Month: January 2022

Paul Weller

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : WILD WOOD

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

W is for Wild Wood released by Paul Weller as a single in September 1993.

Again, I won’t take up too much of your time today.

The Jam and The Style Council have featured heavily on the blog over the years, but there’s been next to nothing on the solo career of Paul Weller. The simple explanation is down to the fact that other than Into Tomorrow, the first ever solo single, released under the name of the Paul Weller Movement in 1991, I have just one CD single in the collection:-

mp3: Paul Weller – Wild Wood

I have this as Rachel bought me it.  She had heard it on the radio and was very pleasantly surprised to find out it was the work of Paul Weller, especially as she never had time for any of the work of his two previously successful bands.

I quite like Wild Wood as it’s a pleasant enough acoustic ballad.  I thought it made a bit of a change from the largely lumpen R’n’B stuff of his eponymous debut solo album from the previous year, and it did tempt me into getting Santa to bring me a copy of the Wild Wood album.  I just didn’t take to it, but I did hang onto it for a bit.  The release of Stanley Road in 1995 was the breaking point for me.  I didn’t understand the critical praise that was heaped on it, and I certainly couldn’t get my head around how well it had sold, as I thought it was plain awful, dad-rock with nothing inventive, different or interesting about it.  A colleague who thought Stanley Road was as good as anything they had ever heard in their life was with the recipient of my CD copy of Wild Wood in a secret Santa that next Christmas.  Judging by their reaction, on opening the parcel, I think she was now the proud owner of two Paul Weller albums.

mp3: Paul Weller – Ends Of The Earth

That’s your really dull and boring b-side to the single, which was mostly bought on CD format but was also issued by Go! Discs on limited edition 7″ and 10″ vinyl.  It reached #14 in the singles chart.

JC

Twilight Sad

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : VIDEOGRAMS

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

V is for Videograms released by The Twilight Sad as a 10″ single-sided etched single in October 2018

I won’t take up too much of your time today, given how much I’ve written about The Twilight Sad over the years.

2022 is going to be some year for the band.  It will begin with four dates in January at which James and Andy will take to the stage and perform stripped-down versions of their songs, while April sees the full band play two nights at Glasgow Barrowlands, shows that have been postponed on at least two (and maybe three?) previous occasions as a result of COVID restrictions.  Tickets have been in Aldo’s possession for a long, long time and we can’t wait.

From October – December, they will be  the special guests of The Cure on a 44-date arena tour of Europe and the UK, playing to about 10,000 folk on average each night. Other news of their own summer dates is awaited…..and possibly some new material too, as it’s been a while.

Today’s musical offering is a limited edition single from the most recent album It Won/t Be Like This All the Time.

mp3: The Twilight Sad – Videograms

While it was one of three singles lifted from the album, it was the only one given a physical release, with it appearing in the shops some three months in advance of the January 2019 release of the album. There was also a digital version on offer, one which not only appealed to the long-time fans but was of interest to those who followed the work of a well-known producer and mixer:-

mp3: The Twilight Sad – Videograms (Weatherall Mix)

It wasn’t the first time that The Twilight Sad and AndrewWeatherall had worked together, but with the untimely death of the producer in early 2020, it proved to be the last.

JC

Young Knives

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : UP ALL NIGHT

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

U is for Up All Night released by The Young Knives as a single in February 2008

The Young Knives are a band both myself and Mrs Villain (aka Rachel) went to see a fair bit back in the day. They got their initial break through Shifty Disco, an Oxford-based indie label, before a number of tours supporting some of the newly emerging and chart-reaching indie-guitar bands saw them land a deal with London-based Transgressive Records in 2005. A very busy three years followed, with the release of two albums and eight singles, five of which did make the Top 50, although none got any higher than #35.

Consisting of the brothers Henry Dartnall (vocals, guitar) and Thomas Bonsu-Dartnall, whose stage name was The House of Lords (vocals, bass guitar, keyboards) along with Oliver Askew (drums, backing vocals), they made pop music fun again in that eccentrically English sort of way that has a long line running through it going back to the Kinks and taking in the likes of Squeeze, XTC and Blur among others. They were always an entertaining live act and never really worried too much about whether any music writers thought they were hip, and indeed they seemed to thrive on their perceived nerdiness and geekiness.. From recollection, they were loathed by the NME.

