Emotional Responses To Specific Pieces Of Music – how and why do they happen?

Today I am going to write about how a certain song,  might – and can – trigger powerful emotional responses in human beings, and – for a future, related piece – I am also interested in how an “emotional connection” can form with regards to a specific piece of music – a song, an album sometimes – and how the interplay of time, distance, nostalgia, longing, sorrow, joy, alienation, hope and a myriad of other powerful emotions can be and often are experienced by listeners – and under what conditions and circumstances does this occur?

While I have spoken to other musicians, acquaintances and friends about this phenomena from time to time over the years, it’s only recently, when hearing certain pieces of music for the first time in many months – or, in a few instances of hearing pieces after many years of not hearing them – that I’ve had a remarkable emotional experience – and up until now – I have never really explored the “how” and the “why” of this.

Given that I only have my own emotional responses to hand as a reference;  I am going to cite just one recent example today – where I experienced a very powerful, emotional response during the playback of a particular song.   I think I will leave the “emotional connection” issue for a future discussion – and concentrate on and just look at the sudden and inexplicable emotional response alone in this blog – it’s a mystery enough on its own!

I’ve been “listening to music” now actively for several decades, and that experience, over time, has changed, and changed again.  In the past, I’ve had strong emotional responses to songs, and more recently – some really, truly powerful ones – and I feel that the time has come to try to gain a better understanding, to gain in some cases any understanding – of how and why both powerful emotional responses (as well as the less emotional but no less interesting emotional connections to songs) occur – I want to attempt to gain any understanding at all – because a lot of the how and why is just not clear to me so far.

It’s my hope, too, that by broaching this somewhat personal and sensitive topic, that others might “weigh in” and share with us,  their own experiences with emotional response  to music – so that we might all better understand what happens to us when we are powerfully “affected” by the simple act of hearing a particular piece of music.

The only way we can begin to understand the powerful, emotional experiences I am referencing here, is to describe one such experience in as much detail as possible – which is both embarrassing and also, very personal – because I think – and I don’t really “know” this – but I think – that each of us unique individuals is different – and therefore, each of us will have a very specific and very personal experience based on our own individual emotional “make up” if you will – and I would break that down thusly as a sort of background to the discussion in general:

• Some individuals may experience a powerful emotional response to a piece of music – while others, may not. For those who never have experienced this – well – this may not be a very interesting blog to read lol (my apologies), unless you happen to know someone like me – who this DOES happen to from time to time – and / or you are curious to want to understand more as to the “how and why” of these emotional responses – what is actually causing them – how do they occur – why do they occur – none of these are simple questions with simple answers – so the more data we have – the better.

 

• The “symptoms” or “affects” of the emotional response will also vary greatly between individuals – in some, it might just be a wistful feeling, it might be a smile or a happy feeling, it might be a sad feeling –  perhaps a welling up of tears but no actual physical response – right on up to and including some truly powerful and inexplicable emotional responses such as suddenly bursting into tears unexpectedly or sobbing uncontrollably a moment or two after a “particular” song begins to play (or when a playing song reaches a certain point in its musical and lyrical narrative) – the exact “when” of the response is somewhat indeterminate.   So the level of the reaction will vary greatly between experiencing individuals.

 

• So – the term I am using – “emotional response” – clearly runs a gamut from mild – to medium – to incredibly powerful feelings “evoked” by a particular song – the most extreme reactions I would term “powerful emotional responses” while the milder ones I would just deem to be lesser “emotional responses”.  That is about as far towards “defining” this experience that I have got to date – “emotional responses” and “powerful emotional responses”.  Not much of a definition – but it’s a start, and it’s a place from which a more definite definition can grow I hope with some further data and some further descriptions of other experiences should those appear in response to this blog.

 

• In some cases, the “trigger” for the response, might just be “part” of a song rather than the entire song – a chorus, a verse, maybe just the lyrics – who knows? For me, it usually “feels like” it’s the whole song, like it is a true mixture of
  • the music playing and it being heard and understood – and
  • the vocals and lyrics sung being heard and understood…

…but, sometimes, within that experience – one particular musical phrase or one particular lyric – can sometimes impact the listener with a further, even more powerful response – so some parts of the song are more powerful “evokers” – than others.  It’s very difficult to articulate this point clearly – I would say, as example, that during the experience that I had – that the” level” or “intensity” of my emotional response definitely increased at certain crucial points which seemed to correlate with certain words, certain tones in the singers voice, or certain emotions that the lyrics and the vocal performance produced in me – it wasn’t just – a flat response, but more like a very short, very powerful emotional roller coaster ride – with certain parts of the song (i.e. “…and once when I was so drunk” and especially “she was strong…and she lifted me…”) caused a much stronger emotion for a few fleeting seconds – as part of what was already a highly charged and very emotional experience – peaks of intensity, might be one way to describe this.

 

 

So… bearing the above in mind, here is a recent “powerful emotional response” that I had to a song.   I have attempted here,  to set up some background so you can understand the context better – because the onset of the response was so sudden, so unexpected  – that I want to understand that background as well as possible myself – in the hopes of reaching some kind of understanding as to how and why this very sudden, very, very unexpected, and incredibly powerful emotional experience happens – and even stranger – why does it only happen on certain occasions, under certain sets of circumstances – and not every time I hear that particular song?

 

EXAMPLE SONG – “The Girls In The Flat Upstairs” by Martin Newell – taken from his 1995 record “The Off-White Album” – it’s the final track on the record – featuring a two guitars-bass-and drums rock band with a real string quartet added for an amazing pop sheen – it’s a cracking tune! (I recommend this song and this entire album to anyone who likes high quality pop or rock music with thoughtful, intelligent lyrics – by all means – give it a listen if you can).

 

NOTE: A full transcript of the song’s lyric is provided at the very end of this post – please see below.

 

Background

In the early 1990s, in about 1993, via my longstanding admiration of the band XTC and probably through the auspices of “Chalkhills” – the official XTC website (admirably built, run and maintained for many, many years now by my friend and fellow Level  One Guitar Craft partner, the remarkable Mr. John Relph – mandolinist extraordinaire) – I learned about an album called “The Greatest Living Englishman” by an artist named Martin Newell with whom I was not familiar with at that time.

My initial interest in this album was due to the fact that one Andy Partridge (of the band XTC)  had played a lead guitar solo on one of the tracks (“We’ll Build A House”) – and being a huge fan of Andy’s guitar playing – I simply wanted to hear that solo.  And on a more human level – I wanted to hear any album by a friend of Andy Partridge – and by someone who Andy admired enough to take the time to support the album by playing on it – that definitely piqued my interest in the record.

So I got that album (and, incidentally, I subsequently learned that “We’ll Build A House” guitar solo note for note – it’s not terrifically difficult but it’s quite subtle and beautiful – you should have a go if you are a guitarist!) – and that – the purchase of and enjoyment of buying that album – then – later on, led me to automatically buying the next Martin Newell release – “The Off-White Album”  from 1995 – which, curiously – features a fantastic guitar solo by the OTHER guitarist from XTC – the remarkable Dave Gregory.

