I wrote Move It on a bus. For some reason that simple fact has been noted in just about everything that has ever been written about Cliff Richard's early years.
I suppose that the popular image of a composer in those days was of a Chopin-esque figure slaving over a grand piano with feverishly written manuscript sheets flying in all directions as his one true love disappeared with a swish of crinoline into her awaiting carriage, never to be seen again.
But Move It was written on a bus. An ordinary, everyday, Green Line double-decker bus on the way from the village of London Colney, Hertfordshire, to Cliff's house just a few miles away in Cheshunt.
Music publisher Franklin Boyd had found a song, Schoolboy Crush which had already been an American hit for Bobby Helms. It was to be the "A" side of our first single. It occurred to me that if we had an "A" side, there was a very strong possibility that we would need a "B" side. Brilliant!
Having dabbled a little bit with poetry and having written a couple of amateur short stories, I decided to take a shot at it. In those days no-one wrote their own material; but being blissfully unaware of that fact, and not knowing that it couldn't be done, I went ahead and did it.
So there I was on my way to Cliff's house to rehearse. I climbed the stairs of the bus, and found that the top deck was empty. Had anyone else been up there I would have been too embarassed to get my guitar out of its humble case and Move It might never have been written. I sat in the back seat because there was more room for the guitar.
At that precise moment, I hadn't the slightest intention of writing a song. I was just practicing and trying to figure out how Chuck Berry did what Chuck Berry does when I accidentally stumbled upon what eventually became the introduction to Move It.
As any guitarist will know, the intro consists of a descending pattern of two notes played simultaneously. When you get to the bottom of the intro you are left with just two notes, E and B, which together form the ultra-simple rhythm chord that provides the basic foundation and the rhythmic pulse of the song.
I played about eight bars of that and stopped. This, I thought, is where a song should start.
Some songs come very quickly. Whenever I am inspired to write, I grab the nearest sheet of paper, napkin or whatever, and write down the lyrics as fast as I can.
As the words for Move It came to me I hastily ripped open a guitar string packet in order to scribble them down on the paper envelope. I remember arriving at Cliff's house for rehearsal and re-writing them for legibility.
We played it through a couple of times, and everyone seemed to like it. "What are you gonna call it?" asked Johnny Foster. "Well . . . " I hesitated, not having thought about it at all. But before I could come up with anything Johnny said, "You ought to call it Move It."
And so it was.
Now in fairness to Johnny, I should explain that his recollection is somewhat different. According to him, we were on a bus en route to the EMI recording studio when he suggested the title. Frankly, Johnny is bigger and stronger than I am, so I'm not going to argue about it. It is the perfect title, and I thank him for it.
It's funny the way time plays tricks on one's memory. Cliff has a completely different version of the story. As recently as December of 1995, while I was in London for the Royal Variety Performance, I was being interviewed by Simon Bates on his BBC talk radio show. We were discussing the writing after all these years of the second verse of Move It when Cliff called in from his car phone. For a while we all got to talk "on air."
As Cliff was reminiscing he said, "In retrospect now, looking back, I think Ian wrote it on the bus. The first verse was written on the 715A from Cheshunt to Oxford Street, and then we went straight in, and, in a way, we sang it as a kind of audition piece, and that's all we had of it."
After Cliff hung up, I said to Simon, "Cliff was talking about me writing it on the Green Line on the way into London, but that's not true." Simon said, "You're saying that a knight of the English stage is lying? This is a dangerous thing!" I was stunned. "Er . . . let's say he was, uh . . . somewhat mistaken," I mumbled. Frankly, Simon is bigger and stronger than I am, so I was not going to argue about it.
And if Sir Cliff thinks that I wrote it on the way to see Norrie Paramor, and wasn't just re-writing it because he forgot to bring his copy, then I'm not going to argue with him either.
And if Malcolm Addey, the brilliant recording engineer, thinks he saw me lying on the floor of Abbey Road Studios putting finishing touches to it, and not just writing it out for Ernie Shear so that he would know where to place the guitar fills, then Malcolm should know that I hold him in such high regard that I wouldn't even dream of arguing with him either.
So that's that, and I hope they're all very happy.
Hrrrmph!
There were no re-writes of Move It, it was truly a gift from God. However I did write out the lyric in such a way as to enable Cliff to read it directly off the lyric sheet as in, "C'mon, pretty baby, let's a-move it an' a-groove it," because it is quite difficult for a singer on the spur of the moment to avoid the pitfalls of correct, and consequently stiff, pronunciation.
I had originally intended to write a second verse, and had actually made a start:
C'mon, pretty baby, let's a-move it an' a-groove it
Dance, baby, dance, have you heard the news
It's all over town, there's a brand new beat
and that's as far as I got, I couldn't figure out how to finish it. We were due to go into the studio just a few days later, on Sunday the 24th of July, so Cliff simply sang the first verse twice.
Another oddity that may be of interest is the use of the term "country" as used in the lyric "Real country music that just drives along." It wasn't meant to refer to Country and Western or even to rock-a-billy. It is in fact derived from Chuck Berry's song Johnny B. Goode. "Oh my but that little country boy could play," he sings.
What I didn't know at the time was that he originally wrote, "Oh my but that little colored boy could play," but changed it to avoid problems with American radio stations which were unwilling to play "race" records.
Move It isn't a love song. Actually, I think of it as more of a clarion call. C'mon pretty baby - WAKE UP! We got somethin' here that the grownups don't like, don't want us to have, and they sure "don't know what's a-goin' to replace it."
The inspiration for the lyric came in part courtesy of an article in Melody Maker (June 14, 1958) by jazz critic Steve Race. The article began:
"So rock - n - roll is dead, is it? All right then. My funeral oration consists of just two words: Good riddance.
"What next - ballads? Some people seem to think so, but I can't help feeling that's largely wishful thinking. So many people in the profession would like ballads to return to favour.
"The fact is that up to now, as of early June, 1958, there is no clear sign about what the next craze will be. Indeed, there may not be another craze at all . . . "
So thank you, Steve Race, and God bless you. I owe it all to you. And if it is any consolation, please know that to me, at least, you are the true father of British rock 'n' roll.
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