"Suddenly It's Tuesday" - Part 13 (11-20)

 

Part 12 saw the biggest controversy arise thus far, and I have to confess that I really didn't see it coming...

I thought that placing 'Dan Dare' in the top 40 might raise a few eyebrows; I suspected that some would see it as too much of throwaway, insubstantial moment to warrant such a lofty position. But it turned out that its ranking wasn't the problem. This is what I said:

I may get some stick for placing this 100-second instrumental b-side (and a cover of one of TWP's own songs to boot) so highly, but 'Dan Dare' is just so joyously infectious and uplifting that I think it warrants its place in the top forty. A lyric-free (although David does contribute some 'aaaaahhhhh's) surf-rock reimagining of 'Dare', it fizzes along with winning exuberance. 

What I hadn't banked on was that so many TWP fans had never realised that 'Dan Dare' was an instrumental version of 'Dare'. I had always thought that everyone knew that this was the case, as did David himself:

Although a handful of friends confirmed that they'd always known that this was the case, the TWP Facebook group in particular was deluged with comments along the lines of of 'Bloody hell! I can’t believe I never noticed that!' and 'my blown mind is still spinning around my head'. A very few - even despite David's comments - remained in denial and continued to claim the two tracks sound nothing alike! I'm sure there's some sort of moral here, although I'm not at all sure what it is...

Anyway, let's move on from 'Dan Dare' and get to the important business of the top 20. 

YouTube Playlist (223 - 11)

Spotify Playlist (11 - 100)

20 Blue Eyes

(Single, 1992)

The first Hit Parade single is not spectacular or flashy, but it is a superbly well-crafted pop song: from the opening spidery lead guitar line onwards, everything about it is taut, tidy and beautifully judged. It's a somewhat opaque lyric: several phrases - 'let's not do that again'; 'it didn’t seem to matter then' - are left hanging, enigmatically, unresolved, giving the song a slightly mysterious air.

The final minute is wonderful: a stomping build-up that eventually returns to the opening guitar line and plays out with aching abandon. It had a startlingly surreal promo video:

19 Deer Caught in the Headlights

(Valentina, 2012)

A multi-faceted, shape-shifting joy, full of twists and turns. Charlie Layton is the star of the show, marshalling the song's disparate passages into an exuberant coherence. Watching Charlie drum is always a pleasure: I've never seen any other drummer express their commitment as enthusiastically as he did - see 3:33 onwards in the video below, for example.

The lyric combines a couple of Gedge tropes: the 'way out of my league' woman ('you're just too pretty for me' - cf. 'Mystery Date', 'Perfect Blue', 'Model, Actress, Whatever') and the one who's oblivious of the effect she has on the men in the room ('you wear a stunning dress and then say, "what, this old thing?"' - cf. Cinerama's '146 Degrees' and 'Because I’m Beautiful'). It does a decent if unspectacular job - although top marks for squeezing in 'ingenuousness' - of capturing the feeling of being awestruck by attraction. The 'if I were a painter...' line is a little cloying, although the judgment of one fellow fan ('I get a little sick in my mouth when I hear it') is, I think, overly harsh. 

It's not really about the lyric here, anyway, it's about the exciting dynamics: the taut, staccato verses, the deft interludes; the thrilling crescendos. 

Gedge revealed that the clattering noises (just before the five-minute mark) during the delicate little coda were him 'falling over one of those standing ashtray things, as I was trying to film Graeme playing the organ'. The album version of 'Deer' is here, but, like 'No Christmas', the version TWP recorded for KEXP is the superior one for my money.

18 Boo Boo

(El Rey, 2008)

David isn't one for densely complex poeticism, but he does have a great gift for using deceptively simple images to paint a moment evocatively. Here, the opening 'it's late; the waiter's stacking the chairs' (a 'cinematic' touch as Gedge put it) sets the scene beautifully. The narrator and his ex-girlfriend are the last customers in the restaurant, he desperately trying to delay her departure ('I am to to detain you as long as I dare') even though he hates to hear her talk of her current partner - because it's 'better than not seeing you at all'.

