Over the course of the 1970s, Supertramp quietly built a reputation as one of the decade’s premier progressive rock bands. But there was nothing quiet about the response to their 1979 release, Breakfast in America. The quadruple-Platinum album ranked fifth on the year-end Billboard 200 chart and landed three singles in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.
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Any conceivable follow-up to Breakfast in America was bound to be a disappointment. By their pre-1979 standards, …Famous Last Words… would have been considered a huge commercial success, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and receiving Gold certification. “It’s Raining Again” became Supertramp’s third-highest charting single, making it to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the eyes of critics and the band itself, though, their 1982 album was a major comedown from their previous efforts.
It would be easy to assume that success spoiled Supertramp, and that the outsized success of Breakfast in America was responsible for the band losing its way on …Famous Last Words… . Yet the roots of Supertramp’s dissatisfaction with the album go back to the band’s early years, and the difficulties the members faced may have occurred even if Breakfast in America hadn’t been such an enormous hit.
“I Never Really Felt Like a Band”
There had always been a tension between Supertramp’s co-frontmen and songwriters Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies. Hodgson wrote and sang the band’s poppier songs, while Davies’ compositions typically had a harder edge. Though Davies wrote half of Breakfast in America’s 10 tracks, the album’s lighter feel played to Hodgson’s strengths. That was reflected in three of the album’s four most-popular songs (“The Logical Song,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and the title track) being written by Hodgson.
In the aftermath of Breakfast of America, Supertramp was at a crossroads. Should they make another album in the style of their smash hit? Return to the proggier vibe of Crime of the Century or Even in the Quietest Moments? Or go in a different direction altogether? Not surprisingly, Hodgson wanted to continue writing pop hits, but Davies and the other band members wanted to play longer, edgier songs. In the process of trying to find a compromise, …Famous Last Words… was neither as infectious as Breakfast in America nor as inventive as Supertramp’s earlier work. No one in the band was happy with the final result.
It wasn’t just creative differences that bogged Supertramp down during the making of …Famous Last Words… . Hodgson increasingly felt that he wanted to work with other musicians, and he officially left Supertramp at the conclusion of the tour for …Famous Last Words… . In a 1983 interview, Hodgson said, “I never really felt like a band. They always felt like a band, but I felt like a solo artist in a band.”
Falling Short of What Could Have Been
In an interview with The Arizona Republic 33 years later, Hodgson attributed the inferior quality of …Famous Last Words… to the members of Supertramp not being on the same page. He said, “It fell so far short of what we could have achieved if we had been more unified.” But given that Hodgson felt like “a solo artist in a band,” that unity would have probably been impossible for Supertramp to achieve.
In a 2015 interview with Straight, drummer Bob Siebenberg conceded the compromise between Hodgson’s and Davies’ visions for …Famous Last Words… “wasn’t really what we wanted to do.” Supertramp didn’t have much trouble leaving songs from the album behind once Hodgson departed for his solo career. For the most part, the band had left songs from …Famous Last Words… off their concert setlists over the 29 years that spanned Hodgson’s exit and the band’s final live appearances in 2012. Some of those exclusions stem from the band refraining from playing Hodgson’s compositions for some of their tours. One exception is Davies’ “Put On Your Old Brown Shoes,” which is Supertramp’s 18th-most played song in concerts, according to setlist.fm.
After …Famous Last Words…
In an interview for Rolling Stone, Hodgson acknowledged that, of the compositions that he and Davies brought to the …Famous Last Words… sessions, “the best songs fell to the wayside.” One of those was Davies’ “Brother Where You Bound,” a 10-minute piece with multiple movements that didn’t fit well with the songs that were chosen for the album. An even longer version of the song found its way onto the first Supertramp album without Hodgson. That album, also called Brother Where You Bound, went to No. 21 on the Billboard 200. It was the last Supertramp album to reach the upper half of that chart.
Davies made good on his intention to write longer and more adventurous songs on Brother Where You Bound and subsequent albums. While he didn’t get the type of album he wanted with …Famous Last Words…, listeners can get a sense of the direction he and Supertramp wanted to take on that album’s “Waiting So Long.” What Supertramp probably didn’t plan was to have a pair of Top 10 dance hits in the latter half of the ‘80s. “Cannonball” hit No. 9 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart in 1985, while “I’m Beggin’ You” topped the chart in 1988.
Hodgson would release his first solo album In the Eye of the Storm in 1984, and it included two Top 40 tracks—“Had a Dream (Sleeping with the Enemy)” (No. 11) and “In Jeopardy” (No. 30) on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. He would go on to release two more solo albums, Hai Hai (1987) and Open the Door (2000).
While Supertramp would probably just as soon forget they ever made …Famous Last Words…, at least a couple of tracks have had some legs. “It’s Raining Again” and “My Kind of Lady” are among the band’s 10 most-popular songs on Spotify. A few of the deeper cuts, including “Waiting So Long” and “C’est Le Bon,” are worth remembering, too. The classic lineup didn’t go out on the top of their game, but we can still be grateful they made this one last album, even if they’re not.
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Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
