"The success of that record was basically down to its great songs. I never tired of hearing them over the entire time, and I think the album has a very uplifting feel to it. To my mind, it still sounds fresh, the tracks have a real energy and a real vibrancy to them, and it doesn't sound dated".
Paul Henderson, SoundonSound
"The Logical Song" was British rock band Supertramp's greatest hit, charting well in the US, UK and South Africa after it was released as the lead single from their sixth studio album, Breakfast in America (1979). Besides winning the 1979 Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically", it was described by Rolling Stone's Stephen Holden as a 'small masterpiece':
"Breakfast in America is a textbook-perfect album of post-Beatles, keyboard-centered English art rock that strikes the shrewdest possible balance between quasi-symphonic classicism and rock & roll [...] Supertramp's major problem is an increasing dichotomy between their rhapsodic aural style and a glib, end-of-the-empire pessimism [...] the only cut that really wrestles the dichotomy is "The Logical Song." In this small masterpiece, singer Roger Hodgson enacts an Everyman who excoriates an education that preaches categorical jargon instead of knowledge and sensitivity."
Written from an autobiographical point of view and based on Roger Hodgson's experience of being sent away to boarding school for ten years (a quintessentially British rite of passage). There's spot on and concise lyrics that effectively describe the psychological harm done by a rigid and cold education system, while Hodgson's wry humour and understated melancholy help the song go down well (as does the ample assonances, flamenco spots and sax interlude):
'When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderfulA miracle, oh it was beautiful, magicalAnd all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happilyJoyfully, playfully watching meBut then they send me away to teach me how to be sensibleLogical, responsible, practicalAnd they showed me a world where I could be so dependableClinical, intellectual, cynicalThere are times when all the world's asleepThe questions run too deepFor such a simple manWon't you please, please tell me what we've learnedI know it sounds absurdBut please tell me who I amNow watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radicalLiberal, fanatical, criminalWon't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you'reAcceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!'
Lyrics: Genius
The song provides a much-needed cathartic system for anyone who has gone through painful experiences in the face of imperfect education systems and teachers - which certainly distracts from how the song demonstrates that Hodgson's supposedly soul-draining experience in boarding school clearly did not rob him of his creative and imaginative faculties (and instead became the crowning glory of his musical career). But then, coping with modernity seems to necessitate a healthy embrace of irony.
