This week’s story begins with an apology to the suggestee, blodwyn buttercup, because she requested this song a long time ago and with over 700 songs on the suggestions list, it got overlooked, so best I put that right and tell the story of Build Me Up Buttercup.
Virtually anyone of any age will know this song because it’s been a radio favourite for years and, in 1998, following its inclusion in the Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller movie There’s Something About Mary, it was brought to a new audience and continually fills a dance floor at weddings and parties. Surprisingly, on its re-issue in 1998 it only reached number 71 in the UK chart, but when originally released in 1968, it peaked at number two.
One of the most successful British bands of the 1960s was Manfred Mann who charted 17 UK hit singles of which the first nine had Paul Jones on vocals. Paul had a great ear for great songs and also owned a lot of records and many of Manfred’s early hits were covers of song that Jones had in his collection. In the mid-60s, the band’s leader, keyboard player Manfred Mann and bass player Tom McGuinness wanted to change music direction and cover some Bob Dylan tracks. Jones didn’t like Dylan’s music and soon got fed up being told what the band were going to sing and announced his resignation. Mann had seen Mike D’Abo singing in a club with his previous group, A Band of Angels, and asked for his phone number. D’Abo duly obliged and went home and told his wife that someone from Manfred Mann had asked for his number and couldn’t work out why. His wife said, “They probably want you to join the band.” The next day, he got a call to have lunch with Mann & McGuiness and told him that Jones was leaving and offered him the job but was sworn to secrecy until the news became public.
Their first hit with D’Abo on vocals was a cover of Bob Dylan’s Just Like A Woman which reached number 10 and followed it with the Geoff Stephens and John Carter-penned song Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. James which had originally been titled Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. Jones, but decided to change it for two reasons, 1) not to upset Paul Jones who might have thought they were having a dig and, 2) because there was a new singer on the scene called David Jones with his band the Lower Third. They didn’t make it then, but Jones, in order not be confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees who had just hit the big time, changed his name to David Bowie.
The Manfred’s continued until 1969 when their last UK hit was the number eight hit Ragamuffin Man. D’Abo, who had begun writing songs, some of which he offered to Manfred but he wasn’t interested, so, decided to concentrate on his writing. He was hired by Andrew Loog-Oldham as a staff writer for his new Immediate record label and came up with a song called Handbags and Gladrags. Oldham loved it and said he had just signed a new singer called Chris Farlowe and so the song was offered to him. It only reached number 33 but became for more popular when covered by Rod Stewart.
On the back of Handbags D’Abo began working on another song, “I had written, in its entirety, as I thought, Build Me Up Buttercup and I played it to a producer friend of mine called Tony Macaulay who was looking for new songs for his new acts,” D’Abo explained. “His new acts were David Essex, Long John Baldry, The Paper Dolls and the Foundations. “At the time the chorus was a half chorus and Tony liked it but said, ‘I think you’re not making enough of the chorus, I think you should extend it a bit’, and Tony’s suggestion was to add the lines, ‘I need you, more than anyone, darling, you know that I have from the start’ so I did and next thing it was now a Macaulay and D’Abo song and he said, ‘I’d like to record it with the Paper Dolls and I’d like to have a piano and voice version so could you come into Pye studios and I’ll play tambourine.’ I put down the backing track just on piano and was just about to add my vocal for the demo version for the Paper Dolls, I just started singing, ‘Why don’t you build me up buttercup’ and that just came to me at that moment. Up to that point it had been, ‘one, two, three, four into straight into you build me up….so the, ‘why don’t you…bit came at the 11th hour.”
It turned out the Paper Dolls didn’t record it, as D’Abo explained, “Tony rang me a couple of days before the session which I was going to play piano on and said that the Paper Dolls weren’t going to be able to make the session so he was thinking of trying it with the Foundations, do you mind?’ I said, good heavens no, not at all. He’d already played it to David Essex who turned it down on the grounds that he didn’t want to sing a song dedicated to a cow because buttercup was always the name of a cow like Clarissa, so I came in and played piano on the Foundations version and the rest, as they say, is history.”
As a songwriter, that’s where the money is, so how much did Mike D’Abo make from that song? He’ll tell you, “Well, I can tell you I didn’t not get paid one penny from the eight million sales and, nor did Macaulay I don’t think and the reason was, immediately that became a hit, Jobete, the Motown publishers claimed it was infringing a Four Tops song called I’ll Turn to Stone which was the B-side of 7-Rooms of Gloom and those three notes, ‘build me up’ and ‘turn to stone’. On the back of that, millions of pounds of royalties were held in escrow for about 20 years. Then the Harry Fox agency got involved to fight it out and I was so broke I couldn’t even afford to get out to New York to be at the court case. Eventually, my lawyer fighting my case told me that we’d lose and all royalties up to that point would go to Jobete and I’d get paid in about 10 years time. In 1998, when it was used in There’s Something About Mary we arranged a new royalty with the music publisher and, despite D’Abo wanting a 75/25 split with Macaulay, Macaulay said, “It’s a 50/50 split or it’s not coming out.”
D’Abo also wrote music for some TV commercials and his most famous is, arguably, A Finger of Fudge’ for the Cadbury’s Fudge bar which was sung by an eight-year-old Clive Griffin who had also sung if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club for the McVitie’s.
The early 2000s was also a good time for D’Abo because in 2001 the Stereophonics recorded a cover of Handbags and Gladrags which went to number four and a cover of Build Me Up Buttercup was covered by the Party Boys and was a minor hit in 2004.
It’s always struck me as a bit of an odd song to play at a wedding, like Band of Gold, its lyrics are rather inappropriate, because the song is about being let down by the object of the narrator’s desire highlighted by the line, ‘don’t break my heart’ which she’s already done by repeatedly not showing up. His desire to be with this lady turns into a longing which doesn’t happen so he gets frustrated and in a final attempt, he sounds desperate and, in the end, all the grovelling and pleading fails to pay off. Great wedding song!
Tony Macauley went on to produce hits for Edison Lighthouse, the New Seekers, Marmalade and David Soul and Mike D’Abo still tours and regularly performs the two songs he’s best known for. D’Abo’s daughter is the actress Olivia D’Abo who appeared as Karen Arnold in comedy-drama series The Wonder Years, as the serial killer Nicole Wallace in Law & Order: Criminal Intent and as Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan.