Seventeen

Ye gods.

Randcamp: 4th of July

Another month, another Randcamp, and what better inspiration than the transatlantic celebration of freedom from tyrannical British rule. Searching "4th of July" threw up a lot of poor covers, but here are three original songs with that title.

Cassandra Sun are a four-piece from New York, three quarters of whom have beards. In their own words, they create "an eclectic brand of pop-oriented rock incorporating furious, prog-influenced drumming, bass as a counterpoint ... and textured, rhythmic guitar". So there.

The Dig are also a four-piece from New York, though none of them have beards. I've listened to their 4th of July and looked at their profile picture, yet cannot marry vocal and vocalist. Maybe you can.

Everson Pines break all the trends for this post. For a start there are five of them, and then they only come from Seattle. Whatever next? I quite like Pretty High (On the 4th of July), not least for its occasional unironic whoops - the band sound like they're having fun.

So, three tracks for the 4th of July. Which, if any, has you pledging allegiance to the flag? Or which makes you want to spew into the nearest available MAGA hat?

TLAP: St Peter's Without Original

Kickstarting the month with another drab alcohol-free ale review. Sorry.

St Peter's Without Original

What's it like? This comes from the Suffolk-based St Peter's brewery and, like many of their ales, comes in a vaguely medicinal bottle that wouldn't look out of place in a Victorian apothecary. Unfortunately for this reviewer, at least, their alcohol-free "Without Original" offering tasted vaguely medicinal too - it's just so excessively malty. If you like that, good for you, but this felt like a chore to drink. It's also quite sticky on the lips, which suggests a lot of sugar, though the maltiness overpowers the sweetness. They do a "Without Organic Pale Ale" and a "Without Gold" too, and maybe they're nicer, but this "Original" is not for me, sorry.

Would I drink it in a pub? No.

Would I drink more than one? No.

Would I drink it all night? No.

Stats: 0.0% ABV. Calories 26 kcal/100ml (markedly higher than most ales featured in this series). Currently £15.95 for 8x 500ml bottles, direct from St Peter's Brewery

Stars: ★★☆☆☆

A song to end, as usual. I guess it's hard to look much beyond Nilsson and Without You, but we've all heard that a million times. So here's Harry with a slightly different take, that might be new to you.

You can decide what's true

As a kid, taping my older brother's Police albums, I always had a soft spot for those songs written by drummer Stewart Copeland. They generally seemed a little less earnest than Sting compositions, and more exciting than the occasional Andy Summers offering. They were more fun, basically, and that's what you want in the last years of primary school, right? Whether it was the kooky spoken word intro to On Any Other Day, the relatable angst of Contact or the comedy of co-composition Peanuts, I was a fan of Copeland the songwriter almost as much as I was of Copeland the drummer. And boy, can he drum.

Anyway, here's Does Everyone Stare? from the band's second album, 1979's Regatta de Blanc. Copeland himself wrote about the genesis of this song in a 1982 issue of Musician magazine, thus:

"I recorded the demo for that at home. I had a little home studio at the time with wires going everywhere - I think I was running the guitar through the toaster, that sort of thing - and I was playing the piano part while I sang the song, or at least what was supposed to be the lyrics of the song. And just as I finished singing, all the wires in the room acted like a radio and picked up a signal of this opera. It was perfectly in time and perfectly in tune, even the mood and sentiment of the thing were absolutely perfect. So it went straight on tape, exactly in the place that it should have gone. It had to be a message from above that this was the way the song had to go. So we actually used that, my home demo, at the beginning of the studio recording."

Which is nice if true.

Talking of truth, this song gives us a great example of that situation where, if enough people repeat a falsehood, it becomes the accepted, illusory truth or consensus reality. There must be a word for that^☥, but anyway, if you Google the lyrics of this song, every result you find, without exception as far as I can see, includes the lines:

My shots will always misfire

...and...

I'm gonna write you a sonnet but I don't know where to start

But they're not correct, are they? Or have I really been mishearing (and mis-singing) them for 47 years?

Here's the song, and the lyrics as I hear them. You can decide what's true.

