Here we go with the final four songs from my in-car CD #87. The purpose of these CDs has always been to introduce my son to as a wide a variety of pop music as possible, not to steer him down any particular musical road or inculcate tribalism, which I’ve always believed to be a Very Bad Thing when it comes to musical appreciation.
Track 19: Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
Way, way back in the first decade of this disappointing millennium, Vampire Weekend were the Next Big Thing for all of three weeks or so. That said, this appears to be the average duration of Next-Big-Thingness in a world that constantly craves something NEW and rapidly loses interest in any artist with more than a couple of albums under their belt.
A-Punk is the second single from VW’s eponymous debut album, and it’s a perfect example of their early “Paul Simon meets Talking Heads” sound. Or, as iffypedia puts it, “they bonded over a shared love of punk rock and African music”… so the Paul Simon bit is actually Graceland-era Simon, where he was nicking all his rhythms (and more) from South Africa. Of course, there’s a whole political / cultural appropriation argument to be heard when anybody brings up Graceland, but it was and still is one of my favourite albums of all time, so I’m not opening that can of worms here… other than to say that it was nice to hear a New York indie band doing something in the same style. That’s what drew me to Vampire Weekend more than anything.
The lyrics here are barked out at such speed that I’ve never stopped to ponder what the song is actually about, but there’s a rather confused examination to be had on Genius if you’re into that sort of thing. The closest thing A-Punk has to a chorus is the repeated line, “Look outside at the raincoats coming, say: Oh-oh-oh-oh”, which the Genius interpreter suggests might be a reference to “the redcoats are coming” (i.e. British soldiers in the American revolutionary war) or The Raincoats (the British postpunk band, one of the band’s musical reference points). Or it could just be that the song involves a character driving slowly into New York on a snowy day, and so everyone she sees is wearing a raincoat. Is that too literal?
Track 20: Them - Gloria
“G-L-O-R-I-A”, sings Van The Man, in a song he wrote when he was 18, back in 1963, and it was only a B-side… but it still went on to become one of the most famous songs in the history of rock. The Shadows of Night had a bigger hit with it, but they didn’t sound like they were making it up as they went along like Van did (especially live, where this 2 ½ minute pop song was often stretched to 20 minutes of pure madness). And that was long before Patti Smith got a hold of it and really blew the doors off.
I’ve never seen the early promo video Them recorded for Gloria before… but watching it now, I'm surprised to find subliminal cuts of a donkey popping up every now and then. The interweb tells me that these were added after a music critic said that Van’s voice sounded like his neighbour’s ass… which only goes to prove that The (Grumpy Old) Man must have had a sense of humour once, even if it seems to have long since deserted him.
Track 21: The Clint Boon Experience - Comet Theme Number One
I was rather obsessed with The Clint Boon Experience back in the late 90s. Clint’s organ may well be the greatest thing to ever come out of the Madchester scene, and by all accounts he was a much nicer guy than the likes of Ian Brown or Shaun Ryder. (I was listening to Guy Garvey on 6Music a couple of weeks back and he told a story about how Elbow wanted to record their first album in France, but they couldn’t afford flights, so Clint Boon drove them all there in his van… then came back and collected them when the sessions were over).
I probably like the Clint Boon Experience even more than I like the Inspiral Carpets, partly for their DIY aesthetic, and partly because I was more ready for this kind of music in 1998 than I was ten years earlier. Comet Theme Number One was one of a string of catchy singles Clint and co. released towards the end of the last century. None of them were hits, but they all were in this house. CT#1 is also one of a couple of Clint Boon records to feature guest vocals by “Opera Dude” – better known these days as acclaimed singer Alfie Boe.
Track 22: John Waite – Missing You
Let’s finish this CD with a classic, shall we? (How many of you just spit out your tea? I claim a point for each ruined shirt-front.)
I was 12 when Missing You was on the radio, so obviously I loved it. Here was a big rock ballad in the “methinks he doth protest too much” vein, a sub-section of songwriting that always appealed to me because as a young man I was often laughing loud and hearty while deep inside, I was blue. I was also regularly infatuated with girls who didn’t even know I existed, and there’s definitely a sense of that in this song.
John Waite hailed from Lancaster but made more of a name for himself in the US, first as lead singer of The Babys with two Billboard Top Twenty hits in the late 70s. Missing You was his only UK solo hit, and even then it only scraped into the Top Ten, unlike the States where it knocked Tina Turner off the top spot. Waite later reunited with some of his Babys pals to form Bad English… which makes me wonder if he was casting aspersions at the UK record buying public? I’m sure he made more money in the States than he ever could have back home.
