TOUCH AND GO

From the underrated self-titled album by this band, "Touch and Go" was a very good choice for a single taken from this album. An energetic song with keyboards playing a melody which sounds like played like an Hymn or Fanfare in a keyboard sound similar to horn instruments, with very good drums and bass too, and very good lead vocals by Greg Lake. It still sounds like music from Emerson, Lake & Palmer, but I think that the drums played by Cozy Powell, while still energetic, still sound a bit different from Carl Palmer`s drums playing style. While still being Progressive Rock in style, this song also has some Pop Rock influences, and it is very accessible and maybe the best from this album. Emerson updated his keyboards for the sound of the mid eighties, and they sound very good.

The B-side, "Learning to Fly", it`s also Prog Rock in style with also having some Pop Rock influences. It is also a very good song.

I remember listening for the first time to the "Touch and Go" song during the TV broadcasts of some special programmes dedicated to the matchs of the "FIFA Football World Cup Tournament Mexico 1986" (they also used bits of "The Score" from the same album). It sounded to me like Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Some months later I finally knew that this song was in fact from Emerson, Lake and Powell`s self-titled album when I bought it.

In 1988 I also recorded from a TV programme the videoclip done for "Touch and Go". I did it using an old Betamax machine which of course doesn`t work anymore. I liked the videoclip. It was well done, I think.

Of all the singles being released by prog rock bands in the 1980s, Emerson Lake & Powell's Touch and Go has got to be one of the better ones. If a prog rock band had to make a single and keep it under four minutes, they would likely have to extract it from a bigger piece (almost always a disaster), or put together something like this.

Upon initial listens, the obvious feature of Touch and Go that hits you squarely in the head is the dramatic, overpowering keyboard work of Emerson. It invokes words like glorious, military parades, and royalty all in one. And it's fitting with the "running with the devil" line that is repeated often. The drum work is delivered in military precision, with slow, prodding drum rolls. Lake's vocals are soaring, strong, and powerful. Indeed, in my youth, it was the radio play of this song that caught my attention to buy the album and lead me into their more productive releases of the early 1970s.

The B-side is the fast moving Learning to Fly. It's more in the realm of AOR meets prog, but is one of the better songs of the ELPowell album.

One of the better singles from a prog band (of which very few actually released warrant such a comment). Understandably this single is still an item that is more of a collectible if you already have the ELPowell album, or for the completionist. Musically Touch and Go is a four-star number. The B-side is about two stars, averaging this release at three.

Do the locomotion

Touch and Go was released as a single from the Emerson Lake & Powell album. It is a great song that was later re-recorded by the original line-up with Palmer and that remake was included on the Return of the Manticore box set. The song was also often played live on the band's late 90's tours and have been included on several live albums.

The b-side on this single is Learning to Fly, also taken from the same 1986 album. That's it for the 7" version, but the single was also available in a 12" version that included a third track (c-side). This is a non-album track and it is an instrumental cover of The Loco-Motion. It has subsequently been included as a bonus track on some versions of the album and is good fun for fans of the band. Until fairly recently I was unaware of the existence of this track and also Vacant Possession, another Emerson Lake & Powell track that didn't make it onto the original album.