By the mid-1990s then – approximately 25 years ago now – I collected these two albums by Martin Newell – and I played them both a lot – and over the years, neither has been neglected – they both have a lot of great songs on them – and in fact, as John Relph of Chalkhills pointed out – Martin Newell is a proponent of something I think he called “Jangly Pop” (or is it “Jangle Pop” – I am not quite sure now) – which is an apt-enough description.

I would, however, hasten to add – that this description does not mean this music is frivolous in any way – and while some songs are definitely excellent examples of “Jangly” or “Jangle Pop” – some of the songs are also hard-hitting social commentary and are moving in the extreme – and are still relevant and hard-hitting after 25 years – in my personal opinion.

These two albums are pop albums, made mostly with a sort of two guitars bass and drums approach – featuring the excellent socially aware and often fairly biting social commentary of Martin Newell’s lyrics – mixed in with songs of love and loss and all of the familiar topics that get covered on the more serious less frivolous pop music or singer / songwriter releases.  Martin himself,  happens to also be a very well-read and well-respected poet of no mean skill – so he brings a poet’s sensibilities to his” jangly” pop music and to his more serious lyrics, too – a potent and attractive combination of factors.

In fact it was the element of storytelling, and the obvious poetic bent of some of the lyrics on both of these mid 90s albums – that made them stand out from the crowd at the time – and finding out later on that Martin Newell was in fact very well known for his poetry – well, when I learned that, the lyrics of these two albums made even more sense to me than they already did – they have a somewhat deeper meaning I believe, because of the way they are presented – as living stories with a poetic lilt – that’s maybe not quite it – but it’s something like that.

Not your typical “I love you why don’t you love me” kind of boy-girl pop song lyrics – but in fact, Martin’s lyrics loaded with meaning – foresight, foreboding, hindsight, regret, fear, alienation – insight – it’s all there in Martin’s words – not to mention, a wicked sense of humour which can be seen in some of the wonderful titles and puns that abound in Martin’s work – for example the title of the album that the example song in this blog comes from “The Off-White Album” – which happens to contain a track that clearly pays tribute to a George Harrison song – “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – from “The White Album” by the Beatles – I mean come on – “The Off White Album” – that is a great album name and a funny one, too – a great slightly off-kilter view of a pop album –“Off-White” rather than “White” – brilliant!

 

As with all albums, there is a real mix of tracks on both records, and you get some very sentimental, lovely songs and some powerful, dark, socially aware songs where Martin is clearly less than pleased with the way the government is doing things, with the politics of the day, or with the attitudes of real folk he has encountered while busking – such as “Queen Phyllis of Colchester” – [which as noted above –  is a nearly direct copy of the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – from Martin’s “The Off-White Album”] – which happens to be the track where Dave Gregory unleashes his own inner Eric-Clapton-psycho-guitar solo – so the albums both contain songs ranging from very light-hearted to much more serious – and everywhere in between.

 

If you are by chance, familiar with these records, then this example will make more sense to you perhaps – but if not, if it’s possible, if you are able to hear “The Off-White Album” once or twice so you get the feel for what kind of music this is – an excellent work of true quality I would say – nothing particularly unusual about it that might make it good music to evoke an emotional response – just a good quality album, by a good artist who writes excellent lyrics and makes good records.

What’s not to like?

 

I suggest a listen to “The Off-White Album” by Martin Newell then, because that is the album that contains the track that affected me so deeply in this example.  Barring that – a listen to the actual song in question – “The Girls In The Flat Upstairs” by Martin Newell – taken from his 1995 record “The Off-White Album” – would also help set the scene for this incident.

 

THE INCIDENT

2019 has been a strange, strange year for me – and it has been a transitional year for me in a lot of ways – for example, over the past three to four months, I’ve been undergoing a physical and mental transformation of my music work space and my working method in my head – with a view to doing things a bit differently going forward – please see my previous blog regarding, among other things – a new approach to music making that I am in the process of formulating this year (2019).

Because of the work being done on physical infrastructure / sound systems and the like, I pretty much didn’t have a lot of ready access to my library of recorded music for a few months while I was doing a lot of the physical re-construction work – or –  it was available rather, but I was not – so while normally, throughout my life, I have always listened to recorded music as part of my pretty much daily experience of music – to some degree, during the first half of 2019 – I did not listen to as much music as I might have normally – so I was feeling a bit disconnected perhaps, because of that – I don’t know.

 

So –  one of the first things I did during my physical set up of my new office space, was to make sure that the sound card and speakers were in working order, and that I had my new favourite music player up and running (FOOBAR 2000 – a great player – get it!) and I then did start listening to items from my catalogue of recorded music again – from my main CD library.

During this time, I also did some serious upgrading of the data for my recorded music – i.e. I fixed my internal song tags over a period of weeks…so I was going back through a lot of catalogue items, updating and correcting the tags – which left my entire collection in such better condition in terms of its data being far more useful , correct and clear now compared to what it has been historically since I started collecting my music digitally in about 2008.

 

Having a much more modern and capable music player such as FOOBAR 2000, allowed me to visually “see” a lot of problems in the data and in the tagging – which led to me getting a great tagging tool – “MP3Tag” – so I used that tool to make corrections and apply categories and add missing content – and so on – and in just a few weeks, the quality of my music tags went from liveable to extremely well organised and documented.

As a result of all of the above, as the year progressed, I began listening to more and more music again, as you do when you’ve had a time away from it – you want to hear things again that you have missed hearing, and so on.

It was nearer the beginning of this process, when I didn’t have the sound card and speakers set up, and I had not been able to listen to much recorded music for a few months – this is when this occurred, and it surprised me in an incredible way – it was just out of the blue.

I was working on installing music software or getting programmes and samples and synths to do my bidding or some such tedious set up tasks (loading software, joy of joys), when I decided to put on some Martin Newell music – which I hadn’t heard for a couple of years perhaps.

 

When I reached the final piece of music on “The Off-White Album” – which is a lovely song about some kindly neighbour girls who looked after the singer of the song when he was really drunk – “The Girls In The Flat Upstairs” that I suddenly realised that I was sobbing uncontrollably, just crying like a child at this ordinary story of life as told by Martin Newell.

I have always liked that song – but it had never, ever had an effect like THAT on me before!  It happened so suddenly, and it was such an intense feeling – really upsetting! – it took me completely by surprise – completely.

 

My brain immediately went into “analysis mode” and I tried to think – what on EARTH just caused that?  What on earth…

And what is even really stranger is that I absolutely had never had any comparable or “relate-able” experience – I’ve never had any personal incident like the one depicted in the song or anything even close to that experience described.

I have never had an incident where I got a bit too drunk and my neighbours or friends or something – had to get me into the house and put to bed – but the way Martin tells this story – it sounds like he did have such an experience – or at the very least, his song writing talent has allowed him to “invent” this wonderful story of the neighbours helping him when he could not help himself.

