"Suddenly It's Tuesday" - Introduction

"I have to say that I think the boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the rock & roll era. Now you may dispute that, but I'm right and you're wrong." 

John Peel, 2 September 1999

If you have come to this post having followed any of my writing about The Fall, you might suspect - not unreasonably - that I've just plumped for The Wedding Present to write about as a band with a similar demographic to that of Mark E Smith and co. It's certainly true that there's a healthy intersection between fans of the two, but I actually have a lengthy, personal connection with TWP. In fact, in the 30-odd years since I first heard both of them, my relationship with The Wedding Present has been more consistent than with The Fall. Although my Fall listening and writing has become a bit of an obsession over recent years, I have 'dipped in and out' of following them in the past. (I'm not alone in this: The Fall Online editor Conway Paton, for example, lost touch with the group in the late 80s and early 90s.) David Gedge's music, however, has been a consistent part of my life for 33 years.

Although I'm sure I must have heard the odd track on John Peel's show before then, my first exposure to TWP that I can recall clearly came in October 1987. I had just started my first year at York University, and amongst the many exciting aspects of my new student life was meeting people who knew of and were enthusiastic about 'alternative' music (virtually everybody I knew in sixth form had incredibly conservative tastes, venerating Rumours and Simple Minds and eschewing even REM as too weird and wacky). One of my new acquaintances loaned me her cassette copy of the recently released George Best, and I remember quite vividly the impact that the opening track 'Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft' had on me.

Rewinding a little: I have always loved the sound of the electric guitar in virtually all its forms, particularly when it has a bit of distortion about it. In my formative years (around 11-12; the beginning of the 80s), this manifested itself in a love of heavy metal (it was the time of the NWOBHM after all). I soon grew out of this, becoming a little jaded at the endlessly clichéd 'widdly-widdly' solos, and moved onto Bowie, then The Smiths, REM, etc. But as much as I loved the more understated qualities of those artists, I never lost my love for a bit of frantic noisy guitar. One song I picked up on in my mid-teens was 'Hong Kong Garden'. I was too young for punk at the time (I had just turned nine when 'HKG' was released), but I bought the Once Upon a Time compilation at some point in the mid-80s. I liked a lot of OUAT, but it was 'Hong Kong Garden' that attracted me, principally because of John McKay's slashing guitar work, especially the finale (see from 2:01 onwards in the video below). A thrillingly visceral piece of solo guitar that wasn't a guitar solo as I knew it, I wondered why more people didn't take this exciting approach.

Fast-forward to October 1987, and my first play of George Best. I can hear straight away that 'Daft' is very, very good. The tone of the lyric is the first thing that strikes me, a winning blend of earthy kitchen-sink drama and winsome, knowing humour. But it was the sound of the guitars that really gripped me; the mix of controlled distortion and frantic, scratchy rhythm. And then, at 3:44, the moment where everything else drops out and there's just this wall of scrabbling three-chord noise. It only goes on for 15 seconds, but it sounded like the future to me and I wanted it to go on forever...

I first saw The Wedding Present live at the Reading Festival in 1989 (where Gedge wore his at-the-time customary rather short shorts) and then at Huddersfield Polytechnic in January the following year (when my friends and I had a scary drive back to York in a blizzard). For a variety of reasons, there was then a big gap until I saw Gedge's side-project Cinerama in a tiny pub in Leeds in 2002. Since then, I have seen TWP/Cinerama more times than any other artist. I'm not one for keeping ticket stubs and all that, but it must be something like 20-25 times altogether. I have also been a member of Scopitones, the Wedding Present fan forum since 2004. As I mentioned in this post, few things in this world have given me as much joy as my membership of Scopitones, which has led to many rewarding friendships as well as untold amounts of comedy online moments and pre- and post-gig get-togethers.

(I'm second from the left)

The Wedding Present and The Fall have a lot in common. A fiercely uncompromising and independent spirit in the first place; also the fact that, despite the invaluable contributions of a wide array of talented musicians, Gedge is The Wedding Present in the same way that MES was The Fall. In addition, whilst The Fall are renowned for their 'revolving door' membership, TWP can hardly be far behind; I have been to several gigs over the years where I've found myself asking my fellow gig-goers, 'who is that on guitar?'

I'm not - for a variety of reasons - going to attempt to write any sort of history of TWP. I'm taking on a much more foolhardy task... 

We've all seen those webpages/posts: 'Every song/album/film/whatever by xxx... ranked!' And we always think, 'what a fatuous idea... how can you possibly rank them all in any sort of rational or objective fashion?' And yet we always read them, because we all (or most of us, anyway) love a list, if only to disagree wholeheartedly and vehemently with it. And so, that's what I'm going to give you: a ranked list of all 223 (I think) songs. 

A few things to point out in advance:

• Yes, the whole notion of 'ranking' this many songs is fundamentally flawed. Defining why one song is at #57 when another is at #63 is hard to justify. If you find the whole idea aesthetically repugnant, that's fair enough - but then your best option is possibly not to read the following posts.
• One's evaluation of a song may well depend on mood and circumstances. However, I originally compiled this list several weeks ago and have returned to it regularly in order to address this.
• You will probably disagree with me fervently in many instances - that's great, and I look forward to your comments indicating how wrong I am.
• I haven't included the 1984 self-released promo cassette, but I think everything else is covered - feel free to let me know if you think this isn't the case.

One last thing: the blog title...

When you come down to it, DLG's lyrics tend to focus on one of two inter-related topics: you have been unfaithful; or I'm about to be unfaithful. His capacity for finding new angles on such seemingly narrow topics is remarkable. What he captures incredibly evocatively is the startling thrill of a connection with someone new: something electric, dangerous, undefinable; the all-consuming passage of time where there's nothing in the world but the two of you. For me, 'suddenly it's Tuesday' from 'Suck' encapsulates this perfectly - the days move on, but we are beyond such inconsequential chronology...

The next post will outline TWP songs 201 - 223. I look forward to you telling me how wrong I am!

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