or guiding spirit.

He's not always answered the question particularly seriously,

but then that's his way of laughing things off a little bit,

not letting you kind of get too close.

But it's interesting that when Rick was asked,

basically his answer was, "You'd better ask Roger".

The album comes to an epic finale with Fool's Overture,

which is nearly 11-minutes long

and is a classic progressive rock piece.

Fool's Overture is without doubt the highlight of

Even In The Quietest Moments.

Musically, it flies all over the place.

But then some of the greatest progressive rock did.

It's complex, odd time changes, different musical styles

all wrapped up within one lengthy piece of music.

And what a great title.

Fool's Overture.

It's one of Supertramp more magical moments for me.

Fool's Overture starts smoothly

and then breaks out into this bombastic

drum-and-keyboard-driven section.

The drumming must be mentioned here.

Superb.

Again, it's very fiddly, very quirky.

You know, all the trademarks of Supertramp.

And in nine times out of ten in other bands, it just wouldn't work.

Bob Siebenberg I think he's drumming on this track.

I mean, there's elements where it'll be quite standard,

but also elements I'm sure, where he's actually improvising as well.

And I think it's a pretty good show from him all around.

♪ I know, I know ♪

I wouldn't say the drumming works too well,

because I think it's trying to do too many things and be too clever.

Again, this is very much a disparity between what was cool then

and what's cool now.

It just sounds a bit too rhythmically ambitious

and there's a bit too much going on.

If they'd have kept a more basic beat,

I think it would have worked better and stood the test of time

far better than it does.

It's a bit pretentious, to be honest.

And having reviewed the lyrics in these sort of modern days,

they are not really about so much.

It was a song that they used to call the String Machine Epic

for reasons that are obvious when you hear it,

but it's also a song that served them very well on a number of occasions.

♪ Can you hear what I'm saying ♪

♪ Can you see the parts that I'm playing ♪

♪ "Holy man, rocker man, come on, Queenie ♪

♪ Joker Man, Spider Man, blue-eyed Meanie" ♪

♪ So you found your solution ♪

[cheering]

♪ When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful ♪

Even as the relationship between Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies

was starting to disintegrate,

they could still come up with a genial song like The Logical Song.

The Logical Song is one of a handful of Supertramp songs

that are truly remembered today, all these years later,

and it encapsulated everything they represented.

I don't think Supertramp get much better than this.

♪ There are times when all the world's asleep ♪

♪ The questions run too deep ♪

♪ For such a simple man ♪

There's a neat balance of wry humor and cynicism in The Logical Song,

and Roger rattles out the lyrics in time with the instrumental rhythms,

with a panache that recalls Ray Davies of The Kinks at his finest.

Similar to Give A Little Bit, quite simple on one level

and much more mainstream than Supertramp often were.

Very accessible by the general public

and made a huge, huge song around the world,

especially in North America.

You still hear it on the radio.

It also, very importantly won them and Ivor Novello Award,

which really gave them some much needed credibility

that up until that point they really had been lacking.

If you look back, they kind of been following themselves

ever since Crime Of The Century.

They didn't quite match it with Crisis What Crisis.

Even In The Quietest Moments was getting there.

And then all of a sudden everything clicks into place

with Breakfast In America.

And The Logical Song gives them another one of those

classic piano-led pop songs.

♪ I said, now, watch what you say, they'll be calling you a radical ♪

♪ A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal ♪

♪ Oh, won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable ♪

It's The Logical Song Supertramp's finest moment?

It's one of them. I personally don't think it is.

Maybe the whole of the Breakfast In America album

as a collection of songs is their finest moment.

And The Logical Song certainly stands up as one of the best.

I think as far as sales were concerned,

the whole of Breakfast In America

was the band's finest moment.

Musically, not so much for me.

I mean, I like the album. I still play it.

It's a very inoffensive album.

And it's a good, fun album to listen to.

The Logical Song almost epitomized

what people liked and didn't like about Supertramp.

Naggingly infectious, had the Dreamer quality to it,

but it was also a song that once you'd heard it two or three times,

I feel you couldn't really get that much more out of.

And the fact that in the 2000s there was a disco remake of it

almost confirmed the fact that you really felt

that although the general public latched on to this song,

it was one that many Supertramp fans really hated.

♪ Take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I got ♪

♪ Not much of a girlfriend, I've never seem to get a lot ♪

The album's title track lies at the heart of the breakup

of the relationship between Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies.

Roger wrote the track when he was 19,

and Rick didn't really like it then,

he didn't like it now,

and he particularly didn't want it to be the album's title.

♪ Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear, mummy dear ♪

♪ They got to have 'em in Texas, 'cause everyone's a millionaire ♪

A great song. I mean, a great track.

Very highly unusual.

I'll always remember the first time I heard it.

I knew it was Supertramp, of course, but I thought,

"What the hell is that about?"

It's great. It's sort of self-effacing, you know?

"Take a look at my girlfriend.

She's the only one I got," you know?

The saxophone is wonderful.

And throughout the bass and the saxophone

play the strange kind of almost vaudevillian type of thing.

[imitates song]

It's like, "They're a rock band. What are they doing?"

And I was kind of almost up in arms first time I heard it.

Well, they can't do that. But then third, listening.

I just loved it. I thought, "This is brilliant".