There must be something about the lyrics, I thought – but then part of me thinks that it’s the real string quartet that is featured in the song – those string parts – perhaps it is those really affect me (??)  Even when I am not having a powerful emotional response to the song – but I am just unsure as to what it really, precisely it is that causes this sudden, uncontrollable emotional experience.  My brain desperately tried to find an explanation, a reason – for such an outburst – and I came up with nothing – no answers.

 

I keep going back to the lyric of the song – and also, the way in which Martin sings those lyrics – he describes his upstairs flatmates in the first part of the song – and then suddenly the scene shifts, and he is talking about “once when I was so drunk…she was strong – and she lifted into my room and put me to bed…” – he goes on to describe how she (one of the girls from the flat upstairs, of course) took care of him and left him a drink “for next day” when he woke up – and  there is absolutely no correlation to my own life here – so I have to begin to believe that in this particular example – that the sobbing and the tears and the heartbreak I experienced when hearing this song again after some time away from it – is (perhaps?)  an “EMPATHIC” response on my part.

 

i.e.  I feel  emotion not for myself (since I have no frame of reference for an experience like this one in my own life) but on behalf of the recipient of the care and kindness of “The Girls In The Flat Upstairs”  – there is real emotion in Martin’s voice when the strings preface his vocal and he says “and once, when I was so drunk…she was strong” – I am not entirely sure, but I believe that that particular line – “she was strong…”  is possibly the “trigger” that in this case, led me to burst into tears spontaneously and cry all the way through to the end of the song.

 

What an extraordinary and completely surprising thing to happen – and – why didn’t it happen, on the previous dozens of listens to that song over the period from 1995 through to this very different listening experience of early 2019?

Why now?  And – and why DIDN’T I react to it emotionally for the first 24 years of listening to it?

 

NOTE:  Since that time, I have out of curiosity – played the song again – since the early 2019 “emotional event” I have just described – to see if anything would happen.  I didn’t experience the extreme reaction again – but I did feel something akin to it under the surface – and remarkably, when writing the paragraphs above, recounting the actual incident –  I did briefly become overwhelmed with tears and again when trying to write out the lyrics.

So that was a recurring emotional response – something about that line “once when I was so drunk…she was strong…” somehow, those words, sung so beautifully by Martin and supported so beautifully by his band and the real string quartet he used on the session – somehow – that was the trigger – I think.

 

From here forward then – I have nothing but questions. I’d very much welcome your opinion here – any ideas or thoughts you might have about this incident, the how and why of it – I’d be very interested indeed to hear – because music is a very powerful yet mysterious thing – and this was an unforgettable experience for me personally – a beautiful experience despite the very real sense sorrow and sadness accompanying my reaction.

 

• How did it happen that a song I know well, that I’ve heard dozens of times over 25 years – how is it that suddenly, in the here and now of 2019 – how did it happen that hearing it caused a powerful emotional response in me this time – and not on many other listening occasions?
• Why did this occur – has something changed, does the lyric now hold meaning for me that it did not previously?
• Did my perception of the song itself change – am I hearing it in some “new way”, that “allows” for an additional layer of perception which is emotional upset? (Like going from 2D to 3D video?)
• Did I somehow gain a new or different understanding of the lyrics – or somehow detect emotional content in the singing or in the lyrics that I was perhaps, not able to detect 25 years ago when I first heard the song?
• What on earth caused this to happen?
• Why this song – why not a hundred, a thousand others? Why not really famous songs about very naked emotions – “Yer Blues” or something like that – why THIS beautiful song?
• I would have understood this better, had the lyrics of the song affecting me be something relating to an experience that I had had in my life – but in this case, there is absolutely no relationship to any personal experience I’ve had – I’ve never needed to be carried to my bed and put to bed because I am too drunk to get their myself; I’ve never had flatmates or neighbours who went out of their way to help me or care about me – the song could in fact, be a total invention (as it turns out, it is partially autobiographical – please read on below) – but regardless of that – it does NOT relate to any similar real incident in my life.
• I would have expected a song that recounts an experience – probably an emotional one like being in love, or, of losing a love or maybe some other kind of recounting of some other emotional or other trauma – to be something that would trigger such a response – that makes sense, because you can “relate” to the characters in the song, something nearly identical or very similar may have happened to you in your life – so you can relate and therefore, that song might suddenly strike you as being “exactly about you” and “all about you” – and that very similar experience that you had that apparently, the singer of the song had to.
• Not so in this example – I have no relatable anything between my life, and the events and the story of “The Girls The Flat Upstairs” by Martin Newell.
• So – how – and why – did this happen?

 

 

I would love to hear your own experiences if any – like this, and what conclusions, if any, you came to in trying to understand why your response occurred.  Please don’t be shy – speak up – I think it is an interesting demonstration of the power of music – but it’s an “intangible” quality of music – it’s definitely not in the score “add extreme emotion HERE” – and that intangible quality isn’t easy to pinpoint or describe or explain – and yet – it exists, and it can be very surprising and very powerful indeed.

 

This is just one example of such an incident;  I’ve had a few other similar ones here and there over the years – but not one so powerful, so recent, and so utterly inexplicable.

I could now listen to that song over and over – and I would feel nothing more unusual than the very pleasant experience of listening to a well-written and well-recorded piece of pop music that I happen to admire.  It seems odd to me that on just one occasion, really, that this song should have such a profound and upsetting effect on me – it was quite, quite upsetting to say the very least.  I’m actually, very glad that it doesn’t happen every time – or I would spend far too much time sobbing over a song instead of just enjoying listening to music as I always, always have.

Having said that – I am also very glad it happened, because while it was upsetting at the time – for three or four minutes only so not a big deal – it was actually a unique and wonderful experience that is quite rare, so it was interesting and memorable for me in that regard.

 

In considering this still further, spending still more time thinking about it – I can come up with but one tentative, half-baked “theory” as to why this song may affected me so much that day – which is this – it could possibly be due to a sort of – for lack of a proper description – a “long-delayed short bout of self-pity” (hopefully, I just invented that – but it sounds quite unpleasant) – and this is only a theory – I am not sure I believe this – but, many years ago, I did tend to drink a bit too much myself – [a lot of young men and women, too, do this] – but in recent years I am basically 100 percent sober – once a year I might have a glass of wine – or a Guinness Stout – but then I might let two years lapse before I do that again.  So now, for the past eight or nine years – I have had very, very little to drink, and I no longer use alcohol as a pain-killer – which I admit I did do back in the day – this is not uncommon – especially among musicians I am afraid.

 

But back in the day, quite a few years ago now – I drank quite a bit of beer and wine and sometimes even stronger alcohol (including a few months where I drank copious quantities of Tia Maria – don’t ask me why – because I have no idea lol) – and now –  I don’t.

For health reasons only, I do regret that I drank so much – I used to really knock back the white wine – which also makes you gain huge amounts of weight by the way) – but now, in hindsight (which is always 50/50 of course!) I don’t think the drinking ever “helped” me  with anything and I think my body – which I now take care of much better than I used to – didn’t need all that alcohol.

It’s alleged “pain killing” qualities aren’t really there – it pretty much just damages you although short term, you can get some great illusions that you are “feeling no pain” and that you have somehow (by poisoning your system?) managed to “drown your sorrows” – I hate to break it to you – but there is very little of the factual in that notion or even in the notion that drinking kills your pain –  it kills your brain cells – but it doesn’t kill pain.

So with that background… my thought was – OK, when Martin sings so mournfully, so beautifully “and once when I was so drunk…”  maybe – just possibly, I was suddenly transported back in time – and was suddenly identifying with my “25 years ago heavy drinking persona” – and feeling the heartache of how futile drinking yourself into a stupor actually is – and maybe a “long delayed short bout” of the dreaded “long delayed self-pity” is what triggered my response – I may never know.

I suppose it could have been something like that – but somehow, I don’t feel like that could be it at all – because it’s the story – the “reality soup” that Martin created – and the sounds of the guitars and the string quartet – the feeling of the song – that made me feel that emotion – not the fact that I used to get “so drunk” a long, long time ago – so – that theory is more of a question than an answer – but it’s one remote possibility.  So having presented my one vague, uncertain and only vaguely possible theory as to how and why – I am prone to just retract it again and go back to the place where I was when I started down this particular rabbit hole – wondering just how on earth what happened to me that day – how did that HAPPEN to me?

 

 

This then, leaves me once again – with a lot of questions and not any definite answers at all – it’s still a mystery to me – and may always remain so.

 

 

We may never know.

 

 

Dave Stafford

August 28, 2019

 

 

CREDITS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

 

 

Meanwhile – credits (and edits, too) are due where credits are due…

Author’s Notes and Commentary:   When it came time to prepare this blog, I found to my surprise that one could not obtain the lyrics to Martin Newell’s song  “The Girls The Flat Upstairs”  on the Internet – since apparently,  no one had ever bothered to transcribe them. Very remiss indeed!

 

The final transcription below, is actually a composite transcription worked up by myself with assistance from John Relph and then finalised by Martin Newell himself at my request – originally, I had transcribed it “by ear” (and my ears are NOT what they once were lol) and then, uncertain on quite a few points – I took my first draft of the transcribed  lyrics to my old friend John Relph – yes – the chalkhills.org John Relph – who then made a few subtle improvements and suggestions to the lyrics – and then also suggesting that if I am still unsure (and I was still unsure on a few of the words even after a few iterations of drafts) – “why don’t you just ask Martin?”

 

So, since I wanted the lyrics to be transcribed with 100 percent accuracy – that is exactly what I did – I took the composite Dave Stafford / John Relph “unofficial rough transcription” from August 2019, and asked Martin Newell to cast his eye over it – which he very promptly and very kindly did – and I am proud to say that the “by ear” transcription that John Relph and I worked on – only contained two minor errors – just two words incorrect – out of the entire lyric – so we did pretty well for ourselves there.   Amateur transcribers – clearly on the way to future glories…

 

This version, however, below contains Martin’s final corrections so is in fact a 100 percent accurate lyrical rendering of the song “The Girls In The Flat Upstairs” from “The Off-White Album” by Martin Newell.

 

In his response to me just a couple of days ago, Martin also added the following insights into the song’s creation:

 

“This song was what we call a kind of ‘reality soup’…  it’s fictional, but has many elements taken from life experience and mixed up together in the lyric.

It was written in 1994 and recorded in December of that year but remained unreleased until April 1996. The album went mostly un-reviewed and un-listened to at the time. Liberacion in France gave it a glowing review (Nick Kent, no less). Some people said they preferred it to the Greatest Living Englishman. I left music a while later for three years, because my poetry was doing so well”.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

I am very happy to have a properly-approved and fully corrected, fully accurate lyric as well as some provenance and comments from Martin regarding this song – because I feel it helps us to begin to understand the song as well as possible, so that we might be able to then try and “figure out” why on earth this song – and these lyrics – evoked such an unexpected and powerful emotional reaction in myself.

 

 

And I would be very curious to hear from you regarding this topic – has this ever happened to you? – that totally out of the blue, you are listening to a song you’ve heard many times before, that you have no particular connection or relationship to – and yet, it suddenly affects you in a truly powerful, unforgettable and meaningful way?

 

In my case – I will never listen to this song the same way again, I can tell you that – it will always bring the memory of that powerful experience – so I am glad the song exists – because it triggered something unique and something that was definitely not a “typical” day to day listening experience.

 

I think that we’ve seen, on many, many occasions – over time – that music can be a very powerful force indeed.  As to exactly how music does this – that may never be known – but the emotional response I had was well worth the price of admission – I didn’t mind, because it elevated the piece beyond being “just a song” to now becoming a part of my life’s emotional experience – and that really is something significant – at least to me.

 

Please let me know if you have had any kind of similar experience – I can’t be the only one.

 

Until next time…

 

I remain

Dave

 

 

[Full lyric transcription – approved by Martin Newell himself – follows]:

 

 

 

The Girls In The Flat Upstairs

Martin Newell – December 1994

 

 

Ah Lindy sometimes got down

and she worked in a club,

doing drinks or the door…

 

She’d say “I’m tired of this town –

of the farm-boys and jerks

and their fights on the floor”

 

“And one day I will break out

And I’ll save…

I’ll buy some B&B and me and Sheila will live

And we’ll drink till we drop

On a Saturday night”

 

The girls who lived in the flat upstairs…

The girls who lived in the flat upstairs…

 

And Sheila was so alive…

she would laugh and she’d curse, and say outrageous things,

she drove a big motorbike…

she wore leather and jeans, and she had lots of rings

 

And once when I was so drunk…

She was strong…

And she lifted me into my room and put me to bed

With a washing-up bowl, and a drink for next day

 

The girls who lived in the flat upstairs…

The girls who lived in the flat upstairs…

 

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

And wherever you are, you better watch your chemicals, girls

 

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

And wherever you are, I hope you watch your chemicals, girls

 

 

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…   (oh, oh no…)

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

 

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on……

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scorched !!

or – “Dave Gregory – home at last…”

I suddenly realised, after many months of hearing the name “Tin Spirits” (but never, sadly, hearing their music – until now, that is…) the penny finally dropped: this is DAVE GREGORY’S band. Yes – that Dave Gregory, the one who used to play stunt guitar in that little ole’ band from Swindon, the redoubtable XTC. For 19 years, across 12 studio albums, from “Making Plans For Nigel” in 1979 (from the remarkable ‘Drums And Wires (1979)‘), to “Senses Working Overtime” (from the remarkable ‘English Settlement (1982)‘) on up to the celebrated “Apple Venus (1999)” (the last XTC album that Dave appears on).

Dave Gregory established himself as a stellar lead guitarist capable of precision-engineered, well-crafted and very creative guitar solos, including some truly unforgettable ones all the way from “No Language In Our Lungs” (from the remarkable “Black Sea (1980)“) to “The Ugly Underneath” (from the remarkable “Nonsuch (1992)“) and all points in between.

