“My White Bicycle” is Tomorrow’s debut single. The Scottish rock band Nazareth did a cover version, which reached 14 in the UK charts in 1975, staying for eight weeks. Actor Nigel Planer, as his character ‘Neil the Hippy’ from TV-series The Young Ones, reached #97 with his cover in 1984. (More from Wikipedia)
Of all the meanings that “Midnight Love Cycle” might have, the song turns out to be about a bicycle. As stated in the liner notes, “Midnight Love Cycle” bears more than a passing resemblance to the May 1967 psychedelic single “My White Bicycle” by Tomorrow. However, the Klubs claim never to have heard this song.
I have a copy of Tomorrow’s classic self-titled album, Tomorrow, and it is not too hard to find; there are both black-and-white and color versions of the front cover. “My White Bicycle” also appears on the second Nuggets box set, Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969. Remarkably, all four discs from Nuggets II came through Katrina more or less unscathed, and I have them all cleaned up and playable. As I recall, I found most of them still in their original box.
(July 2013)
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Allmusic states the musical and historical importance of Ptooff! well in their entry by Dave Thompson: “Talk today about Britain’s psychedelic psyxties, and it’s the light whimsy of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, the gentle introspection of the Village Green Kinks, Sgt. Pepper, and ‘My White Bicycle’ [by Tomorrow] which hog the headlines. People have forgotten there was an underbelly as well, a seething mass of discontent and rancor which would eventually produce the likes of Hawkwind, the Pink Fairies, and the Edgar Broughton Band. . . .
“But the deranged psilocybic rewrite of ‘Gloria’ which opens the album, ‘I’m Coming Home’, still sets a frightening scene, a world in which Top 40 pop itself is horribly skewed, and the sound of the Deviants grinding out their misshapen R&B classics is the last sound you will hear. Move on to ‘Garbage’, and though the Deviants’ debt to both period [Frank] Zappa and [the] Fugs is unmistakable, still there’s a purity to the paranoia.
“Ptooff! was conceived at a time when there genuinely was a generation gap, and hippies were a legitimate target for any right-wing bully boy with a policeman’s hat and a truncheon. IT and Oz, the two underground magazines which did most to support the Deviants ([Mick] Farren wrote for both), were both publicly busted during the band’s lifespan, and that fear permeates this disc; fear, and vicious defiance.”
(March 2014/1)
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YouTube has several songs by the Klubs. This is the dreamy psychedelic “A” side of their only 45, “I Found the Sun”, and the band would be worth remembering for this song alone: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlS5vvs-KLE . Another winner, “Can’t Ebenezer See My Mind?” has wyld lyrics in keeping with the title: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX5UxktFfQ8 . This is the title song “Midnight Love Cycle” from their reissue album whose lyrics recall Tomorrow’s “My White Bicycle”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NCBTHxWVWU .
(July 2015)