The verse is delicate and tender, with a pretty but melancholy melody to match. Although the chorus is stirring (with a suitably rousing melody), it's no cacophonous stamp-on-all-the-pedals explosion; instead, there's something almost restrained about it, perhaps reflecting that the poignant exclamation 'you just don’t get it at all, do you?...  I still love you' is internal monologue, impossible to express aloud.

How the object of the narrator's affections feels is left unresolved. She's happy to talk about her current partner - seemingly oblivious to the effect this has - but it's her that's still filling the wine glasses to the brim at the end of the night. And why are her eyes 'glistening'? Perhaps she 'gets it' more than he realises? At first, it seems as though the music may also avoid resolution to reflect this; the minute or so after the final chorus is an understated reflection on earlier themes (generally much less understated live) that feels as though it might just ebb away à la 'Sports Car'. In fact, things do eventually crash back in, although once again with controlled force rather than the shredding abandon of something like 'Don't Touch That Dial'.

'Boo Boo' is yet another example of TWP making an obvious album closer the penultimate track instead (on this occasion followed by 'Swingers') - the result, Gedge explained, of 'non-atypical Wedding Present contrariness'.

17 You Should Always Keep in Touch With Your Friends

(Single, 1986)

TWP's third single replaced the ragged ferocity of its predecessors with something rather more measured. That's not to say it's overly smooth or bland - it still fizzes along with unbridled exuberance - but this time there's a more focused intensity. 

It's likely that nobody has ever reviewed this song without using the word 'poignant', and I'm not about to change that. A tender, melancholy tale of first love, it effortlessly transports you back to 15 or 16, in love like no one else has ever been in love and certain that it will last forever. The first verse is especially affecting, capturing one of those bittersweet moments that stay with you always: 'a bridge that stood close by the sea / the day that we spent there is ours eternally'. (The actual bridge in question is here.)

Although immediately identifiable as early TWP, there's a timeless quality to 'Friends'. In later years, live performances of songs like 'Once More' have been enjoyable in a nostalgic way; 'Friends' always feels like it still fits right in to the set. This perhaps explains why it's the band's ninth most-played song, way above any of the other pre-George Best material.

16 Santa Monica

(Going, Going..., 2016)

This time, the epic number was given the concluding spot on the album. Named after the least obscure location on the Going, Going... road trip, 'Santa Monica' tells a simple tale of coming home; being reunited with your loved one and never wanting to leave again - 'the story ends right here'. The lyric looks backward as well as to the future, revisiting 'when you returned my smile' from 'A Million Miles'.

By now, of course, TWP are masters of the quiet/loud dynamic, but there's something special about this one. Not only are the loud sections forceful but beautifully controlled, there's subtle variation between them: the first mainly sticks to heavy, crashing chords; the second introduces a new, underlying riff. In addition, the latter is prefaced by a haunting, almost atonal ascending guitar line that builds a tension that's broken thrillingly at 5:10.

Some might find the coda overlong, even self-indulgent. For me, it has a mesmerising grace; it feels like the light from the 'setting sun' that the lovers are admiring shimmering on the surface of the Pacific.

15 Dare

(Seamonsters, 1991)

A thunderous volley of scuzzy guitars propels a typical DLG story of potential infidelity. There's a relentless, urgent intensity to it that conveys an atmosphere of agitation and paranoia, the two potential lovers trembling as they kiss and nervously 'listening for the door'. Wonderfully dark and seedy.

Rarely separated from 'Dalliance' in a live setting (and I may get some stick for separating the two here), it's TWP's fifth most-played song.

14 Click Click

(Watusi, 1994)

The stand-out moment on Watusi is, to a large extent, one of their crushingly minimal moments. Both verse and chorus are framed around a serrated, hypnotic riff; the simple thrust of the lyric is exemplified in the lines 'I really need to ask you whether / you and I can sleep together' and 'I always want to be inside you'; the middle section is a bludgeoning VU-esque one-chord thrash.

Yet some subtlety does lie within, particularly in the winning way Heather Lewis (of US lo-fi outfit Beat Happening) and David's vocals entwine. And although the message is not an unduly complex one, Gedge wrings plenty of emotion out of his heartfelt offer, 'every last bit of me / no inbetween; just take whatever you see'.

