Star for a Week (Dino)

"Star for a Week (Dino)"
Single by Steve Harley
from the album Yes You Can
B-side	"The Lighthouse"
Released	1993
Format	CD
Genre	Pop, Rock
Length	4:33
Label	Food for Thought Records
Writer(s)	Steve Harley
Producer(s)	Steve Harley, Matt Butler
Steve Harley singles chronology
"Irresistible" (1992) "Star for a Week (Dino)" (1993) "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) (re-issue)" (1995)

"Star for a Week (Dino)" is a song by British singer-songwriter Steve Harley, released as a promotional single in 1993 from his third solo album Yes You Can, which was released in Europe in 1992 and in the UK in 1993 (around the same time as the single).^[1] It would be the second single to be released from the album, following the release of "Irresistible" as a European remixed single in 1991. "Star for a Week (Dino)" was written by Harley, and produced by Harley and engineer Matt Butler.

Background

As a promotional single, the song was not eligible to make any chart appearances however many fans regard the song as one of Harley's finest. The song had first been performed live in 1979 at Harley's sold out Hammersmith Odeon concert.^[2] For many years after, Harley would almost always perform the track at each live concert where it continued to gain reception as a live favourite. After signing to RAK Records in 1984, the song was due to be released on a full 1986 studio album under the title El Gran Senor, however after the label went bust, the album was never released. "Star for a Week (Dino)" was then later re-recorded for the Yes You Can album years later.^[3]

Like much of the Yes You Can album, the song was recorded and remixed at The White House Studios, Bures, Suffolk, England.^[4]

For a professionally filmed performance of the song live in 1989 at Brighton, Harley revealed the song's meaning at the start of the track. He stated "This is a song with a story which for me illustrates the undying, relentless loyalty and faith which a mother has for her son. About nine or ten years ago, there's this boy in Norfolk called Dino, who was running around with a shotgun, holding up some post offices. He did this for several weeks - he got caught eventually, red handed. I remember the cops said to him; 'what'd you do it for? You've never done anything wrong before in your life'. And he said 'I just wanted to be somebody, I just wanted to be a star for a week or two'. Well he was that, it was on the national news. Little did he know his mum said 'It wasn't my Dino, couldn't be Dino, couldn't be Dino. He lives for his motorcycle, he wouldn't do such a thing, couldn't be Dino.' Caught red handed, he confessed; 'My mum still thinks I got a day job'."^[5][6]

During Cockney Rebel's performance at Athens in Greece during 2011, Harley spoke of the song before the start of the track, stating "This song is about two young men. They were in the late teenage in the mid/late '70s and they went on the run in the UK, near close to where I live now, in East Anglia. And they had a shotgun - they were holding up and raiding small post offices and newspaper shops - little shops that just sold newspapers and sweets and cigarettes. They were raiding these shops and terrifying mostly elderly, innocent people who ran these shops. And I listened - I was trained as a journalist when I left school and I still travel the world with a notebook and a pen. So I wrote down all the stuff that this story was about and I took a lot of the original words that people used in their press reports, and I wrote them all down. The boy was from a Greek family - the leader of the gang of two. He was called Dino. They spoke to his mother one day, and he was a well bought up boy, and they said to her on the television when he was hiding in the woods - they were living very rough in a camp in the woods hiding from the police for three weeks. And the newspapers - the TV news interviewed his mother in Cambridge, and they asked her what he was doing, why he was doing this? And she said, she actually said to them 'I don't know - I think he just wants to be somebody. He just wants to be someone.' They asked 'what do you mean by that?' and she said 'He just wants to be a star for a week or two', and I'm writing it down, thinking oh this is great. And I wrote it all down, and she wrote me a chorus - his mum, and the rest of it was the story I got. I used to say years ago when I sang this song on stage, I'd say that I borrowed some of the lyrics from other people. It's not entirely true - as I get older my conscience has got the better of me - and I have to confess I didn't borrow them at all - I stole them."^[7]

