“If There Is Something” is a song by Bryan Ferry, recorded by his band Roxy Music for their eponymous debut album. A live version can be found on their Viva! live-album. The song begins in a rather light-hearted, jaunty fashion, a slight pastiche of country music, with honky tonk style piano and twangy guitar. Ferry’s singing is nonchalant and jocular. However the mood of the song builds with a repeated instrumental motif played between guitar and saxophone, Ferry’s vocals re-entering to provide a fraught vocal climax, the lyrics including a mention of passion for potatoes. The instrumental motifs then return, finally giving way to an emotional end section where Ferry’s impassioned and melancholy vocals are set on top of a lush blend of backing vocals and the mellotron “three violins” tape set. It has been said that the first part of the song is a youth wondering about love, the second part adults in the heat of passion and the third part the singer in old age thinking about their past love. The song features in the 2008 film starring Daniel Craig entitled “Flashbacks of a Fool” – where a young Joe Scott and Ruth Davies dance in Ruth’s living room to it; Joe dressed as Bryan Ferry.
[Dedicated to Ulrich Møller-Jørgensen]
New Music United 