‘Virginia Plain’: Revisiting Roxy Music’s Rule-Breaking First Hit
Catchy, quirky and charismatic, this early 70s classic courted success on its own terms.
First issued in August 1972, “Virginia Plain” provided Roxy Music with an all-important breakthrough hit that peaked at No. 4 on the U.K. Singles chart. However, while this suave, stylish pop song was a commercial success, it broke all the rules a hit single should supposedly adhere to.
“This day and age, when you think of singles, they have the perfect formula,” guitarist Phil Manzanera told Classic Rock in 2023. “Straight into the chorus for the beginning, play the hook, quick verse, back to chorus, repeat until fade. There was none of that with ‘Virginia Plain.’”
Listen to Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain” now.
As Manzanera suggests, his band’s legendary first single made a virtue of ripping up the rule book. The song had no discernible chorus, its title appeared only in the final line, and frontman Bryan Ferry’s exotic lyric sounded like a frantic stream of consciousness. With hindsight, though, the words were actually more linear than people imagined – with the first verse in particular relating to Roxy Music’s personal struggles in the music industry. Ferry’s lyric has frequently been misconstrued, not least the line where he namechecks one “Robert E. Lee.” As Phil Manzanera later confirmed, his vocalist wasn’t referring to the famous Confederate general in the American Civil War.
“Robert E. Lee was – and still is, actually – the name of the band’s lawyer,” the guitarist told Classic Rock. “So when Bryan sang of taking a deal to Robert E. Lee and hoping he doesn’t blow it, he was being very literal, as that’s exactly what happened when we were offered the deal by Island Records to sign for them.”
Musically, “Virginia Plain” also sounded entirely singular. Named after a girl depicted in an Andy Warhol-esque pop art image of a cigarette packet Ferry had painted during his art school days, the song was superficially a propulsive, straight-ahead rocker, but it was embellished by all manner of sonic quirks, ranging from Brian Eno’s sci-fi synthesizers to Andy Mackay’s oboe – and even the sound of a motorbike revving. With samplers yet to be invented in the early 70s, Roxy Music ended up capturing the latter in real time.
“We had to take the bike out onto [London’s] Piccadilly Circus, outside the recording studio,” Manzanera remembers. “Then we got someone to start the bike up, rev the engine and finally speed off, while we stood there recording it with this big reel-to-reel tape recorder.”
Collectively, Roxy Music felt “Virginia Plain” was something special, with drummer Paul Thompson later telling Record Collector that “even when we were recording it, we got the vibe that it was going to be successful.” The band’s gut instinct proved entirely accurate, for just weeks after “Virginia Plain” was released, Roxy Music debuted it on the U.K’s Top Of The Pops on August 24, 1972.
With a mascara-daubed, black clad Ferry looking especially debonair, the band’s performance was captivating and the TV exposure not only assisted “Virginia Plain” into the U.K. Top 5, but also helped Roxy Music’s self-titled debut album to climb back up the British charts. It peaked at No. 10 in September and helped introduce the band to a much larger audience.
“‘Virginia Plain’ really sums up the essence of Roxy Music in just 2 minutes and 58 seconds,” Phil Manzanera said in a 2022 Record Collector interview. “You’ve got a very short song with some wacky playing and Brian [Eno] on synth bass. You’ve got namechecks, art references, and film references, which are all so Roxy. In terms of a calling card, it couldn’t have been better.”