If Dave was the “quiet Beatle” of XTC, he wasn’t so quiet when it came to his solos, and if Andy Partridge wrote the songs and had that crazy, boundless energy, then Dave was the thoughtful musical foil to Andy’s uh, “Extrovert” personality. Dave also has an amazing collection of legendary electric guitars, vintage guitars and amps, and always had a few amazing vintage guitars to hand at every session, always the right guitar for the right solo – always well prepared, and always sounding just right for the song in question – whichever it may be. Yes, that’s a lot of “always”, but you count on Dave to come up with a great guitar solo for almost any song, no matter how strange, or how beautiful…

Don’t forget, too, that Dave was also in “The Dukes Of Stratosphear”, along with Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding of XTC, and his brother, Ian Gregory, on drums, the amazing 60s psychedelic rock parody band, and later on, worked with Steve Hogarth (and was a regular member of his touring band, too) and Dave has also appeared on albums by the Bournemouth prog band “Big Big Train”, and of course, pre-, during and post-XTC, he has always been in demand as a session guitarist, too.

As the old reliable wikipedia put it: “Since leaving XTC, Gregory has been much in demand as a session musician with a number of artists, including Peter Gabriel, Aimee Mann, Cud, Marc Almond, Bingo Durango, Johnny Hates Jazz, Jason Donovan, Martin Newell, Louis Philippe, Lulu, Mark Owen, R. Stevie Moore and others. Gregory, who has been regularly involved in Steve Hogarth‘s h-Band, has also contributed to works by Porcupine Tree, including string arrangements on their sixth album, Lightbulb Sun, and for Dublin group Pugwash.

On 16 August 2009, English progressive rock band Big Big Train announced on their official blog that Gregory would be appearing as a guest musician on their sixth studio album, The Underfall Yard.^[1] Gregory subsequently appeared on Big Big Train’s Far Skies Deep Time EP and is listed as a full band member on English Electric Part One (2012)”

That demonstrates just how in-demand Dave’s services as guitarist, arranger and musician are – one of Britain’s “most desirable” guitar note-slingers.

Dave’s newest band, Tin Spirits, first got together in Swindon, UK in the summer of 2008, when Aussie import, guitarist / vocalist Daniel Steinhardt from TheGigRig invited former XTC guitarist (and musical hero) Dave Gregory to a local studio to video record an ‘amp shoot-out’ with Dan’s band The Hi-Fidels, comprising bassist Mark Kilminster and drummer Doug Mussard. The rest, as they say, is history…

Me saying “Stunt guitar” is absolutely short-changing him, Dave played a huge, huge part in helping Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding to create the “XTC sound”, and if anything, not nearly enough credit goes to Dave, for his outstanding contributions to both their albums, and to their live shows – for two decades.

I remember when I saw XTC live, show 9 of the “English Settlement” tour, and I recall watching Dave playing, off to the side of the stage; he was multitasking in a really cool way, and when he reached over to play the squiggly synth line that follows Andy’s lyric “just a spineless wobbly jelly fish…” from “When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty” (from “Drums And Wires (1979)”) – Dave makes the “jellyfish” sound on his little synth – and then, right back to lead guitar…my jaw hit the floor, and I spent most of the night, trying to see around the incredibly energetic Partridge, to see and hear what Dave was doing back there – it all just sounded amazing! All good.

That show, XTC live at the California Theater in San Diego, California, (my then-hometown) on April 3, 1982 turned out to be the 9th and final show of the US leg of the tour, the rest of which was completely cancelled due to “illness”; but the well-publicised breakdown of Andy Partridge (just hours after young 1982 Dave Stafford saw them play live!!) was the real reason the tour was halted. The band never toured again, occasionally, some years later, doing a small number of acoustic shows on radio or television, or the odd TV appearance here and there…

Dave had joined XTC at just the right moment, just as they were breaking away from their frenetic “dance band” persona, and with the departure of the sometimes alcohol-fuelled organist Barry Andrews, they were, much to their own surprise, already becoming “serious musicians” – recording and touring behind “Drums And Wires” – an album that I still listen to often, well, for me, that’s where it all started.

I have been a fan of XTC since the late 70s or early 1980s, indeed, I was fortunate to be at that very last live show they ever did, in San Diego back in ’82. That’s the only time I ever saw XTC or Dave Gregory play live, but the experience stuck with me, and based on seeing them that year (they were AMAZING!) I continued to collect their albums, and to follow their progress, as they moved into their own version of the Beatles’ “Studio Years” – when touring becomes a burden, and the decision is, let’s (still) make records, but, not play live.

This was mostly down to bandleader Andy Partridge, it was Andy who ended up so stressed out that he called time on live performance just HOURS after I saw him play a blinder of a show, and everyone was disappointed, because XTC live was one of the most energetic and interesting bands you could see live, in the early 1980s – they didn’t really have a lot of competition, especially once they had delivered both the most excellent “Drums And Wires (1979)” and it’s excellent follow-up, “Black Sea (1980)” – followed by the very excellent “English Settlement (1982)” – by the next excellent album, ‘Mummer 1983‘, it was time for Terry Chambers the drummer to go – and go he did, to Australia to marry his girlfriend, and, after playing with the Australian band “Dragon” for a couple of years, after that, he never really returned to the music business.

Now drummer-less, it did not in any way phase the remaining three members of XTC, who were all long-time friends from Swindon, and Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory, carried on through the rest of the 1980s, and into the 90s, until eventually, Dave could stand no more, and he left – and, then, XTC was a duo – and Andy and Colin went on to make more albums, although for me, once Dave left – they were lacking that spark – sure, Andy is damn near as good a player as Dave is (they are both amazing guitarists, let’s face it) when he makes the effort, and, he did make more of a real effort with the lead guitar parts on the ‘post-Dave’ albums, because I am sure he was conscious of the shadow and the memory of Dave sitting there in the studio, quietly ripping through some more amazing lead guitars for the latest XTC disk. The amount of lead guitar on records post-Dave, is noticeably less – Andy plays a few good solos, here or there, but it’s just not quite the same….

But the eventual fate of XTC is a story for another time, for now, suffice to say, that Andy and Colin went on to create a very respectable canon of work after the departure of Dave, who suddenly found himself at loose ends – playing on sessions, playing wherever he could, for a quite a few years after he left XTC. Things were almost beginning to plane out, Dave was almost forgotten, and could easily have faded from the ever-quick-to-forget music fans, but luckily, a chance encounter with a trio of Genesis / XTC fans ended up in more invitations to jam, and over time, Tin Spirits, was formed as a four piece, two-guitars-bass-and-drums band – with Dave Gregory on lead guitar.

So – once I realised that I had been missing the boat completely for a few years, that this amazing band, Tin Spirits, had toured the UK (and I could have SEEN THEM live – extreme dismay!) and indeed, they had been, and, much to my eternal frustration, on their earlier tours, they did a lot of covers of prog and other music that they had a shared love for, including Genesis “Back In NYC” from “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” and other songs by Rush, Yes “Roundabout”) and even Frank Zappa.  You can view some videos of some of these amazing prog covers on the Media page of the Tin Spirits official website.

