One of Britain’s most fascinating bands, Supertramp garnered enormous global acclaim while also contending with their fair share of inner turmoil and personnel changes.
Despite their difficulties, Supertramp managed to nurture a unique sound during a golden era when complex songwriting and fastidious recording was the norm.
Formed in London back in 1969, Supertramp’s first two albums didn't manage to gain much traction, with commercial clout finally being attained with the release of their third album, Crime of the Century.
This album included the radio-friendly track Dreamer, while also introducing the world to their distinctive sound, which made extensive use of the Wurlitzer electric piano (more often described as a Wurly) played by lead vocalist Roger Hodgson.
The Wurly, along with other notable keyboards such as the Rhodes electric piano, went on to form a central role on their 1979 fourth album, Breakfast in America. The Supertramp entourage (of about 30 people) had moved to LA for a couple of years prior to recording the album. They also travelled with their own engineer, Peter Henderson, who had worked with them previously on Crime of the Century.
By their own admission, they lived in a bit of an English bubble during their time in LA, choosing The Village Recorder studio (a converted masonic lodge) as the venue for the recording of the album - citing its ‘homely vibe’. These sessions would result in the band's most successful single, The Logical Song.
One of the iconic elements behind the Supertramp sound is the use of relatively conventional triadic chord shapes, played repetitively as 8th notes (quavers), with notable accents. One reason for this musical choice is to occupy the void supplied by a lack of (regular) guitar in the band. The beautiful pounding rhythms, mostly supplied by Hodgson, act as a driving element, much like a rhythm guitar.
The Logical Song was recorded by the band formation that has become known as their classic lineup. Rick Davies supplied keyboard parts, embellishing Hodgson’s playing with similar instrumentation, such as Rhodes electric piano and Hammond organ. The song features John Helliwell on alto sax, in a highly virtuosic and solo capacity, with drums supplied by Bob Siebenberg and bass by Dougie Thomson.
The song’s lyric was inspired by Hodgson’s time at school, specifically his emergence from an English boarding school. Roger questions a system geared toward eliminating the quizzical and wondrous nature of childhood, in favour of expectations and results.
“Logical Song is very autobiographical,” Hodgson told Acoustic Storm. “I mean, you know, when I was young, life was very magical. I have old 8mm movies of me as a little child and I was just a joy bubble and most children are at that age and, you know, then they sent me away. Well, I was sent to boarding school. ‘They sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,’ and that was where confusion set in, really. I was taught all these ways to be and behave and it was not all bad but it definitely set in a level of confusion to what I felt when I was much younger. So when I left school, the burning question that came down to its rawest place was ‘please tell me who I am,’ and that’s basically what the song is about.”
Roger elaborated further in an interview with Songfacts; “I think it was very relevant when I wrote it, and actually I think it's even more relevant today. It's very basically saying that what they teach us in schools is all very fine, but what about what they don't teach us in schools that creates so much confusion in our being.”
Back to the arrangement and, in line with many other Supertramp songs, the Wurly plays a central role here, although the distinct sections are open to a degree of debate regarding which element is a verse or a chorus. In typical Supertramp style, the song is fairly unconventional in this regard.
We open with the classic sound of punctuating Wurly triads, based around a triad of C minor - it’s a natural keyboard key. Once the vocal enters, we hear a shift from Cm down to Ab major7, before landing on G minor7. We then shift up to Bb, followed by Ab and finally F7/A.
This is a fairly simplistic progression, but one that is complicated further by the use of alternating time signatures.
The occasional bar of 2/4 provides an unsettled feeling, as the harmony shifts and contorts. However, many of the chords are heavily associated, either by their relative major/minor standing, or their association by note inclusion, such as the shift from Cm to Ab major7.
A triad of C minor becomes the chord of Ab major7 when you play A flat in the bass. These harmonic choices speak to the pianistic nature the band, and how they went about their songwriting and composition.
The initial sequence repeats four times, to form what could be regarded as a verse. The next section, which adopts chorus sensibilities, shifts up to the relative major of C minor, Eb major.
Having settled on Eb for 2 bars, the bass remains static on the note Eb, while the upper chord shifts to A half-diminished, also be described as Am7 b5. After two bars, this resolves to Ab major 7 for two bars, before shifting to Db, which is accompanied by a bass line which descends in steps, down to Ab, before returning to the verse structure.
The first of two alto saxophone solos are played at the end of the second verse. The harmony itself remains the same, although the arrangement in the keyboard alters slightly, with higher voicings to illicit a sense of build.
John Helliwell’s exceptionally stylised saxophone playing relies upon several soloistic traits, drawn from jazz traditions. Various swoops and scoops lead up to notes while accents maintain interest throughout.
According to Helliwell, during the initial recording phase, he was forced to record in the studio’s toilet. Apparently, his sax was spilling onto the overhead drum mics, and so extreme measures had to be taken to ensure spill isolation…
“When we were recording the backing tracks, we didn’t want the sound of the sax to spill onto the drum mics, in case the sax wasn’t good and the drum was good and we wanted to keep it or whatever,” Helliwell told Connecticut’s 102.9 The Whale radio station.
“So the nearest place was the bathroom. So I sat on the toilet there, with a copy of Playboy in my left hand and my sax in my right hand and we did the takes there. In fact, the take that turned out to be the real good backing track was the one with the sax solo you hear on it. So I must’ve got the inspiration even through the walls, even sitting on the toilet.”
The microphone used for this alto solo was a Coles 4038 - a classic ribbon microphone, which is regarded as a classic for recording horns, and still in production today.
The thunderous outro for the song features more Wurly-based triads, but now with the superb use of a bass line to create tension. This section makes extended use of the dominant chord of G7, before resolving back to Cm, but the second time we hear it, the resolution adds a further element, with a shift to Bb and Eb - all associated chords, much like the rest of the song.
There was a feeling, particularly from Roger Hodgson, that The Logical Song had the potential to be something quite special. The band therefore took their time, not only throughout the recording process, but also during the mixing phase. According to a few sources, the track took two weeks to mix, with Hodgson even taking up residence in a camper van outside the studio, allowing him continual access, presumably to listen with fresh ears.
The results speak for themselves; The Logical Song is one of the classic tracks from the late 70s, and one of the go-to examples of Supertramp’s boundless musical creativity and gifted musicianship - whether tracking in a studio or on the can!
