Nightmares on Wax, Part 1: Richard Quin – The Last Leviathan

A few years ago I started collecting bad vinyl, a direct result of exposure both to WFMU and the first 365 Days Project. I trawl through vinyl bins in charity shops and markets to see what horrors lurk amongst the multitudinous Sound of Musics and James Last compilations.

In Snooper’s Paradise in Brighton, England, I found my favourite ever stall. There was almost always something there worth picking up. I had, at the time, a £1 limit on my vinyls, mostly to stop dramatic overspending, and would usually try to acquire full-length albums. Richard Quin’s The Last Leviathan (Denver Records, 1978) broke this second not-quite-rule, but it looked too special to ignore.

Getting it home, I put on the A side and began my usual hunt for information about what I had procured. What I found, even after my laughter had abated after the sixth consecutive playthrough, was nothing. Not a thing. One person in one forum had mentioned having heard it, but admitted knowing little else about it, and that was it. More recently, it has turned up on discogs, but again all the information included is that which is on the reverse of the cover, which you will also found dispersed about this entry.

Both A- and B-side were written by Richard Quin (who seems to have nothing else to his name and doesn’t seem to have an actual web presence, barely even a footnote via that of somebody else) and arranged by Andrew Pryce Jackman. It is a record with a cause, that cause obviously being to alert mankind as to the potential plight of the whale. The A-side is sung as by the titular creature, the last member of his race, driven deeper and deeper into hiding to escape “Man with [his] spear“. It is what Do They Know It’s Christmas? would have sounded like if, instead of feeding the world, they had instead attempted to save the whales. By this, I mean it is ever so slightly egregious; though, to me, it was a rare delight. I played it over and over again quite happily, never even turning it over to see what the other side was like. It was only last week, having had the record in my collection for a good three years or so, that I finally flipped it and heard what was lying in wait on the other side.

Somehow, it managed to be even worse than I had been expecting. A curious piece of prose poetry, If Only … is Too Late is perhaps Richard Quin’s true voice, listing off all the things that could have been done differently (including listening to the whales themselves, and everybody being “friends of the Earth“) to prevent the dystopian future that lies in wait for our aquatic cousins over the sound of the muzak of the elevator to Hell.

I’m not sure anybody having heard this would have been roused particularly to take up the cause in defense of the whales (I must admit feeling slightly compelled to procure a harpoon gun myself on some listens), but in case I’m wrong I’m providing both songs below. I’m doing it for the whales.

The Last Leviathan

If Only … is Too Late

If any of my readers has any information on Richard Quin, I’d love to know what you’ve got. I’m especially intrigued to know if there are any other Quin recordings out there.

For those that really feel the strong desire to sing along, the lyrics can be found after the jump.

From ancient times our home

The seven seas we’d roam

Asking nothing more than life.

Then Man came to reap

A prize not his to keep

Our lives a harvest in his hands —

Down ever on down …

O Man with your spear,

Down ever on down …

Hide my face in the deepest place

For I am the last of my race,

I am The Last Leviathan.

Some people stood and spoke

And in our cause held hope

But all they did was done in vain.

Because Man’s greed is great

His law has sealed our fate

Will no-one cry? Is this the end?

Down ever on down …

O Man with your spear,

Down ever on down …

Hide my face in the deepest place

For I am the last of my race,

I am The Last Leviathan.