Of course, it will not bother me one bit, if instead of these covers, that if we do get to see them (and I really, really hope we can…) that we might have to “endure” listening to them play most of the tracks from their new disc “Scorch” – and I will tell you, much as I would have loved to see and hear Dave Gregory play “Back In NYC” with his new band, it would be NO hardship whatsoever to sit and listen to Tin Spirits play some or all of the “Scorch” album – no hardship at all. 🙂

I have heard Scorch about four times now, and each time I hear it, I just end up feeling so uplifted, and it really, really makes me want to play the guitar (and only the very best guitar albums have that effect on me); it also really makes me want to write on guitar again (not something I’ve done a lot of since ‘gone native‘) and one thing that Tin Spirits have been extremely effective at, is creating a very full, very prog sound, without the use of keyboards – none whatsoever were used on “Scorch”, it’s all guitars, bass and drums – as it should be, really.  Dave himself is an accomplished keyboard player, but I applaud their determination, and “Scorch” is proof positive that you can make a big, big prog sound just with two guitars, bass and drums.  Of course, guitar technology has come a long, long way, and the lines between guitars and synths, continue to blur.

But the main difference between Dave Gregory, amazing lead guitarist of XTC, and Dave Gregory, amazing lead guitarist of Tin Spirits – is that in the former, he didn’t really get to play much at all – a solo here, a solo there, a keyboard solo, the odd guitar bit here or there – but nothing that he could really get stuck into – whereas in the latter, he doesn’t just get stuck in – he excels, explores and explodes – you can hear that Telecaster cutting through the air during the epic “Garden State”, and the extended solos that Dave is now not only allowed to take, but should be legally REQUIRED to take, will knock your guitar-playing socks off.

This is really a master class for lead guitarists, and we could all learn more than one thing from listening to ”Scorch” – and the rest of the musicians in the band are not slouching, in any way – guitarist / vocalist Daniel Steinhardt (also a pedal board/guitar controller inventor – the inventor of the amazing TheGigRig) is damn near as experienced and as capable as Dave is, so it’s a remarkable pairing, almost, but not quite, like having two Dave Gregorys in your band – and that, my friends, is a VERY good thing.

Bassist / lead vocalist Mark Kilminster and Doug Mussard (drums and vocals) are one of the most experienced and adaptable rhythm sections I have ever heard, and the way they slot in their backing, providing rhythmic support for the two interlocking guitar wizards – this would be, a “sort of” analog / mirror of the prog / pop “version” of Levin and Bruford supporting Fripp and Belew – I cannot think of any other truly analogous pairing of “amazing rhythm section” with “two remarkable and innovative guitarists” – I can happily and honestly say that about both King Crimson, and, about Tin Spirits.

And, another thing – the “no keyboards” rule has been faithfully followed, so somehow, Tin Spirits have created truly Progressive Rock, without the use of the dread synthesizer, and to me, to use just the guitar technology available, to be able to write for two guitars, bass and drums, and create the complex, intricate and beautiful music that is contained on “Scorch” – that is quite an accomplishment.

I am absolutely gobsmacked by just how good “Scorch” is, to the point where I plan to sit down this weekend, and order their first album, so I can have their entire recorded catalogue :-). I know that the first album is not rated as highly as “Scorch” is – but I am prepared and ready anyway, open ears and mind, and I am sure I will enjoy it.  If this video is anything to go by (link below), it’s going to be excellent – a 13 minute plus epic from that first album, “Wired To Earth”; here is “Broken” – this bodes well, sounds good to me!

I bought “Scorch” without having heard one note by Tin Spirits – and, as sometimes happens, it was an incredibly GOOD ‘blind’ decision. This album is currently rocking my world, and finally, after 19 years of tantalising glimpses of Dave Gregory’s genius, from the guitar solos on “That Wave” from the remarkable “Nonsuch” to his brilliant work on “Drums And Wires”, “Black Sea”, “English Settlement”, and so many other brilliant XTC albums; “The Big Express” is a huge favourite of mine, really, I love all of XTCs catalogue, one of the most enduring in this genre (start out punky, and then gradually mutate into the new Beatles – you know, THAT kind of band!) not to mention the 1986 smash hit “Skylarking” album, produced by Todd Rundgren – an amazing body of work, but now, Dave has started another one – and this one is the guitar band for guitarists who REALLY LOVE GUITAR – “Tin Spirits”. Album Two, “Scorch”, is fantastic. I haven’t heard Album One yet (“Wired To Earth”), but, I will be ordering it this weekend.

From those tantalising glimpses of brilliance provided by a great solo from Dave on a really good XTC song, to this: where Dave is utterly set free, where he can solo for as long as he likes, and, this record is full of extended, and super-extended, and ridiculously super-extended guitar solos, many of them by Dave – and the range of playing, from Hendrix ballad style drenched in prog beauty to scathing Telecaster lead lines, I could just listen to the guitar solos, and duos, on this record over and over and over – and, don’t get me wrong, the band has EXCELLENT vocals, but right now, I am bathing in the glory of a finally-unleashed, finally-unchained, doing it the way HE wants to, nearly endless guitar solos from Dave Gregory – FINALLY !!!!!!!!! If only Andy had let Dave play like THIS in XTC, we might have seen them become a brilliant Prog band too…

This boy can PLAY. He can PLAY good. He knocks my socks off on this particular disc, if you haven’t picked up “Scorch”, I recommend it highly – it’s the guitarist’s guitarist guitar album of the future, and I love what I am hearing – finally, freed from the 30 second XTC mini-solo, when Dave stretches out on album closer “Garden State”, it’s like getting to hear Hendrix practicing beautiful guitar for “Angel” or “Drifting” or “Little Wing” that’s all I can think about, when I hear the fluid, sinuous, sounds of Dave’s guitar, and his tones are pure liquid fire, they are musically SCORCHING, there is absolute purpose, and serious musical intelligence there, and never has there been a more aptly named album.

I will let others do the song by song analysis of “Scorch”; I am really more interested in conveying what an extremely excellent album “Scorch” is, and, also, trying to give it the back story it deserves, and how it fits into the chronology of both XTC, as well as Dave Gregory‘s long and very distinguished career as a great guitarist, arranger, and all-round musician, vintage guitar enthusiast, and now, playing in the band of his dreams – Tin Spirits.  And for me, even though I’ve started at the wrong end of their short and sweet catalog, “Scorch” is an amazing musical document, and it is absolutely worth checking out.

I will say, the album opener, “Carnivore” sets the mood brilliantly, it’s a proggy instrumental with lots of great guitar, but it’s when we move into the next few songs, and you start to get to where there are well-defined guitar solos…and you suddenly “hear” Dave, you KNOW it’s Dave just by the sound – and to my mind, the only guitarist that I think is similar to Dave, is the late, great Jimi Hendrix (but probably, the gentler, more melodic “side” of Jimi) – who is clearly, clearly a huge influence on Dave.  So when that first “Gregory” solo hits your ears – you are suddenly really paying attention, and it does not disappoint – instead, it reels you in, you want more – and you don’t just get more – you get a LOT more – more Dave Gregory guitar on this album than you will find on any three XTC albums ! And that is saying something…

The gentle, pastoral guitars of “Little Eyes” from “Scorch”, take you everywhere from an almost King Crimson “Discipline”-style “interlocking” or what I call “gamelan guitars” to fluid, beautiful, liquid Hendrix guitar solos – the whole effect is so uplifting, positive sounding – a brilliant track, “Little Eyes” gives you a very good idea of the basic quality of the album – it’s just a perfect little song – lovely.  It’s long instrumental outro, is a great showcase for Dave’s amazing guitar style, and in this solo, you hear him reaching for the stars – and finding them, sparks flying – just one of those so-perfect solos, that then merges perfectly right back into the rhythm of the song…seamless, timeless – beautiful.

