Star for a Week (Dino)

Background

"Star for a Week" was first been performed live in 1979 at Harley's sold out Hammersmith Odeon concert. For many years after, Harley would almost always perform the track at each live concert, which established the song as a live favourite for fans. After signing to RAK Records in 1984, the song was due to be released on Harley's 1986 solo album El Gran Senor, however when the label went bankrupt, the album was shelved.

A few years later, "Star for a Week (Dino)" was re-recorded for the Yes You Can album. Like much of the album, the song was recorded and remixed at the White House Studios in Bures, Suffolk, England. When the album was given a UK release by Food for Thought Records in 1993, "Star for a Week (Dino)" was issued as a promotional single, designed to gain radio-play.

The song's lyrics are based on a true story of a young man called Dino, who during the late 1970s went on the run with a friend and robbed several shops and post offices in Norfolk, while hiding out in a local woodland. Intrigued by the story, the song features many lines that Harley heard through TV news coverage of the two outlaws, particularly quotes from Dino's own mother. The line speaking of "the man with no name" was in reference to the Clint Eastwood character of the same name, which a victimised postmistress had used to describe Dino. Harley felt the story had a little bit of "Billy the Kid" about it.

During a filmed performance of the song being performed live at Brighton in 1989, Harley revealed:

"This is a song with a story which for me illustrates the undying, relentless loyalty and faith which a mother has for her son. About nine or ten years ago, there's this boy in Norfolk called Dino, who was running around with a shotgun, holding up some post offices. He did this for several weeks - he got caught eventually, red handed. I remember the cops said to him; 'what'd you do it for? You've never done anything wrong before in your life'. And he said 'I just wanted to be somebody, I just wanted to be a star for a week or two'. Well he was that, it was on the national news. Little did he know his mum said 'It wasn't my Dino, couldn't be Dino, couldn't be Dino. He lives for his motorcycle, he wouldn't do such a thing, couldn't be Dino.' Caught red handed, he confessed; 'My mum still thinks I got a day job'."

Before performing the song at a concert in Athens, Greece, during 2011, Harley commented further:

"This song is about two young men. They were in the late teenage in the mid/late '70s and they went on the run in the UK, near close to where I live now, in East Anglia. And they had a shotgun - they were holding up and raiding small post offices and newspaper shops - little shops that just sold newspapers and sweets and cigarettes. They were raiding these shops and terrifying mostly elderly, innocent people who ran these shops. And I listened - I wrote down all the stuff that this story was about and I took a lot of the original words that people used in their press reports, and I wrote them all down. The boy was from a Greek family - the leader of the gang of two. He was called Dino. They spoke to his mother one day, and he was a well-brought up boy, and they said to her on the television when he was hiding in the woods - they were living very rough in a camp in the woods hiding from the police for three weeks. The TV news interviewed his mother in Cambridge, and they asked her what he was doing, why he was doing this? And she said, she actually said to them 'I don't know - I think he just wants to be somebody. He just wants to be someone.' They asked 'what do you mean by that?' and she said 'He just wants to be a star for a week or two', and I'm writing it down, thinking, 'Oh this is great'. And I wrote it all down, and she wrote me a chorus - his mum, and the rest of it was the story I got. I used to say years ago when I sang this song on stage, I'd say that I borrowed some of the lyrics from other people. It's not entirely true - as I get older my conscience has got the better of me - and I have to confess I didn't borrow them at all - I stole them."

Release

The single was released by Food for Thought Records on CD in the UK only. The B-Side "The Lighthouse" was written by Harley and also appeared on Yes You Can. The single had no artwork and was issued in a clear plastic sleeve.

Following the original release, the song has appeared on three compilations; the 1998 EMI compilation More Than Somewhat – The Very Best of Steve Harley, the 2000 Disky Records Steve Harley compilation Best of the 70's. and the 2006 EMI compilation Cockney Rebel: A Steve Harley Anthology.

The song has been included on various live albums including the 1995 album Live at the BBC, which Harley recorded during a session for Nicky Campbell in 1992, and the 1999 album Stripped to the Bare Bones.

in 1984, the song was part of the band's recorded concert at the Camden Palace in London, which was filmed for a special TV broadcast. In 1985, the same concert, including the song, was released on VHS, titled Live from London. In 1989, the Brighton/Northampton performance of the song was professionally filmed during the band's comeback "All is Forgiven" tour. It was also released on VHS, titled The Come Back, All is Forgiven Tour: Live. Audio CD versions of the concert have since been released across Europe in many guises, and in Germany, a release of the album was issued in 1993 under the song's title Star for a Week.

Track listing

1. "Star for a Week (Dino)" - 4:33
2. "The Lighthouse" - 5:58

Critical reception

Dave Thompson of AllMusic spoke of the song and its B-Side in a retrospective review of Yes You Can album: "It's a sad state of affairs, but the best of "Yes You Can", Steve Harley's first new album in a decade, was never going to make it onto a studio recording. Rather, it resides in the live environment where the songs almost unanimously came to life, a fact which Harley himself seemed to acknowledge with the release, just six months later, of Live in the UK. There, both "Star for a Week (Dino)" and "The Lighthouse" emerge with vibrant electricity, as emotionally charged as any old favorites, as deliciously delivered as they deserved. In the studio, however, though the quality remains, the emotion pales, and Harley's energies - hitherto rejuvenated after so long in abeyance - flag accordingly."

Thompson also spoke of the song in an AllMusic retrospective review of the Make Me Smile - Live on Tour album from 1996: "The highlights, then, are the same as last time - two cuts from Harley's "Yes You Can" album, "The Lighthouse" and "Star for a Week," work far more effectively live than they did in the studio."

In a 1998 Sheffield Concert Review by Q magazine, the writer Peter Kane stated: "To make sure this particular evening goes with a swing, it certainly helps that the audience could have handpicked that very afternoon from the streets of Sheffield. At least half of them seem to know all the words to everything, not just the familiar old stuff like "Judy Teen" and "Mr. Soft", but even the comparatively recent "The Last Time I Saw You" and "Star for a Week (Dino)". They sing along whether encouraged to do so or not. Mostly not. It's like stumbling into a private function with its own mystifying rules and rituals."

Star for a Week (Dino)

The Lighthouse