Today's guest posting is from a new Sunday Correspondent....but someone who has posted before.Readers from way back will hopefully recall that all of May 2009 and part of June 2009 was handed over to 40 different contributors from all parts of the globe. The series was kicked off on 1 May 2009 with this lovely bit of writing which was partly a 10th Anniversary present from a bloke to his missus. Nearly two years later, John East has returned:-
ENGLAND MY COUNTRY..........
Last Sunday's post of Summertime by The Sundays took me right back to the late eighties, I was an all round indie kid with the long, floppy hair and embarrassing shirts (why does James May wear those shirts? you can buy them in the shops, y'know, but the missus gives me the evil eye if i stray too close to them) and this lovely song appeared.
mp3 : The Sundays - Can't Be Sure
Now I know JC has featured it before but it's always worth a listen and on the rare occasions it pops up on 6music or absolute 80's (i'll swear blind I heard it on there once) it always brings a sigh and a wistful look to my eyes. I love everything about it - the drummy intro, twangly guitar, achingly clear vocals and lazy lazy climax.
But for me it's always been really strongly linked with another song and band. Not Cocteau Twins, though I'm sure that's worth a post. It's the whimsical, nostalgic England that comes through Harriet's singing that links Can't Be Sure to Lonesome For A Place I Know by Everything But The Girl - light jazz tinged popsters turned overexposed dance music coffee tablers. Surely everybody knows their rags to riches to rags to riches and illness story.
I picked up a tape of their 1988 album Idlewild in a Woolworths clearout sale - where I seemed to get a lot of stuff back in the day. (Tapes? Woolworths? Will younger viewers understand any of this?). I loved it to bits and broke it many years later through overplay even though it didn't really fit in with the strange Goth/Rock hybrid University had turned me into. Both these songs have a real nostalgic longing, even though they know that England's a bit crap they know they're stuck with it.
Cut and paste a few of the lyrics and you get instant Betjeman. Indie whimsie.
England my country the home of the free, such miserable weather
but England's as happy as England can be
why cry
-----------------------------------------------
Oh but Florence you tempt me here to stay
Amidst your hills to while my years away
But your roots in soil lie mine in paving stone
And I hate what it's become but in my bones
So why does England call?
The hedgerows and the town halls
After all there'll soon be nothin' left at all
mp3 : Everything But The Girl - Lonesome For A Place I Know
So that's England for me in two songs - how would you do Scotland? Would Big Country be too obvious? What about Wales? The Alarm????
John East, Sunday 30 January 2011
6 comments:
Two of my very favouritest songs, for similar reasons. And for the fact that when 'Can't Be Sure' came out it WAS about my life.
After last week's 'Summertime' post, I clicked straight onto my Sundays folder and played 'Can't Be Sure', one of my all-time most favourite all-time songs of all-time.
Catatonia and International Velvet gives you Wales...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAKOXXYyLSk
Welcome back John.
The effort you made and the small hand grenade you lobbed in there deserves many a comment.
Off the top of my head, here's a few 'Now That's What I Call Blighty - Vol 1': (Perhaps KTel could release it as a double album Compilation LP?) ..
Home Thoughts From Abroad.
The Country Of The Blind.
Tales From A Riverbank.
The Day We Caught The Train.
Dead End Street.
A Summer Long Since Passed.
There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover.
That's Entertainment.
Part Of The Union.
Come To Milton Keynes.
Seascape.
Babylon's Burning.
Rainy Night In Soho.
Ghost Town.
We Live and Die In These Towns.
Saturday Night.
King George Street.
She's Leaving Home.
Coles Corner.
Seaside Rendevous.
Primrose Hill.
England Made Me.
Bedsitter.
Solsbury Hill.
Every Day Is Like Sunday.
Quit This Town.
Strawberry Fields Forever.
We Are London.
One Day Like This.
Semi Detached Suburban Mr Jones.
Common As Muck.
English Dream.
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train.
Two also of my favourite songs. Idlewild I bought also as a tape. Lonesome for a Place I Know became my anthem when I moved overseas, and The Night I Heard Caruso Sing became the only song that would put my firstborn to sleep. I still have the tape and it still plays, the same can't be said of my early CD's.
I'll have to disagree with Simon's comment above, it's the Super Furries with Mountain People that gives *me* Wales.
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