Take someone like Dave Gregory, with his massive collection of amazing vintage guitars, his knowledge of how sounds were created in the past, and his ability to recreate very specific guitar tones by using particular combinations of guitars, amps and effects, add in his many, many years of guitar playing, almost always, as a lead guitarists in one form or another – and you have a mature, powerful, guitar-force-to-be-reckoned with: Dave Gregory; in 2014 – suddenly, I can hear the culmination of that career, a player at the top of his game, the craft of guitar is relaxed, confident, powerful – you can hear it – in the beautiful guitar solos that are featured in almost every track on “Scorch“.  Remarkable!  And really, really beautiful, too.

Get “Scorch” now, if you love prog, if you love pop, if you love guitar music, if you loved XTC, if you love the guitar work of Dave Gregory – heck, just get it – I bet you will like it! In Europe, you can get it from Burning Shed, in America, probably Amazon. This be rocking! I’m going back to listen to it again right now…ah…sonic bliss 🙂

SKYLARKING – XTC – a mini review – yes, the polarity, and a few other things, have been corrected!

Hello. This is a review of the re-released ‘Skylarking’ CD by XTC, written in a new style that I like to call, ‘stream of consciousness’. In headphones, my very first listen to the ‘new’ ‘Skylarking’. I hope you enjoy it. 🙂