In a 1998 Sheffield Concert Review by Q Magazine, the writer Peter Kane spoke of the song, stating "To make sure this particular evening goes with a swing, it certainly helps that the audience could have handpicked that very afternoon from the streets of Sheffield. At least half of them seem to know all the words to everything, not just the familiar old stuff like "Judy Teen" and "Mr. Soft", but even the comparatively recent "The Last Time I Saw You" and "Star for a Week (Dino)". They sing along whether encouraged to do so or not. Mostly not. It's like stumbling into a private function with its own mystifying rules and rituals."^[8]

Release

The single was released via CD through Food for Thought Records in the UK only. The single featured the B-Side "The Lighthouse" which was written by Harley, and also appeared on Yes You Can as an album track.^[9] The single had no artwork and was issued in a clear plastic sleeve.^[10]

Following the original release, the song has appeared on three compilations; the 1998 EMI compilation More Than Somewhat – The Very Best of Steve Harley, the 2000 Disky Records Steve Harley compilation Best of the 70's.^[11] and the 2006 EMI compilation Cockney Rebel: A Steve Harley Anthology.^[12]

The song has been included on various live albums including the 1995 album Live at the BBC,^[13] which Harley recorded during a session for Nicky Campbell in 1992,^[14] and the 1999 album Stripped to the Bare Bones.^[15][16]

In 1989, the Brighton/Northampton performance of the song was professionally filmed during the band's comeback "All is Forgiven" tour. The performance was released as a VHS, titled The Come Back, All is Forgiven Tour: Live.^[17][18] An audio CD version of the concert has been released across Europe in many guises, and in Germany, a release of the album was issued in 1993 under the song's title Star for a Week.^[19]

During the 1980s the song's live performance at the Camden Palace in London was released on VHS under the name Live from London. For the VHS release, the song was titled "I Just Wanna Be a Star".^[20][21]

Track listing

CD Single

1. "Star for a Week (Dino)" - 4:33
2. "The Lighthouse" - 5:58

Critical reception

Dave Thompson of Allmusic spoke of the song and the b-side in a review of Yes You Can album, stating "It's a sad state of affairs, but the best of Yes You Can, Steve Harley's first new album in a decade, was never going to make it onto a studio recording. Rather, it resides in the live environment where the songs almost unanimously came to life, a fact which Harley himself seemed to acknowledge with the release, just six months later, of Live in the UK. There, both "Star for a Week (Dino)" and "The Lighthouse" emerge with vibrant electricity, as emotionally charged as any old favorites, as deliciously delivered as they deserved. In the studio, however, though the quality remains, the emotion pales, and Harley's energies - hitherto rejuvenated after so long in abeyance - flag accordingly."^[1]

Thompson also spoke of the song in an Allmusic review of the Make Me Smile - Live on Tour album from 1996, stating "The highlights, then, are the same as last time - two cuts from Harley's Yes You Can album, "The Lighthouse" and "Star for a Week," work far more effectively live than they did in the studio."^[22]

Personnel

Star for a Week (Dino)

• Producer - Steve Harley, Matt Butler
• Engineer - Matt Butler
• Mastering - Ian Jones, Steve Rooke
• Vocals - Steve Harley
• Guitar – Alan Darby
• Bass – Billy Dyer
• Keyboards – Ian Nice
• Violin – Nick Pynn
• Drums – Paul Francis
• Writer of "Star for a Week (Dino)" - Steve Harley

The Lighthouse

• Producer - Steve Harley, Matt Butler
• Engineer - Matt Butler, Simon Smart
• Vocals - Steve Harley
• Guitar – Rick Driscoll
• Acoustic 12 String Guitar – Steve Harley
• Bass – Kevin Powell
• Harmonica – Steve Harley
• Violin – Barry Wickens
• Keyboards – Ian Nice
• Drums – Stuart Elliott
• Writer of "The Lighthouse" - Steve Harley

References