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I Know It Was You, Sandy. You Broke My Heart: “Jean” by Oliver

By Marcello Carlin



The story of Jean Brodie is one which perhaps could only have taken place in Edinburgh. It is very difficult to picture it set in Glasgow – for her brutalist equivalent in the West, see Patrick Doyle in Kelman’s A Disaffection. The two are morally not that far apart since, to paraphrase Kelman, Miss Brodie is dangerous to herself and the weans she professes to teach on a daily basis. Those who imagine a pre-Dead Poets Society halcyon era of golden rulebook-out-the-window teaching may be subtly startled by Muriel Spark’s cumulatively quite unforgiving (if frequently very funny) prose. Few people are less capable of teaching than Jean Brodie.

The film of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie was adapted from Jay Prosser Allen’s 1966 adaptation of the book (which in itself had initially been serialised in The New Yorker) which was not really the same as the novel; sections are pulled out of context for dramatic impact, and the final melodramatic showdown between Brodie and Sandy does not appear in the book at all; instead, the latter slowly ebbs to a halt – Brodie suspects that it was Sandy who “betrayed” her but falls ill and dies before she can know for sure, while Sandy gives little away (apart from betraying Brodie’s comprehensive inability to listen).

However, the film was extremely popular, even if, as a then married couple, one would always suspect that Maggie Smith’s Brodie and Robert Stephens’ art teacher would have the greater chemistry. Rod McKuen wrote the song for the movie, perhaps with a view to its being sung by Gordon Jackson’s music teacher (and the latter ends up marrying the science teacher Miss Lockhart – played by Jackson’s real-life wife Rona Anderson!). It is nicely tender, if somewhat sentimental (“come out to the meadow,” “bonnie Jean” etc.).

McKuen initially recorded it and released it as a single, without success; however, Oliver (real name Bill Swofford) recorded his own version (produced by Bob Crewe) for an album to be released following the success of his “Good Morning Starshine” (a number three hit earlier in the year). The singer was somewhat taken aback that “Jean” became an even bigger hit, since he had never envisaged it as a single. In the light of Henry Mancini’s chart-topping “Love Theme From ‘Romeo And Juliet’,” it was really not that unusual for a 3/4 ballad to become a big hit amidst the final throes of psychedelia. The song was nominated for an Academy Award but lost out, not unreasonably, to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” There’s nothing really wrong with the song other than to question whether Miss Brodie deserves it, while Oliver delivers his interpretation in a tone of agreeable blandness which foresees, of all unlikely would-be Grassmarket inhabitants, John Denver.

Date Record Made Number Two: 4 October 1969
Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 2
Record At Number One: “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies
UK Chart Position: None

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