Ayers was British musician, part of the explosion of creativity from that country in the 1960s and 70s.  But in many ways he was an anachronistic figure.  His stepfather was a civil servant and young Ayers spent almost his entire childhood in Malaysia, at that time still part of the British Empire.  Most of his adult life was spent in the sunny climes of southern Europe, in France and Spain.  His life was a state of almost continuous exile, more reminiscent of James Joyce or Graham Greene rather than his fellow rock musicians.
This song, written early in his career when he was still in the Soft Machine, one of the first British Art Rock bands, demonstrates his whimsy and ambivalence.  The trademarks of an outsider, but one who is not altogether unhappy with that state of affairs.  His best music hints at an enormous talent masked by ambivalence and not taking himself quite seriously enough to try quite hard enough.
His musical career began in the early 1960s when he encountered like-minded souls in Canterbury, in southeastern England.  Teenagers like Ayers who were 'into jazz and very weird compared to everyone else".  This was the beginning of the "Canterbury Scene" a collection of bands and musicians with some unifying characteristics and a diversity of styles who recorded a lot of music in the late 1960s through the 1970s with only the most modest commercial success.  The most notable of Ayer's musical colleagues were Robert Wyatt, Wyatt's school friend Hugh Hopper, and Hugh's older brother Brian.
In 1964 they formed a band, the Wilde Flowers, which played R&B and pop covers as well as original pop material.  They didn't release any recordings during the their 3 year existence but a large number were later released in the 1990s.  The one above features Ayers on lead vocal.
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What More Can I Say
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