I was going to include this song in the bike post I wrote the other week but it didn’t fit in with the tone of the piece, being rather more wistful and melancholy than that was and it’s such a lovely tune I wanted to ramble on about it a bit longer.
The Clientele always remind me of London, not just because they’re from there (though curiously I think they’re more popular in the States) but their records sound drenched in fog and drizzle with a blurry, impressionistic quality which evokes those fleeting moments that are so hazy and intangible they barely qualify as memories but still give you a nostalgic ache. Listening to them makes me think of shimmering reflections in the inky black pavement after a rainstorm, the half-light inside a smoky pub during the day, steamed-up cafe windows, clouds hanging low in a slate gray sky, a beautiful girl seen for only a second on a crowded tube train who you’ll think about all day, the musty smell of a tiny second-hand bookstore, a neon sign flickering above a doorway in a dark alley, dust particles dancing in shafts of sunlight streaming through net curtains, long shadows cast by the trees in Hyde Park at the end of a languid summers day, Chelsea Bridge all lit up at night seen from inside a train crossing the Thames into Victoria Station.
The lyrics of “Bicycles” alone are enough to set me adrift on memory bliss:
Bicycles have drifted through these leaves still wet with rain August now has faded in the silence of the rain I remember one Sunday, riding in through the gate Three balloons in a white sky, 1978
Playgrounds where we spent our days Return within our dreams What it is, it isn’t up to me I’ve been driving in my car On Sunday in the rain And my life is slipping so away
I loved this single, The Distractions were one of the many Post-Punk/New Wave bands that came and went in the blink of an eye and ended up half-forgotten and gathering dust in the old singles box despite making some cracking records. They put out a few 45s on Factory before signing to Island who I seem to remember were touting them as the “next big thing” for a while. “Boys Cry” came out in 1980 and flopped as did their only album, the terrific “Nobody’s Perfect” which has never been reissued.
When this record was a hit in the summer of 1983 I was deeply in love with my first serious girlfriend and it’s the perfect song for the blissful glow of first love, just the thing for putting on a mixtape for that special lady. So now you’d expect me to say that when I hear this the whole thing comes back to me in a Proustian rush of warm nostalgia, its summery innocence and tender heart invoking sweet memories of holding hands in the park, that hesitant first kiss, walking her home in the evenings, and those never-ending telephone conversations.
But the truth is the record that really reminds me of her is the first Orange Juice album but this is such a gorgeous, gorgeous track I almost want it to be the one that brings it all back, because if you weren’t in love in the summer of 1983 this would have made you want to be.
Even though I was mostly listening to Northern Soul when I was at art college in the early 80s, there’s something about this ancient Everything But The Girl video that perfectly captures the feel of those days. It’s not just the hair and the clothes or their pale, skinny frames that look like they could do with a good meal, but together with the maudlin wetness of the music it’s like a Proustian sensory experience of what it was like to be a student back then. The dishwater-gray Northern sky and industrial bridge give it a real “Thatcher’s Britain” vibe too.
Of course Ben and Tracey were students themselves at the time and when they joined together to form EBTG they created the uber student couple. Art college was probably a little weirder than regular university (at least I hope it was) but I’m sure the same rules still applied: everyone listened to The Smiths and New Order, lived on beans on toast, got their hair cut by the local barber (mine was called Eric The Razor), bought their clothes second-hand from charity shops or vintage 50s emporiums like Flip, and Ben and Tracey’s gentle acoustic pop was what you heard drifting from student rooms late at night — the soundtrack to many a miserable night alone with a book or, if you were lucky, inexperienced fumblings with the bra of some cute indie girl. We were all so much younger then.
Of all the cute and clever indie bands that came out of England in the 1980s, Prefab Sprout were easily the most polite and bookish, they were the band who sat in front of the class while Orange Juice were sitting at the back chewing gum and telling jokes. And of course there was that name Prefab Sprout which was so precious and twee it was just asking to be beaten up and have its lunch money stolen.
Sprout lead singer Paddy McAloon wrote highly literate pop songs which were so loaded with obscure references and clever allusions that they needed footnotes. How many other writers would come up with a title like “Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)” for their debut single because the first letter of each word spelled out the name Limoges, the French town where his girlfriend had gone to university? In another example of The Sprout’s clever-dickery McAloon once planned an entire album called “Famous Fakes” where every song was named after a famous person, this never materialized (like most of Paddy’s big ideas) but these two lovelies that were written as part of the project ended up as b-sides.
According to this discography “Donna Summer” has been a b-side on three different singles though in this case it’s off the double-pack single release of “When Love Breaks Down” in 1984 from where the wonderful “Diana” also comes. “Donna Summer” is another of those Sprout songs that needs footnotes, even knowing the lyrics its meaning goes right over my head. It’s a gorgeous record though and there’s something nicely perverse about naming such a slow, mournful song after the Queen of Disco. The subject matter of “Diana” is clear enough, it really is about that Diana and I think is one of the best things The Sprouts ever did, much too good to be tucked away on a b-side. A slower version of this song appeared on their “Protest Songs” album which I think I prefer, but only just.
There are few more beautiful places on this Earth than the English countryside on a hot summer day (we do get them occasionally you know.) When we were kids my sister and I used to spend two weeks every summer staying with out auntie Carol in Derbyshire where we’d fill our days cycling along dusty country lanes, fishing for sticklebacks in shady streams, picking berries, and generally being happy-go-lucky youngsters frollocking about England’s green and pleasant land, getting grass stains on our knees and stung by nettles. All that was over 30 years ago and my memories of those days are very hazy so it probably wasn’t anywhere near as utopian as it sounds, but my heart still swells when I see rolling green hills and I drift off into a wistful reverie of long ago perfect summers.
Elusive as butterflies though those moments are, Virgina Astley tried to capture them on her 1983 album “From Gardens Where We Feel Secure” which evokes the hazy, lazy glow of a pastoral English summer day with ambient piano instrumentals that float along like dandelion spores, dressed up with field recordings of chirping birds, church bells, creaking garden gates and baa-ing lambs. It’s as precious as little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off and really nothing more than wallpaper music (classy Laura Ashley wallpaper though) but when I hear it I get all dreamy and reflective and have an urge for a cold glass of Robinson’s Barley Water.
It could just be my advancing age and sentimentality but I always thought there was a heavy sadness underneath the pretty surface of this record. Not just because even the most perfect summer day has to come to an end, but there’s a yearning for an Arcadian idyll that doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. Yes, even on a perfect summer day we English can find something to be depressed about.
The sentimental musings of an ageing expat in words, music, and pictures. Mp3 files are up for a limited time so drink them while they're hot.
Contact me: lee at londonlee dot com
