“Far less satisfying”: the Roxy Music song Bryan Ferry hated playing live
No singular aspect of 1970s glam rock outfit Roxy Music was conventional in its approach to music. From Brian Eno’s pioneering experimental synth sounds to frontman Bryan Ferry’s distinctive songwriting style, Roxy Music existed as a shining alternative to the banality of mainstream rock during that era. Their discography is full of innovative anthems that went on to inspire countless future artists. However, to truly appreciate the genius of Roxy Music, you had to see them live.
As you might expect from the band, Roxy Music were famed for their incredible live performances. Largely due to Ferry’s broad range of influences as a performer, along with the obvious musical skill of his band, no two Roxy Music shows were alike, bolstered by a jazz-adjacent penchant for improvisation and development. Given the intense level of talent encased within the band’s lineup, they were never going to be a group who monotonously worked through their albums with little to no development from the studio versions. Ferry craved excitement.
Nevertheless, not every Roxy Music track lent itself naturally to the world of live performance. The impact of experimentation and using new musical technologies meant the band were on the cutting edge in terms of studio work, but it was often impossible to properly translate that work onto the stage. For the most part, Roxy Music dealt with these problems elegantly, altering their studio songs or adding new layers of inspiration to create something that worked well for the stage.
On the other hand, there were songs that just did not work in a live setting. This was particularly true of the group’s early material, such as their self-titled debut from 1972. That record acted as the world’s introduction to the expansive world of Roxy Music, incorporating a wide variety of styles and inspirations, from the storytelling style of ‘Virginia Plain’ to the experimental lunacy of Eno’s work on songs like ‘Ladytron’. Putting that record into a live set was always going to be a tricky task, even for some of the most talented musicians in the world.
According to Ferry, the group had an issue with one song in particular. Speaking to Melody Maker in 1972, he revealed, “Actually, ‘Would You Believe’ is the most restricting thing we do – far less satisfying than the rest – because it’s a very set thing, a little cameo with no room for improvement or interesting improvising.”
Taking heavy inspiration from the music of the 1950s and 1960s, the song is something of an outlier on the album, yet it remains a firm fan favourite. “It’s very much something that we have to act through,” Ferry explained, “and if we’re not in the mood, there’s not much we can do.”
At the risk of calling Bryan Ferry an unreliable source, the fact that ‘Would You Believe’ was regularly a highlight within Roxy Music gigs must be taken into account here. Most notably, the group performed an undeniably stunning version of the song during their 1972 show at Le Bataclan in Paris, a performance which was incredibly satisfying, in defiance of Ferry’s claims.
Nevertheless, Ferry’s penchant for improvisation and adaption meant that ‘Would You Believe’ eventually fell out of the band’s regular setlists. Moreover, the song never appeared on any of the band’s six official live albums, even when other efforts from the 1972 debut featured prominently. For those who were not lucky enough to see the band during their early tours, the recording of that gig in Paris is one of the few official live versions of the song to be released to the public.
