On the sixth day of SAWmas!, the DJ played to me…
Send A Prayer (To Heaven) – Errol Brown
1990 was a year of mixed fortunes for Stock Aitken Waterman. After enjoying their most successful year the previous year, 1990 saw Mike, Matt and Pete struggle to gain the same levels of attention and sales in a sea of new dance and indie acts. True, they had a very successful year by anyone else’s standards, but perhaps not by their own.
Established acts like Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Sonia and Big Fun gave SAW a healthy chart presence, but other worthy releases by new acts fared less well. So, no doubt hopes were high when SAW teamed up with the legendary Errol Brown at the end of 1990 for a Christmas single.
Brown rose to prominence as lead singer (and co-writer) of Hot Chocolate, the hugely successful 1970s and 1980s pop soul band, scoring hits with You Sexy Thing, So You Win Again and It Started With A Kiss. The band, originally produced by hitmaker Mickie Most, enjoyed a successful career into the mid-1980s.
Post Hot Chocolate, Brown commenced a solo career with WEA Records, scoring hits in 1987 with singles Personal Touch (produced by Tony Swain & Steve Jolley), and Body Rocking (produced by Richard James Burgess). However, his 1989 debut solo album That’s How Love Is and its accompanying single Love Goes Up and Down (produced by Paul Staveley O’Duffy) fared less well, and Brown parted ways with his record label.
By the time 1990 came around, it would seem that Brown had written Send A Prayer (To Heaven) and was on the lookout for a deal to issue the track with him as performer. Clearly, he landed at PWL Records, and given that no further collaborations between Brown and SAW were issued, it would appear this was a one-single deal.
Send A Prayer (To Heaven) was a diversion from Brown’s recognised style, musically and lyrically. His work with Hot Chocolate, not to mention his solo recordings, were predominantly soul and dance orientated, albeit very much in a pop vein. However, Send A Prayer (To Heaven) was very much a traditional MOR ballad, possibly leaning more towards a Cliff Richard-style Christmas hit than the funkier fare Brown was better known for. If anything, Brown’s songwriting (combined with SAW’s production) created a festive track that Cliff would have coveted for himself (although Cliff had no complaints in 1990, given that he got the Christmas number one with Saviour’s Day).
It appears that Brown was a man of faith, and this is clearly demonstrated in the song’s lyrics. Brown's lyrics are even more overtly religious than those of Saviour’s Day, with lines such as “Send a prayer to heaven and let heaven show its way” and “Send it to Heaven so His miracle we can reveal”. However, this does not detract from the wider message of Brown’s song, which asks us to look around us and see the injustice many people face. “For all those people still hungry on this day / All those people suffering their lives away” is the powerful opening line, whilst the second verse carries “For those on this day still in captivity / For the many others still fighting to be free”. Whilst the title may not sound very seasonal, the song carries repeated references to Christmas (and perhaps the absence of Christmas in the song title led people to regard this solely as a religious song).
Brown’s performance is faultless, and, perhaps given he wrote the song, one really feels that he believes every word he sings on this track. Brown is well complemented by fine backing vocals from Mae McKenna, Miriam Stockley and Mike Stock, with Lloyd Aaron also providing vocals on this release.
The arrangement is lovely; never did Stock Aitken Waterman sound so festive. Opening with mournful resonant synth pads, the track slowly builds up, adding subtle percussion, piano and strings. A dramatic middle eight is accompanied with dramatic sweeping strings and thumping timpani, then we reach a dramatic climax, where SAW throw in everything and the kitchen sink with jubilant chimes, soaring backing vocals. The track carries an extended coda, with harps, strings and a lovely bit of jazz organ.
Aside from Pete Hammond’s neat 7” mix, there was an extended version, The Full Monte Mix, which deviates from the standard SAW 12” template. There is no extended introduction with the various instrumentation building up; this mix instead opens with the single mix, with the extended material being located in the middle of the mix. This features an impressive orchestral interlude, created electronically by Stock and Aitken along with Ian Curnow, who is credited with providing additional keyboards. Curnow was (and is) a talented programmer and musician with a real knack for orchestral elements, and his involvement is no surprise. The Full Monte Mix is actually credited to Pete Hammond, Phil Harding and Ian Curnow; such crediting of multiple mix engineers would occur when two different mixes were combined into one, and one assumes that happened here.
The B-side carried a second original Christmas track, Family Christmas Time, which was a co-write between Brown and SAW. Arrangement wise, this is a rather more jolly affair, based around woodwind and piano; this deviation from the standard SAW sonic template again shows the diversity of its producers. The lyrics show Brown in contemplative mood, contrasting this happy Christmas with unhappier ones of years gone by. The lyrics appear to reflect Brown's own experiences of Christmas; at the time of release, a short item in Smash Hits saw Brown explain that he lost his parents at a young age and used to feel lonely at Christmas but that this changed when he married and had children. Mixed by Dave Ford, this track came in both 7” and extended versions.
The single was issued on 7”, 12”, cassette single and CD single (with the CD disc itself erroneously crediting the B-side as Family Christmas Tree!).
Radio 1’s Simon Bates gave the track its first radio play, saying that Pete Waterman had phoned to say he “had the Christmas number one”. Bates acknowledged that the track did indeed have the hallmarks of a Christmas hit, but as it was, Send A Prayer (To Heaven) could only make #83 on the UK Singles Chart.
There could be a number of reasons for this; it didn’t appear to get much radio play, there wasn’t much in the way of press promotion, and crucially, there doesn’t appear to have been a video to accompany the track. There is also an argument to say that the charts had moved towards dance and indie by the time this track came out; however, Cliff Richard managed to get the Christmas number one that year with Saviour’s Day, so there was clearly still a market for this kind of Christmas ballad. Which must have been galling for both Brown and SAW as Send A Prayer (To Heaven) was arguably a better song and production, coming across as a more genuine, heartfelt effort than Saviour’s Day.
Whether or not this chart placing boils down to the track not resonating with the public, it has to be said that SAW had experienced mixed fortunes in 1990 and the market had started to move away from them. As a result, their productions were receiving less coverage and airplay, so it may be that not enough people got to hear it.
A shame, as this is a well written, performed and produced Christmas track which, in other circumstances, would have become a staple of Yuletide playlists by now. The overt religious tone of the lyrics may not be to everyone’s taste but many would agree with their sentiment.
The track is available digitally as part of a single bundle which contains various mixes, instrumentals and backing tracks of both Send A Prayer (To Heaven) and Family Christmas Time.
For a long time, it appeared that this would be the last Christmas single from Mike, Matt and Pete, as Matt Aitken would leave the team partway through 1991, followed by Mike Stock’s departure in 1993. But the three producers would unexpectedly reunite in 2015 to provide a further Christmas track for one of their most famous artists…
I remember this track and got the 12 inch wondering when it would show up in the top 10. Not so much.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the well written informative article about one of the less known corners of the SAW universe.
I have a big heart for these non-famous tracks and you seem to carry the same nostalgia also :)
Now... is it me being the King of wishful thinking or do I hear mentions of other Errol Brown tracks in your article?
" [...] given that no further collaborations between Brown and SAW were issued, it would appear this was a one-single deal."
The words Issued & Appear seems awfully tempting here ... :-)
Nevertheless: Merry Christmas and a happy new year