Love's A Prima Donna by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, 1976, in my view, is a concept album. I've realised this whilst also posting on the Forum Questions section, earlier (today):

www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...s-a-prima-donna.html


With one eye on the Wikipedia definition of a concept album, the single central narrative or theme is love (including crushes, lust, sex). I suppose I should have picked up on this years ago, given the track listing and some of the lyrics within (and the album cover photography and artwork). I never really thought about it, that way...

The other, in my view, concept album (The Human Menagerie, 1973);

www.steveharley.com/forum/7-welcome-mat/...kney-rebel-1973.html

Personally, (Love's...) is my third favourite Harley/Cockney Rebel album, after The Human Menagerie and The Best Years of Our Lives (1974/1975), respectively. The Psychomodo (1974), comes in at fourth, and Timeless Flight (1975/1976), comes in at fifth, (all) for me. I'm amazed that the first album didn't chart as such but not that Best Years...was the commercial pinnacle.

Being a top 30 (UK) album, 'Love's...' was the last commercial album (though there were more classic songs to follow; 1992, 1996 and 2005) by Harley and one single composed by others (!) ten years later., in 1986. It's difficult (and pointless) to speculate what might have happened, had Harley 'got the part', instead of the severance payment(?)

Here Comes The Sun (Harrison, G) was the most successful single from 'Love's...', making the UK Top Ten.

I was 17 when I purchased the album - only one thing slightly irritated me about IT - (you) have to allow for the fact that a 17 year old brain has not yet had time to make all dendritic, neuronal, connections and dendritic pruning, that it will have done probably by the age of 25 (the downside is some loss of imagination?) - IS that, as a Lancashire lad (born and bred) the depiction of the nubile Lancashire lasses on the closing track...

In the first few minutes of the album however, I loved 'Seeking A Love' (relevant for all 'youngsters') and the way it cuts straight into 'GI Valentine', another fast, exciting, melodious track, a la 'Sweet Dreams' from The Psychomodo, but this time substituting electric guitar for the Cockney Rebel violin. Track 5 on side I is an amazing departure for the writer and a beautiful song, (Love) Compared With You. I found 'Carry Me Again', very catchy on Side Two and the track before that '(If this is love) Give Me More' the most ideal combination of the reality and pleasure principles (to these I have referred before, by Prof Freud). This also features Harley, for the first time, on lead guitar. Despite the moderate success of the album, Harley and Cockney Rebel had a magnificent tour to follow in late 1976 and early 1977 and then, as suggested by (the earlier) Sweet Dreams track (from the Psychomodo), Harley settled in the country to fade (only for a while). X


Stay your way.
X

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28/10/25 - I've taken the link out. Even though it is not my account, I'm uncomfortable with leaving links in to material that use, in essence, the whole of the song that is available on record - unless the owner of the intellectual work gave express consent. In other words, I'm returning to the status quo as it was prior to 14 February 2005, when YouTube was created. All the best...

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EDIT 5 July 2025:

There is another reason it is my third favourite by Steve/Cockney Rebel, besides the singles, the concept, and Carry Me Again. It is the instrumental, Sidetrack II. In my view (unconsciously) Steve may have been holding onto the (strings/orchestral) innovations of the first two albums? There may have been a desire to return to unfinished business in that direction (a 'reprise'/continued development, of the Elgar-esque. Early Cockney Rebel were perhaps unique in their application of 'pop-classical'. Jeff Lynne/ ELO's [brilliant] oeuvre, on the other hand, was more 'rock-classical')?

Cockney Rebel Mark II were bound to shift the overall sound (especially with the electric guitar instead of violin). If so, this potential return to the early style with studio recordings, was not to be, with the hiatus after January 1977, a spell in the USA - and the next two solo albums...

For those that might be affected - Beware of flashing lights (bottom left of video):

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28/10/25 - I've taken the link out. Even though it is not my account, I'm uncomfortable with leaving links in to material that use, in essence, the whole of the song that is available on record - unless the owner of the intellectual work gave express consent. In other words, I'm returning to the status quo as it was prior to 14 February 2005, when YouTube was created. All the best...

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06/11/25 - An alternative link, relevant to album and satisfying my 28/10/25 sensibility:




FULL TRACK LISTING

EMC 3156 stereo OC 062-06 256

Side One
1. Seeking A Love
2. G.I. Valentine
3. Finally A Card Came
4. Too Much Tenderness
5. (Love) Compared With You
6. (I believe) Love's A Prima Donna
7. Sidetrack II
Total time 21:15 mins:secs

Side Two
1. Seeking A Love (Part II)
2. (If.this is love) Give Me More
3. Carry Me Again
4. Here Comes The Sun*
5. Innocence And Guilt
6. Is It True What They Say?
Total time 25:05 mins:secs

All songs written by Steve Harley except * written by George Harrison

PRODUCED BY STEVE HARLEY
1976 EMI Records Ltd
Sleeve design, photography by Mick Rock

A fond/explicit memory from around the time of my acquisition of this album:

I bumped into Theresa H (chance meeting), who I hadn't seen since the last day of school, in 1975. I was on my way to the General Post Office, on Church Street, Blackpool - to get passport photos for my first trip to France. Theresa had sat next to me, back in 2A2, and seeing her gave me a lift up...