It's just so unusual.

♪ Take a jumbo cross the water, like to see America ♪

It is a lot of fun. It's not taking themselves seriously.

Whereas Supertramp on the whole, are quite a serious band.

It's Breakfast In America a fun song?

Yeah, it's the frivolous nature of the lyrics, I think.

The tempo.

Again, it's one of those songs that puts a smile on your face,

but you're kind of smiling or laughing along with the band

because, you know,

"Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear?

We've got to have them in Texas because everyone's a millionaire".

It's just that they're taking a piss and it's fun.

Breakfast In America is great fun, actually.

It's also one of the tracks that is most remembered from that album,

which sold 18 million copies.

Now, you don't sell 18 million copies of an album

without it being good.

And that album really personified everything

that the band represented.

And that's why it was huge all over the world.

♪ Well who do you think you're foolin'? ♪

♪ You say you're having fun ♪

♪ But you're busy going nowhere ♪

♪ Just lyin' in the sun ♪

The song was recorded around 1979,

and by this time I think that you can hear clearly

that Hodgson is starting to question his own worth as a human being.

It's almost like the more money he'd made

and the more success he'd achieved,

he was starting to not hate himself, but starting to despise himself.

I think this is what the song is about,

he's asking the question, is he a worthy human being?

And it must be said, you know, I hate to hear myself say it.

He's got his trademark Wurlitzer electric piano sound going on it,

and it's really wearing thin by now.

It's like, I really wish he hadn't done it.

Put it on this song because it's actually quite a nice lyric

and quite nice song.

But it almost sounds like a parody.

It sounds like a Supertramp copy band that are trying to write

in the vein of Supertramp.

[indistinct lyrics]

Child Of Vision really harks back to Supertramp's prog rock roots.

It's quite an excessive-sounding song in this day and age.

And after Breakfast In America,

really things started to go downhill

from a creative and commercial point of view.

I think that Child Of Vision has elements of prog rock in it,

but to say it's a real progressive rock song,

I don't think you can.

I don't think you can with a lot of Supertramp's music.

It was highly-successful commercial pop music.

I think by the time Supertramp recorded Child Of Vision,

they weren't really looking at being a progressive band.

They were a popular band.

They'd found their niche.

They proved that they were number one in a field of one.

I don't think people were really looking for progress as such.

But of course, when that happens,

there's always somebody who feels

that they're not really satisfying their own internal needs.

And of course, as we now know, it was Roger Hodgson

who was looking for other fields,

and perhaps he was the one

who felt that he wanted to progress,

but he wanted to progress on his own terms.

Obviously, if you've made the money to live a reasonable lifestyle,

by that time, you've got the freedom to say that.

In reflection, they should probably have stopped at that point.

Roger certainly thinks they should have done.

But in the event they went on and recorded 1982's Famous Last Words,

which by then sadly weren't quite so famous.

♪ Oh, it's raining again ♪

♪ Oh no, my love's at an end ♪

♪ Oh no, it's raining again ♪

♪ And you know it's hard to pretend ♪

All of the classic Supertramp trademarks are there,

the piano sounds, the drums are great.

The bass works fantastically on this song.

Yeah, that's good.

You can't listen to a band like Supertramp and go, you know,

"That is a big-sounding rock song".

They used the instruments in clever, almost delicate ways,

and vocals were used in a similar fashion.

Clever music, but it wasn't overly clever.

[vocalizing]

Crisis What Crisis, Crime Of The Century, Breakfast In America,

I think those for me were the highlights, really.

I think then it moved to something else, to another area.

I prefer the early stuff, which was around the first two albums.

Well, the first three albums that, you know,

where Supertramp were kind of first recognized.

After that, I feel, you know, the probably more of the Rick Davies angle

was coming through. I don't know.

They still came out with a couple of good songs on Famous Last Words,

But things were starting to go awry by that point.

Roger Hodgson would leave.

Rick Davies would take the band off in a more jazzy direction eventually.

So no, there was still something left in the can.

It wasn't a complete album's worth of great material.

[cheers and applause]

The partnership between Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies is awesome.

There was obviously tension there.

I think that they would probably argue about who got which songs

on which albums.

But similar to Lennon and McCartney,

I think that they needed each other.

It was clear.

Roger Hodgson was much more of the kind of

neat, pop-orientated songwriter in the band,

whereas Davies was really more of a rocker.

Because of the two writers and the two vocalists,

you know, you get that constant swing in the contrast

of the different styles of music that they're touching on.

Well, Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies are two

extremely talented songwriters,

two fantastic musical talents,

and just to have them in one band,

I think was quite astonishing.

Supertramp's success was based on a team effort.

Obviously, the Hodgson and Davies songwriting

and vocals was very important,

but the other three guys deserve their credit

in really keeping the whole thing

up to a standard which really couldn't be ignored

even by the critics.

They may not have written the songs, but certainly on stage

where you'd get guys filling in for each other on keyboards,

you'd get John Helliwell,

who was the master of ceremonies,

always communicating with the audience, creating a bond.

They all worked very, very hard to produce the final product.

And the final product, as we well know, was world class.

♪ Dream dream dream dream dream along ♪

♪ Dreamer, you know you are dreamer ♪

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! ♪

♪ I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer ♪

♪ Well can you put your hands in your head, on no! ♪