Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In the 1932 cowboy movie The Western Code, a local hoodlum, played by Wheeler Oakman, tells Tim McCoy’s visiting lawman: “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us and I’m going to give you 24 hours to get out.” Their stilted display of machismo might have been forgotten were it not for two brothers with a love of old cinema, who borrowed the line more than 40 years later.“This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” was the first single on Sparks’ third album Kimono My House, the title of which was a play on “Come On-a My House”, a song made famous by Rosemary Clooney. The band had previously released two LPs in America though sales had been disappointing. And so the Maels, who were committed anglophiles, upped sticks to London where they hoped audiences might better appreciate their absurdist sensibilities.Still, the Maels were aware that, even by their standards, the song was an odd one and were surprised when producer Muff Winwood picked it out as a potential single. When Elton John heard it, he made a bet with Winwood that it wouldn’t be a hit, which he duly lost. After their Top of the Pops performance, Sparks were, in Britain at least, an overnight sensation, tailed by mobs of screaming fans who would invade the stage at concerts and try to rip off Russell’s clothes.Over their 59-year career, Sparks’ star has waxed and waned, though they have never stopped making music. In his 2021 documentary, The Sparks Brothers, filmmaker Edgar Wright wondered how they could be “successful, underrated, hugely influential and overlooked all at the same time”. Amid their vast back catalogue, “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” remains their defining achievement, the purest embodiment of the Mael brothers’ unorthodox, uncompromising and fiercely creative spirit.Let us know your memories of ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ in the comments section belowThe paperback edition of ‘The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by ChambersMusic credits: Universal-Island; Polydor; Lil’ Beethoven/BMG; The Last Dinner Party/Universal
