Isobel/Isabel/Isabella

[paddybrown]

I wonder why Jake was so fond of the name Isobel? There’s the Isabel who makes love on national monuments, the Isobel who nobody else is loved so well by, the Isobel he skips across on tippy-toe to, the Isabella who makes him look a right soft pillock, and even the Isobel he puts in the family way in the corporation park in "Dog". What’s the significance?

[Hugh Williams]

I reckon it’s because it "scans" well; however, I may be mistaken. I look forward to some (more meaningful) replies.

[KeithD]

I reckon Hugh’s probably right. Also rhymes nicely with lots of word unlike, say, Jennifer. Gabrielle/Gabriella is similar, but isn’t as euphonious (to my ears).

While on the subject of female names in Jake’s songs, Sheila Thackray told Terry Grant that Jake was once engaged to a French girl called Sophie. I wonder why he didn’t write the song in French. (The beginning of the tune for Sophie is note for note "C’est Un P’tit Rien" ("Pretty Little Thing") by Mistinguett and Jean Gabin, as I pointed out here: http://www.jakethackray.com/component/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,78/func,view/id,1617/catid,2/)

[paddybrown]

You can listen to an excerpt of "C’est Un P’tit Rien" on Allmusic at:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:gxfoxq90ldae

Although the bit that sounds like "Sophie" doesn’t seem to be included. The piece is in such a different style and tone that it’s hard to imagine any deliberate plagiarism.

I’ve listened to an except from "La java du diable" on iTunes, though, and while "One-Eyed Isaac" has a gloomier rhythm, the melody’s exactly the same (and Jake could make "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" sound gloomy).

It can happen though. A friend of mine once very enthusiastically played me a new song he’d written and was very proud of. The words were his own, but the tune was "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds, and he honestly hadn’t realised.

[paddybrown]

I’ve found a different except from "C’est un p’tit rien" on another album at allmusic:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:09fuxq80ldhe

And here you can hear the lines that are similar to "Sophie". Not so exact as "One Eyed Isaac" – Jake has an extra note in the first two lines, and the progression of the third line sounds more minor (to me – not a trained musician) in "Sophie" than in "C’est un p’tit rien".

"Sophie" was the first Jake song I learned to play, because I "found" the opening of it just arpeggiating an A and a D minor, and I’d just been listening to "Live Performance" so I recognised it.

[Ian Burdon]

Anyone attending the Jake Thackray Experience gig at Holmfirth Festival in May can expect to hear all of the Isobel/Isabell/Isabella songs

Ian

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