You're kissing cousins, there's no smoke, no flame

Thursday music corner: British musician Joan Armatrading has released 20 albums in her musical career, and has had three mercurial UK top 40 singles, spanning soul, new wave and pop-rock genres: Love And Affection (1976), Me Myself I (1980) and Drop The Pilot (1983). The joyous, ebullient pop nonsense of Drop The Pilot reached number 11 in the UK charts, and was an even bigger hit in Australia and New Zealand, reaching number 6 in both countries. It also made the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 78. In 2003 the song was covered by Mandy Moore, which will have done wonders for Armatrading's mortgage.

The indefatigable Armatrading, now aged 70, has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, and twice been nominated as Best Female Artist at the BRIT Awards. She was awarded an MBE in 2001 and was appointed as a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2020 for services to music, charity and equal rights.

‘Dropping the Pilot’ is a famous British political cartoon, well-known in both Britain and Germany, published in the satiric magazine Punch in 1890. It depicts Chancellor Otto von Bismarck departing the German ’ship of state’, with the young Kaiser Wilhelm II remaining aboard, looking decidedly unconcerned. The Kaiser had requested the veteran statesman’s resignation 10 days earlier.

Joan Armatrading – Drop The Pilot (w/ the BBC Concert Orchestra, 2021)