I certainly wrote about them a few times over at the old blog, but this seems to be the first time since I shifted to wordpress.  The debut album was produced by the late Andy Gill (Gang of Four) while its follow-up, recorded in Glasgow, at a studio built by Mogwai, had Tony Doogan, best known for his work with Belle and Sebastian, was in the producer’s chair.

Up All Night was the second single taken from the second album, Superabundance.  It was released on 2 x 7″ vinyl and CD. The b-sides on the vinyl were otherwise unavailable originals while the CD had a cover version of a #1 hit from the 80s, recorded for a session that was broadcast on XFM radio

mp3: The Young Knives – Up All Night
mp3: The Young Knives – Le Petomaine
mp3: The Young Knives – Swimming With The Fishes
mp3: The Young Knives – Stand and Deliver

It reached #45 and was the last time the band enjoyed any singles chart success.

Having been dropped by Transgressive in 2009, they set up their own label, Gadzook for the third album, Ornaments From The Silver Arcade (2011). I bought it at the time but didn’t take to it on the first couple of listens, thinking it wasn’t what I was expecting or wanting to hear, and put it away on a shelf.

Ten years on, and I decided to give it another listen during a train journey up to the football a few weeks ago, and came to the conclusion that it was actually something of a lost classic, different in some ways from the previous two albums, but still laced with the catchy hooks and clever lyrics I’d enjoyed previously. It got me thinking again about XTC and how some of their best material was written and recorded when all but their most loyal fans had deserted them. I’ve since bought the fourth and fifth albums released by The Young Knives – Sick Octave (2013) and Barbarians (2020) and will get myself sorted out for an ICA sometime soon.

JC

White Lies

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : TO LOSE MY LIFE

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

T is for To Lose My Life released by White Lies as a single in January 2009.

White Lies burst onto the scene in 2008, one of those bands who get hyped all over the media on the back of some journalists having caught them at a gig and prior to any music being available to buy.  This is normally a recipe for disaster, but for once the music did just about live up to expectations, although there was, by the time the debut album hit the shops, the inevitable backlash.

Harry McVeigh (lead vocals, guitar), Charles Cave (bass guitar and backing vocals), and Jack Lawrence-Brown (drums) had been performing together since their late teens, initially under the name Fear of Flying. A couple of singles, produced by uber-producer Stephen Street, as well as some high-profile support slots on UK tours, hadn’t generated much success, and so the trio decided to have a serious rethink, choosing to ditch the name and to move to a darker, less pop-orientated sound.

The best part of five months was spent on refining and rehearsing, but all the while demos were being put out across various social media channels to generate a buzz. The extent to which it worked can be seen from Zane Lowe of BBC Radio 1 naming their song Death as ‘the hottest in the world‘ in early February 2008, despite it not having been released; in fact White Lies didn’t even have a record label and weren’t scheduled to make their live debut until 28 February 2008.

Within days of that debut, there were numerous offers on the table, with the band deciding to go with Fiction Records, part of the Universal Music empire. They were also added to a nationwide tour being promoted by the NME and by the end of May 2008, had also appeared on television, playing two songs on Later With Jools Holland on BBC2.

The deal with Fiction allowed for a small indie label to release the band’s debut single, Unfinished Business, on a limited edition 7″ vinyl. The debut for their new label was Death, the song hyped up many months earlier), and it only reached #52 in September 2008. Its follow-up would wait until January 2009, just a week before the debut album hit the shops:-

mp3: White Lies – To Lose My Life

It would only enter the charts #34, and drop down immediately, but as if to show that hit singles were no longer all that important in the grand scheme of things, the album, which was also called To Lose My Life, entered the charts at #1 the following week.  The critics, however, were no longer fawning over White Lies now that they were no longer a secret.

The single was issued onto separate 7″ vinyl records as well as a CD.  I’ve got your CD b-side on offer

mp3: White Lies – To Lose My Life (Filthy Dukes Remix)

The band is still going strong with a sixth studio album scheduled for a release later this year, supported by thirteen shows across the UK/Ireland in March and a very extensive 35-date trek around France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Spain and Portugal between 4 April and 25 May.

JC

Stranglers

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : SOMETHING BETTER CHANGE/STRAIGHTEN OUT

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

S is for Something Better Change and Straighten Out, released by The Stranglers as a double-A single in July 1977.

