Peter Sarstedt – "Blagged" (1968)

And as I walked outside and closed the door

I wondered if I'd won or lost

Peter Sarstedt was kind of a big deal in the world of pop music in the sixties.  His 1969 single, “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely),” was a #1 hit in the UK and won an Ivor Novello Award (which is the British equivalent of a Grammy).

“Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)” tells the story of a poor girls from the mean streets of Naples who grows up to become an international jet setter.  (Some believed that the song was inspired by Sophia Loren, who grew up in poverty in Naples.  But in 2009, Sarstedt revealed that the song was really about his first wife, Anita Atke, a Danish dentist.)

The song’s lyrics drop the names of Marlene Dietrich, Picasso, the Aga Khan, and the Rolling Stones, and also make reference to fashionable resorts (St. Moritz and Juan-les-Pins) and Parisian landmarks (Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Sorbonne):

I've seen all your qualifications

You got from the Sorbonne

And the painting you stole from Picasso . . .

When you go on your summer vacation

You go to Juan-les-Pins

With your carefully designed topless swimsuit . . .

And when the snow falls you're found in St. Moritz

With the others of the jet set

And you sip your Napoleon brandy

But you never get your lips wet

Sarstedt described “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)” as a “romantic novel in song.”  I would describe it as a “so-full-of-sh*t-that-its-eyes-are-brown song.”   

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I would never have heard of Peter Sarstedt if Steven Lorber hadn’t played a couple of his records on his “Mystic Eyes” radio show on WHFS in 1980.

Today’s featured song was the B-side to “I Am a Cathedral,” the Sarstedt single that preceded “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)” and failed to chart.

“Blagged” is based on a fictional (presumably) conversation between a man and a woman who have just had sex.

Peter Sarstedt

The female member of the couple is clearly suffering from a bad case of post-coital tristesse – also known as “post-sex blues.”  When her partner nonchalantly asks her for a post-coital cigarette, her response is less than gracious: “You got what you came for,” she says.  “Now leave the way you came!”

The male shrugs off her snarkiness, replying thusly:

“I am but a man,” I said

“I do what I can,” I said

Which is a truthful answer, but a bit lame.

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The man should have put on his pants and skedaddled at that point, but he can’t resist asking her a hypothetical question before he exits:

What if I said that I love you?

Would all your morals then be pacified?

The act of love be then more true?

His lover doesn’t fall for that, and comes back with a question of her own:

“Oh yes, you are smart,” she said,

“But where is your heart?” she said

That shuts the dude up, and he leaves without another word.

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But once our wannabe Casanova has departed, he has a moment of doubt:

And as I walked outside and closed the door

I wondered if I'd won or lost

And if the status quo was still intact

And was it worth the time it cost?

Who’s kidding who here?  I don’t believe for a minute that he really thought those thoughts as he left his lady fair’s boudoir.  After all, he got what he came for – right?

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I’ll tell you more about Peter Sarstedt and his talented brothers in the next 2 or 3 lines.

Click here to listen to “Blagged.”

And click on the link below to order the song from Amazon: