Sweet (1979) Stay With Me - LOST70sGEMS

In tribute to the dearly departed bassist Steve Priest who famously sang all those animated asides in The Sweet's ealry 70s Glam Rock hits; famously wearing a Hitler moustache and Native American head dress that would be heavily admonished nowadays. But his histrionic and strained vocals were along with their cleopatra fringes and supersonic shrill harmony stacks
a trademark of their brand of Glam Rock which owed a lot to novelty 50s rock n roll nostalgia and late 60s bubble-gum as well as cheap New York Dolls S and M decour. Steve Preist was also a talented singer and people often sleep on this band in light of bigger artists from their era like T Rex and Slade as well as an act like Queen who seemingly used them as jumping off point, ironically Sweet would soon enter a more Prog and Arena Rock era just like Queen ditching the high heel boots and teen anthems. Priest took on Lead Vocal duties on their Cut Above the Rest album with guitarist Andy Scott as they transformed into a trio when Brian Connolly left the band in 78, both had sung lead spots plenty times before and here they really prove their mettle and how strong this band was that they could lose a member and appear to get stronger.


Stay With Me along with Hold Me and Call Me was a series of big pop arena Corporate Rock ballads this album was built around but Stay With Me is ultimately Priests' best song that will live on now in his memory. It starts with eerie synth patchs echoing off like a deep sea sonar signal pinging away as well as distorted guitar sting pads before entering a rote stomp beat. The main chorus clears away for us into a softer 12 string strummed verse sung with a delicate delivery by Priest. It's the excellent lyrics and melody combo of these acoustic verses that I love as its expertly written, check out these lyrics from defiant second verse below;


I ain't satisfied
Cause you never tried
When making love was a matter of pride


But the introspective harmonised third verse/bridge is the real pinnacle as the soft vocals airy sing gently "If I knew then all
The things I know now, These'd be more then enough to go round" it's fabulous bit of insight and raw sincerity and I love it, a great songwriter it seems with this Beatlesque tune.