13 My Favourite Dress

(George Best, 1987)

I imagine that 'Dress's failure to make the top ten will cause some outrage. However, I should point out that we are at the very top end of a very high quality back catalogue, and there's certainly no shame in being squeezed out by no more than a dozen songs out of 223.

The lyric encapsulates the very essence of late-80s TWP and contains some of David's most enduring lines, such as 'sometimes, these words just don’t have to be said' and 'jealousy is an essential part of love'. Rarely has he portrayed more powerfully the agony of being left for another - in particular, there's an almost unbearable rawness to 'slowly your beauty is eaten away / by the scent of someone else / in the blanket where we lay'.

The verse is a (tiny) little bit of a two-chord lumber, but the song truly bursts into life halfway through, entering into a skittering middle eight riff (technically, I think it's a middle twenty-four) that builds in intensity before climaxing in an anguished snarl of betrayal: 'to see it all in a drunken kiss / a stranger’s hand on my favorite dress'. The finale is a joy. 'Daft' demonstrated the potential of letting the guitars have the final word; 'Dress' takes things one step further, culminating in a deliciously jagged maelstrom of slashing chords.

12 Heather

(Seamonsters, 1991)

It's hard to write about many of the Seamonsters songs and avoid the phrase 'dark and brooding' and this, the penultimate track on the LP, is a case in point. It's another song of betrayal, also one of those TWP songs where the protaganist acknowledges the faithlessness with grimly desperate acceptance ('you don’t have to tell me where you’ve been'). It also revisits the 'blanket' image from 'Dress', transposing it to the heather where the couple used to lie.

Driven by Simon Smith's powerful but precise rapid-fire drumming and Peter Solowka's hauntingly abrasive drone, there's a sense of simmering resentment to the first half. After a melodic but ominous bass interlude, the song gathers momentum, introducing its simple, anthemic guitar line; Gedge pours every ounce of angst he can muster into his bleak howl, 'an empty bed, your clothes all gone'. 

There's a long line of TWP songs that introduce their climactic sections with some form of exclamation from David, ranging from the understated 'hey!' of 'Can You Keep A Secret?' to the excitable yelp that prefaces the three-chord onslaught of 'Take Me!' The 'oh!' that signals 'Heather's final passage is amongst the most gut-wrenching, all the of the narrator's hurt bursting forth in one desperate syllable.

The finale is loud and intense, but not for the first time TWP achieve this with the power and passion of their playing rather than simply another level of distortion pedal. In fact, the extra layer that does emerge is David's frantically strummed acoustic; having almost faded from view after providing the introduction, its frenzied attempt to assert itself amongst the electrified noise is an apt metaphor for the lyric's angry desperation.

This video - although the sound quality isn't great - captures the song in its contemporary glory. This one reminds us (0:45) why David started using an iPad for the lyrics.

11 Come Play With Me

(Single, 1992)

The February - March Hit Parade singles all reached the top twenty, but May's offering, 'Come Play With Me', ascended to the heady heights of number ten, TWP's highest ever chart placing. (Of course, it's worth remembering that these limited edition releases generally sold out on the first day, so their positioning was to a large extent dependent on sales elsewhere.)

The first half is the account of an acrimonious break-up: unpleasant notes are left; flats are stormed out of; the relationship has simply 'run out of time'. Gedge's voice drips with bitter regret. The song's 3/4 time signature gives it a hesitant, awkward tone, reflecting the narrator's fear of taking the final step: 'we sat for a while; I didn’t say yes or no'. Halfway through, he has some sort of epiphany ('when I saw you') and the song begins to soar. Then, at 2:35, the song erupts into a clattering 4/4, marking a decision reached and a burst of renewed confidence. Now it's definitely over, and the majestic closing passage evokes a whirl of new excitement and romance ('now come play with me'). It's an outstanding piece of work; an epic drama squeezed into four and a half breathtaking minutes.

Many thanks, as ever, for reading, sharing, liking, etc. See you next week for the final countdown!

Steve

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