Ahhhh…..I am back now in “SUMMER’S CAULDRON” – drowning here, in actual, fact, sonically drowning in my headphones, at least! – with the insects buzzing in rhythm all across the sharpest stereo field of any version of “SKYLARKING” I’ve ever heard – from the moment the disc begins, I realise that ANDY PARTRIDGE is right – the original release does sound “thin and distant” – but that has now been sorted by original album engineer JOHN DENT, who, after discovering the album’s polarity issues, then applied just the right amount of 2013 technology to the problem, this strange problem of “incorrect polarity” – but whatever that really is, it’s been fixed, let me assure you – the backing vocals of “SUMMER’S CAULDRON”, so clear and clean, the vocal harmonies layered so beautifully, TODD RUNDGREN’S melodica part drifting beautifully through this wonderful, clear new mix – the insects and birds constant throughout, and then we are suddenly brought into “GRASS”, with its swaying, utterly beautiful violins introduction, one of COLIN MOULDING’S best pop songs, ever, from any album – and the guitars, finally, the XTC GUITARS have arrived – jangly, bendy, wonderful guitars – and there seem to still be some crickets lurking here and there in this song – with its double entendre about being “on grass” – lying on grass, or, is it lying on grass whilst BEING on grass – “the things we used to do on grass”…what a lovely tune, and when that big vocal harmony comes in near the end, and the violins switch back from pizzicato to legato – and then, the birds and insects return to help the feedback guitar to gently end the piece in their long fade out. Producer Todd Rundgren’s wonderful “musical” programmed birds and insects sound amazing throughout “SUMMER’S CAULDRON”, and then when they reappear at the end of “GRASS” in full, finally fading away so that we can all meet up in “THE MEETING PLACE” – this one is so, so quirky, but I love it, it’s just fantastic – with its gently moving up and down form, and that irresistible descending guitar riff, COLIN MOULDING supplying some wonderful PAUL MCCARTNEY style high register riffs as is his habit, and then “THE MEETING PLACE” gives away to ANDY PARTRIDGE’S ode to superwoman, “THAT’S REALLY SUPER, SUPER GIRL” – a fantastic and underrated piece of pop music, very complex background harmonised vocals, wonderful Electro-Harmonix phaser shifter style sounds, great effects on all of the vocals – this song is really all about harmony, and even counterpoint – the layering of main vocal, background vocals, and harmonising vocals is exquisite – and then, we get the first proper lead solo on the record, an absolutely snappy gem, ending with some truly sublime whammy bar bending, a super (sorry, there’s just no other word to describe it!) clean, super concise lead solo, the kind that XTC have become known for, ever since childhood friend and guitarist DAVE GREGORY joined the band, on their third album, the much lauded “DRUMS AND WIRES”. But now we are back to ANDY PARTRIDGE, and a song that has a very special place in my heart, as I spent many, many hours working up my own very special cover version of the song, for one of IAN STEWART’S wonderful XTC cassette compilations, this one entitled “SKYLACKING”. My version of “BALLET FOR A RAINY DAY” wasn’t meant to sound anything like the XTC version, I built the music for the song entirely out of ebow guitars, working in harmony, to emulate the pianos and guitars of the original – and then, I sang a very tenuous, uncertain lead vocal on top of the ebows – but, even if imperfect, working on this song just sent my admiration for XTC through the ceiling – the vocal arrangement, when those background vocals appear, and the amazing piano in the background, not to mention ANDY PARTRIDGE’S remarkable lead vocal performance – what an incredibly beautiful voice…and with the words “slow descending grey” a phalanx of violins introduces us to our next tune, “1000 UMBRELLAS” which features an all strings backing, very, very intense strings, which underpin Andy’s strangely agonised vocal, he seems at the point of desperation here, a huge contrast to the easy and beauty of the previous track, “BALLET FOR A RAINY DAY”, which just shows you how multi-talented he is – this vocal is practically a different persona – and then, hope returns at the end, the strings cheer up a tiny bit…Andy’s voice of desperation changes to beautiful pop mode again…and then suddenly, a slow ritard to our all-strings extravangza ending, and it’s the circus-accordion into to the bouncy, jaunty, and extremely fun “SEASON CYCLE” – “pushing the pedals on the season cycle – summer changed by autumn….” this piece is very, very PAUL MCCARTNEY to my mind, like something that belongs next to “GOOD DAY SUNSHINE” – but in this case, “SEASON CYCLE” has a curious central bridge section that is suddenly very solemn and serious, taking the mood down several notches briefly – before returning to the bright and wonderful refrain of this remarkable pop tune from ANDY PARTRIDGE. A very short silence now, for the first time, and suddenly, the incredibly powerful beginning of what may be my personal favourite track on the album, “EARN ENOUGH FOR US”, which every man seeking employment or a better job or a better paying job can instantly relate to, having a wife and family to worry about, but this age-old story here is told to the absolutely popping snare of ex-TUBES then-TODD RUNDGREN drummer PRAIRIE PRINCE, who plays drums on a number of these tunes (and completely kicks ass on this particular tune – it really is an amazing piece of drumming) – and this song, to me, is just THE perfect power pop song – it rocks, that’s all there is to it, it has a really strong drum part, and then, powerful, power-chording and lead guitar playing from both ANDY PARTRIDGE and DAVE GREGORY, a fantastic chord progression that the BEATLES would have been proud to use, it’s just an incredible piece of power pop / rock craftsmanship – and there a million reasons why it’s my favourite – COLIN MOULDING’S bass part is amazing, again, with those PAUL MCCARTNEY like high register sections, working perfectly with the drums – very REVOLVER-like at the end – this song just wakes me up, it’s bright, it’s message, while somewhat dark, is framed in the brightest of sounds – a wonderful dichotomy, and I can’t say enough good about this song. Amazing, beautiful vocals, too. “I’ve been praying I could keep you – and, to earn enough for us” – no sooner has it arrived, then the hopeful, beautiful pop masterpiece “EARN ENOUGH FOR US” has to end…leading into the a cappella start of “BIG DAY”, Colin’s foreboding warning to newlyweds everywhere, which while lyrically is not perhaps the most genius on this record, or as a song – this song still has a lot going for it, including that odd intro, which repeats during the song, which actually comes to a complete stop to allow this burst of harmonised “BIG DAY”S to repeat. I like the stop start feel of the track, it’s nice that it stops, and each time that vocal section plays, it gets odder and odder, the second repeat, a strong tremolo is applied to the vocals, and there are lots of lovely psychedelic sounds in the background…the tremolo then is applied to the verse itself – maybe it’s more of an auto-panner, difficult to tell sometimes, but a great effect nonetheless, this song is all about sonic imagery – and the sounds do evoke a lot of mental, visual images – so it succeeds wildly on that scale. The next song is one of the most eerie, beautiful songs that ANDY PARTRIDGE has ever written, with a vocal that is so remarkable, and has such beautiful effects applied to it – what an amazing piece of music is “ANOTHER SATELLITE” with it’s beautiful delay lead vocal, which then leads to other islands of different types of vocals, including some lyric-less “ta-ta” sounds, then, glockenspiel or similar arrives to accompany our spaced-out lead vocal, the rhythm is sort of drum machine, but with those big ringing, heavily chorused guitar chords ringing out in the background, it sound alive, not machine like – marimbas now appear, to tie up the verses – and then, a long outro of repeated choruses ‘don’t need “ANOTHER SATELLITE”…’ on and on into the distance, which then leads up to…the lovely (and for a time, the “omitted”) “MERMAID SMILED” a beautiful acoustic guitar number, with insane, high speed percussion courtesy of ex-TUBES percussionist MINGO LEWIS, another awesome musician who participates on this amazing album, due to the RUNDGREN-EX-TUBES axis of power. Meanwhile, muted trumpets, and intense bass part, and some just amazing melodic and chordal ideas, bring “MERMAID SMILED” inexorably to its all-too soon ending…but then, more MINGO LEWIS mad percussion begins another one of the albums standout tracks “THE MAN WHO SAILED AROUND HIS SOUL” – with its hippie flutes and jazzy piano and bass parts, this is just an odd, odd song, but somehow, it absolutely belongs here – and it also sounds incredibly “JAMES BOND” – high pitched strings, heavily-reverbed “spy” guitars – in fact a lot of cliché spy guitar here and there in this piece – and then back to those jazz breaks – it’s so odd – but I love it to bits, what an amazing and unique ANDY PARTRIDGE piece – MINGO LEWIS popping the fastest bongo solos you ever heard, PRAIRIE PRINCE’S drumming is insanely clever, a mad break in the middle, then, back to bongo’s and flute for the outro, with Andy singing a lone refrain of the title…an absolute classic, with a perfect spy ending. And then – the other controversial song on the album, the incredibly poignant, sad and musically perfect “DEAR GOD”, this song is the first thing I heard from this album, except, at the time, it was just a single, it wasn’t actually ON the original album, it has only been added in in later years (and some purists object to its presence on these later releases – this one included) but personally, I can’t imagine listening to the rest of SKYLARKING without it. In this short, pop masterpiece, ANDY PARTRIDGE has a long chat with GOD, and he challenges him on several burning issues, whilst amazing, Beatle-like TODD RUNDGREN strings drift in sheer beauty in the background, a great tune – fantastic string arrangement, and ANDY PARTRIDGE’S acoustic guitar and vocals are absolutely sublime – and then, a strident, powerful bridge, where ANDY PARTRIDGE seems fairly disgusted with GOD’S performance – and finally, to an ending that mirrors the song’s beginning, both the beginning lines, and the final line, both being sung by a young girl named JASMINE VEILLETTE that TODD RUNDGREN suggested for the part. The amazing GOD-questioning “DEAR GOD” is followed, suitably, by COLIN MOULDING’S remarkable song, “DYING”, which features among other things, a sort of clip-clop horse-like rhythm (but not quite) some fragmentary acoustic guitar chords, a serious bass part, and then, a beautifully arranged bridge, with lovely clean electric guitars, and a lot of beautiful ATMOSPHERE – and finally, a clarinet during the songs fade out, “DYING” is a song full of regrets, and a song full of forlorn longing, not wanting to end like his beloved relative did – “I don’t want to die like you…” – very, very serious subject, but a wonderful and rewarding song…sitting in the penultimate position on the album, “DYING” is followed by yet another COLIN MOULDING tune, the very unusual “Sacrificial Bonfire” – with yet another absolutely incredible, truly beautiful orchestral arrangement from TODD RUNDGREN, which in the middle part of the song, threatens to overcome the vocalist with its power and presence. Luckily, COLIN MOULDING holds his own throughout, the song is based around a very simple acoustic guitar and bass figure, but it then builds to a fantastic crescendo thanks to TODD RUNDGREN’S orchestral contributions. In 1986, when the album first came out, I admit, I struggled with both “DYING” and “SACRIFICIAL BONFIRE”, but over time, as is their wont to do, their particular magic has worked on me, and I eventually realised just how beautiful, and just how important they are to winding your SKYLARKING experience in just the right way – it can’t all be triumphant highs, and COLIN MOULDING provides just the right amount of sober realism to create a rounded, beautiful end block of two remarkable songs. The contrast between the writing and performing styles of ANDY PARTRIDGE and COLIN MOULDING has always been one of the most important aspects of why the music of XTC is so successful – they each write in a very individual style, but by gracefully peppering a bunch of ANDY PARTRIDGE tracks with a smaller number of COLIN MOULDING tracks – you end up with the perfect masterpiece pop album – and SKYLARKING is damn near perfect in every way – I can’t think of a more consistent, more creative, and frankly, more beautiful pop extravaganza – 15 remarkable tracks by two writers who over time, have become national treasures in Britain – I just wish they were still writing together. So – SKYLARKING – Polarity Corrected version – get it- you won’t regret it. A beautiful setting-straight of the record, this is the way it was meant to sound, and, the way it was meant to look – and now that Andy has the rights, he has set right a grievous error, the release of the thin and distant, incorrect polarity version, from 1986 through to 2014 – it’s now, in 2014, finally “right”. Enjoy the fruits of ANDY PARTRIDGE’S labours: a new, improved, thick and lustrous SKYLARKING. 🙂