Thursday, 12 March 2026

Sticky songs

I was listening to the radio recently and the DJ was playing songs with Welsh connections, in honour of St David's Day. Yes, the 1st of March. So that's 11 days ago, right? The thing is, one of the songs that got played has been stuck in my head ever since.

There's nothing exceptional about it, musically, and the lyrics are cutting in places, funny in others, but that's all. It's not Dylan- or Morrissey-level wordsmithery, that's what I'm saying. And yet...

...certain lines, and one couplet in particular, have lodged in my hippocampus with the tenacity of bathroomn sealant sticking anywhere you don't want it to go.

This is why, eleven days later, I'm unexpectedly writing about the late-Britpop era nonsense that is The Ballad of Tom Jones by Scouse try-hards Space, featuring the Marmite-vocals of Cerys Matthews, on-loan from Catatonia. And why, eleven days later, I'm still finding myself unexpectedly crooning both halves of the "I've never thrown my knickers at you ... and I don't come from Wales" distich... It's a sticky song, and a sticky lyric.

So here it is, in all its, ahem, glory, in a great ToTP performance. Cerys really sells this, I think, and everyone concerned seems to be having fun. Weren't we all, in 1998?

For the avoidance of doubt, I've never thrown my knickers at anybody, however much my singing in the kitchen might suggest otherwise.

No comments:

Post a Comment