I change my clothes ten times before I take you on a date
I'm in a cold sweat, panic makes me late
I know you never asked for this
I know
My shots were always mis-timed
My shots will always miss

Does everyone stare this way at you?
I only look this way at you

I change my clothes ten times before I take you on a date
I get the heebie-jeebies, and my panic makes me late
I break into a cold sweat reaching for the phone
I let it ring twice before I chicken out and decide you're not at home

Does everyone stare the way I do?
I only stare this way at you

I never noticed the size of my feet
Until I kicked you in the shins
Will you ever forgive me
For the shape I'm in
For the shape I'm in

Does everyone stare the way I do?
I only stare this way at you

I wanna write you a sonnet but I don't know where to start
I'm so used to laughing at the things in my heart
Last of all I'm sorry 'cos you never asked for this
I can see I'm not your type and my shot will always miss
Always miss

Does everyone stare the way I do?
I only stare this way at you (repeat to fade)

P.S. In an earlier draft of this post, a typo led me to calling the album Regatta de Bland. Settle down at the back...

^☥ Baudrillardian, perhaps? "In a world of appearance, image, and illusion, Baudrillard suggests, reality disappears although its traces continue to nourish an illusion of the real." Although what Baudrillard would have made of the Internet in general, and lyric websites in particular, is not well documented, as far as I know...

Homonyms #5: Hot Hot Hot (!!!)

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

Today's offerings seem very t(r)opical, labouring as we are under freakish June temperatures. Console yourselves with the thought that they won't be freakish in the future...

First up, the disco/party/club staple of our younger days. I have gone for this 80s version by Arrow, because it's the one I remember, rather than the 60s original by The Merrymen (or their hastily re-recorded 80s cash-in). All together now: olé, olé, olé, olé... etc.

And for contrast (who doesn't like contrast?), here are godlike geniuses The Cure, differentiating themselves slightly by adding three exclamation marks to their homonym.

One of these may make you want to embrace the heat. But which, dear reader, which?

Monday Night Nothing

What a lyric Malcolm Middleton wrote here.

On a Monday night I'm nothing
On a Tuesday night I'm nobody
On a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday night I'm sad
Then the weekend comes to haunt me
Of all the places I should be
Reminding me of the best times I ever had

So there's nothing wrong with being alone
No need to call the doctor
Sometimes people need to be by themselves
And there's nothing weird about hating yourself
When you've seen the hours I've spent
Darkness comes and darkness goes, just like my good times went

Old and driving
I'm tired from straying too far
My head won't give me a break
And the rest is making my history
I never seem to make the right decision anytime
I need to crash this piece of shit into a tree that fits

So I don't know how to finish this song
I'm happy now but for how long
I've a sad tune and I'll have to keep the tone
Well it's only a matter of time before I feel like shit again
I'm a happy army marching to defeat

Sunday shorts: You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)

26 years old yesterday. Time, eh?

Blue Friday: You Might Be Happy Someday

I bang on about The Reds, Pinks and Purples (aka Glenn Donaldson) a lot, but make no apology for that.

This little slice of Marr-inflected melancholy is from 2020. I would say enjoy, but that doesn't seem quite the right sentiment.

You might be happy someday
But for now you're a sad mistake
The moon is way too bright
It's the dead of night, you're still awake
Just when you think it's looking up
Maybe you haven't failed enough

They burned your page in the book of love
That's a pain you weren't aware of

You might be someone someday
But for now you're clearly worse
You could always turn their heads around
Now your looks are just a curse

Get yourself to the hospital
Your so-called friends
They don't care at all
They don't care at all
They don't care at all

You might be happy someday
And things are gonna go your way
Go your way

Homonyms #4: In The City

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are simply different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

Today, a little something from The Who's proto-concept album A Quick One. Unusually for the band, In The City was written by Keith and John; indeed, only they originally played on it, though Pete added some overdubbed guitar later. A bit Beach-Boys-lite in places, it was originally the B-side to I'm a Boy in 1965, before making it onto the album a year later.

And then there's The Jam's debut single, a song that needs no further introduction. Now I'm not saying Weller is a magpie (I've said that before) but listen carefully to The Who track from around the 1m45 mark, then get into The Jam's opening line... it's just a tiny snippet, but it's note for note. Anyway, forget that - this is still fantastic, nearly 50 years later. Will it ever not be?

Other artists with noteworthy songs called In The City, to name but a few, include: Madness (brilliant), Razorlight (not brilliant), Adamski (not for me), Elastica (not their best) and, er, Hanson (not as bad as you might expect).

Sunrise, sunset

Amusements Minor is growing up fast. As I type this, he's about to sit down for his final GCSE, after which he will leave his current high school. He is celebrating this evening, not with his parents, but by going for a walk with another new development, his girlfriend. Sixth form and a new school awaits. Life awaits. It's all good but, you know...

Now I know that ought to make me think of this...

...but because of my exact age, it makes me think of this. If nothing else, it proves that even soft rock MOR ballsackery can sometimes be okay. Sorry (not sorry) but, as Rol says, sometimes you just have to irk the musos.