ABANDONMENT ISSUES

'You abandoned me, love don't live here anymore' 

Rose Royce are an American soul and R & B group formed in 1973, who achieved considerable success between 1976 and 1979, particularly in the UK.

The band are perhaps best known for their song 'Car Wash' from 1976, the title song from a hugely successful comedy film starring Richard Pryor. It remains a popular track, being catchy, up-tempo, memorable and relatable: who doesn't know of a groovy car wash where the staff work hard and you might get the chance to meet a movie star or even an Indian Chief?

But Rose Royce's best work isn't about the joys of private enterprise and getting along, in fact, it isn't about happiness and togetherness at all. The band's greatest songs are about heartbreak, loss, loneliness and uncertainty. The incredible 'Wishing On A Star' is an ethereal ballad made of desperate longing. It's about somebody trying to will a reunion with a lost loved one who is now so hopelessly removed - physically, mentally, emotionally - that they are unimaginably distant. All practical means of reconciliation exhausted, only magical thinking and superstition remains.  

Even greater, in my opinion, is 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore', a song so good that even Jimmy Nail couldn't completely mess it up. Written by Miles Gregory during a period of drug induced bad health, it is an exquisite work of high drama that, nevertheless, portrays a very small, very human tragedy. The resounding feeling is one of desolation, of loneliness, a one act play in which the home, that all important refuge, is reduced to an empty shell and the heart, that desperate organ, continues to function but is left without purpose.

The singer, Gwen Dickey (who used the name Rose Norwalt while in the band) gives a flawless performance, and makes every single word count. You can imagine her sat at the dining room table, her head in her hands, half a person in the hellish vacuum that used to be a happy home. Drawn curtains, a dripping tap, an uneaten meal, cold sheets and only memories, regrets and unanswered questions for company.

The arrangement on the record is phenomenal, sweeping seamlessly from one section to another, synths and strings combining to evoke a world of pain. Weirdly, a Pollard Syndrum punctuates the action. Usually a jolly, even comical, instrument, here it sounds ineffably sad, like a signal beamed out into an empty or unreceptive universe, a desperate SOS.   

The lyrics, for me, pivot around two killer lines. The first is quoted at the top of the page. There is no part of 'abandoned' that is ambiguous. This vacancy is permanent. The second is 'Why did you have to go away? Don't you know I miss you so and need your love?' This gets me every time, and it stings because it is a crystal clear, almost childlike expression of abject loss summarised in two simple questions that, like the Syndrum pulse into space, will go answered.

'Love Don't Live Here Anymore' was the band's last big hit (although, astonishingly, it didn't even crack the Top 30 in their native country). They released more records, including the superb 'If It's Love You're After' (a banging disco psychodrama about uncertainty and disparity between lovers), but their audience waned, almost certainly emotionally exhausted by the unforgettable melancholy brilliance of their most indelible recording.