Ibiza Rock Connections: Cream

Another blog filched from  http://www.youlearnsomethingneweveryday.com/ (don't click, it's not a real website) that brought you the story of how psychedelic sixties popsters The Pink Floyd wrote their tune 'Ibiza Bar' on the back of a fag packet in an Ibiza Bar (it's a real link) we bring you the 'Tales of brave Ulysses.'

Picture this, it was the swinging sixties, Eric Clapton, guitarist with the world's first supergroup, Cream, was God. Eric, his new perm and Frenchie girlfriend were having a few cokes in trendy London niterie, The Speakeasy.

Eric is introduced to artist and underground comic 'OZ' illustrator Martin Sharp who's just come back from Ibiza and has written a poem inspired by the island and Leonard Cohen's 'Suzanne.'


He writes it down on a serviette and gives it to Eric, who's been playing around with a new wah-wah pedal and the riff from 'Summer in the City.'


Before you can say Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, Eric's back with the poem, now called 'Tales of Brave Ulysses' as the B-side of Strange Brew and a track on hit album 'Disraeli Gears.'

Martin Sharp then gets the job of designing the album cover for Disraeli Gears.


Years later Eric Clapton actually plays a concert in Ibiza.


Here's Cream performing the ditty




And here are the lyrics


You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.
And the colours of the sea bind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses,
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.
And you see a girl's brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.
The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.
Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses, how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.
The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.


Years later, flame-haired Scouser James Barton chose to name his night at Amnesia 'Cream.' Could there be a spooky connection?