Friday, 3 May 2019

The United Kingdom of Song #29: Aberdare


Today we stop off in the South Wales town of Aberdare, which I found mentioned by name in two fine tunes from Welsh bands...


And one of those bands got legs like you
And one of them got the stare
And one of those bands got found I heard
In a hole in Aberdare


Now I've reached it, I'm finally there
Like Terminator being filmed in Aberdare
So alone, when people stop and stare
Like C3PO but with pubes and hair

Welsh rap - can't beat that... can we?

Just down the road from Aberdare is the former coal mining village of Cwmaman, birthplace of muso-irking indie band The Stereophonics. (Or the Stereophonies as Muso-Prime, Mark Radcliffe, likes to call them.)

I can see why some people have a problem with the Stereophonics. They starter out as lyrically intriguing Welsh indie storytellers, but rapidly went a bit L.A. when it became clear they could have bigger hits by making their stories more generic and widescreen. 

That first album though... Word Gets Around... that's still a favourite of mine. Great little small town stories set to timeless indie guitars. And all those songs, although it never gets mentioned by name, were written about the band's experiences growing up... in Aberdare. They became much less interesting once they left their hometown behind.

Standing at the bus stop with my shopping 
In my hands when I'm overhearing elderly 
Ladies as the rumours start to fly you can 
Hear them in the school yard, in the scrap yard 
In the chip shop, in the phone box, in the pool hall at 
The shoe stall every corner turned around...

It started with a school girl who was 
Running running home to her mam and 
Dad told them she was playing in the 
Change room of her local football side they 
Said tell us again so she told them again 
They said tell us the truth, they found it hard 
To believe, 'cause he taught our Steve, he 
Even trained me, taught Uncle John who's a
Father of three

But it only takes one tree to make 
A thousand matches 
Only takes one match to burn 
A thousand trees 

3 comments:

  1. Phonics first album was (and still is) a great thing.
    They started to run out of steam halfway through their second album (Performance and Cocktails).
    They never stopped that initial collection of songs - top pick for me is "More Life In Tramps Vest".
    Only "Dakota" from later life comes close to original glory

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  2. I've been to Aberdare once when I was 13 - a nice story really, as my dad had been evacuated there as a child during WWII, and when we took a family holiday to Wales all those decades later, my parents decided to try and find the house where he'd stayed (fortunately, unlike for some evacuees, he'd been put with a very kind family). We drove out there, found the street, the little terraced house, and (typical of my mum, this) knocked on the door. The same family were still living there! We had afternoon tea with them and they were absolutely lovely, the mum of the household now an old lady, who delighted in regaling tales of how much my dad had hated washing behind his ears.
    Aberdare will always stick in my mind for that!

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    Replies
    1. What a lovely story. Happy to remind you of it.

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