“What Chance Have I”
by Dick Marsh
1960 song
Label: Rosco [412]
"What Chance Have I" was on Sky Saxon’s first-ever single, released in 1960 under a variant of his real name, Dick Marsh. It came out on Rosco Records, with "There's Only One Girl" on the other side.
Sky is fresh-faced and hopeful here, a 23-year old looking to hit it big in the music industry. "What Chance Have I" is a peppy teen-style number tugged along by a rapidly-picked twangy acoustic guitar string. Sky already sports that nasally whine and handles the melody with an impressively offhand ease. The guitar was played by Tommy Coe (who wrote the single’s other side); "What Chance Have I" was written by Al DeLory, Fred Darian, and Joseph Van Winkle.
Lyrically, "What Chance Have I" (as might be gleaned from its title) is unremarkable circa-1960 safe pop: the singer wallows in mawkish self-doubt, lamenting his lack of a prom date and his general loneliness. But inevitably his eye is caught by a girl with “golden curls” and “ruby lips” and our hero steels his resolve to talk to her. It turns out that she’s just as lonely. Well don’t that beat all! They kiss; they fall in love; the song ends just two minutes after it starts, as short as the insipid romance it describes.
"What Chance Have I" is charming enough in its own right, and of obvious importance to Sky Saxon fanatics as one of the earliest available recordings we have from him. The performance here may be tentative but there is panache and a certain individuality already in place – he couldn’t escape the voice that would eventually soar to lofty flower-punk highs with The Seeds and beyond. Everything seems in place for The Seeds… except the lysergic ingredient that would ferment Sky’s loopy sound.
Even Sky Saxon collectors were unaware of this song until it saw re-release in 2003 on Arcania International’s Sky Saxon Presents "A Starlight Date With Richard Marsh". The vinyl LP-only compilation of all twelve known Sky Saxon solo singles from the early rock and roll days before he became a psychedelic Seed is invaluable but does suffer from a too-heavy noise reduction.