We can argue all day and all night whether The Stranglers should be seen as a bona-fide punk outfit, or whether they were lucky grubby pub rockers who happened to be in the right city at the right time.  I liked a lot of their singles, although I reckon if I’d been a few years older and more politically/culturally/socially aware, I’d have been appalled by some of their lyrics.  As it was, the tunes got inside my head and the shout-along style of the vocals was nigh on perfect for any teenager looking to annoy their parents and teachers!

mp3: The Stranglers – Something Better Change
mp3: The Stranglers – Straighten Out

This made it all the way to #9 in July 1977. Something Better Change was the first single lifted from the album No More Heroes, released two months later. Straighten Out didn’t appear on the album.

JC

Maxine Nightingale

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED FROM

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

R is for Right Back Where We Started From released by Maxine Nightingale as a single in November 1975.

Some songs just sound so great coming out of the radio that they stay with you forever.  So it is with a Top 10 single from when I was just 12 years old:-

mp3: Maxine Nightingale – Right Back Where We Started From

Maxine Nightingale was 25 years old when this single was a hit.  British-born, of Guyanese parents, she began singing in groups while still at school, and by the time she was 16, was a vocalist in a cabaret band, and playing to club audiences all over the country.  She cut three solo singles in the late 60s/early 70s, but none of them achieved anything.  She then spent a number of years as part of the cast in the musical Hair, initially in London before taking the lead female role in the German production.

Newly married and with a daughter, she returned to London but took time off after doing a limited amount of session singing as it was impossible to juggle work and being a mother.  One of her appearances in the studio had caught the ear of producer Pierre Tubbs, who asked his friend, J. Vincent Edwards if they could come up together with a show-stopping tune for the vocalist.

The song was written in a matter of hours, and within a few days of being asked, Maxine was in a small demo studio in London putting down her vocal.  She was still reluctant to think about a career and her preference was that, should it be taken up by a label, it be released under a pseudonym. She also asked for a flat, one-off session fee for her performance, (probably around £25) but Edwards convinced her that would be a bad idea, and she should take her cut of the royalties instead.

Tubbs and Edwards pulled everything together using session musicians. The first label it was offered to was United Artists who pounced on it.  The speed at which things were moving helped persuade the singer that it should go out under her own name.  It reached #8 in the UK, but more importantly it would get to #2 on the US Billboard Chart. All this led to a proper contract for Maxine Nightingale resulting in three albums in the late 70s (the image at the top of this post is the sleeve of the debut album…the single came in a plain sleeve as there hadn’t been any time to take professional, publicity photos).

She never really came close to repeating the success of Right Back, and in many ways, Maxine Nightingale is regarded as something of a one-hit wonder.

My own love for the song has never left me, and I’ve aired it a few times in the pre-match build-up at Stark’s Park on Saturday afternoons, often in the important games as we chased promotion to a higher division.

JC

Wire

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : A QUESTION OF DEGREE

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

Q is for A Question of Degree released by Wire as a single in June 1979.

Wire formed in London in 1976.  Mike, from Manic Pop Thrills, provided as good a summary as you’d ever want, when he pulled together an ICA back in March 2017:-

A British rock institution rapidly approaching the 40th anniversary of their first gig as a 4 piece (in 2017). And, after all that time, still making great albums.

For much of their lifespan, Wire have featured only four members – Colin Newman (guitar/vocals), Graeme Lewis (bass/vocals), Robert Grey (nee Gotobed) – drums) and Bruce Gilbert (guitar).

Yet, despite a remarkably stable line-up, intra-band tensions have always played a huge part in the Wire story. Wilson Neate’s book ‘Read & Burn: A Book About Wire’ is a superb telling of their history, portraying it as a struggle for control between principally Newman and Gilbert.

The late 70s produced three classic LPs in ‘Pink Flag’, ‘Chairs Missing’ and ‘154’ on which the band pretty much invented post punk. This purple patch however was curtailed by an acrimonious split, with songs written for a fourth album.

Perhaps surprisingly after several years apart the band came together again in the mid 80s. Their 80s/90s output is less well regarded than the original trilogy, but almost any band would consider the run of records from the ‘Snakedrill’ E.P. to ‘The First letter’’ to constitute a decent career.

Having lost drummer Gotobed during the band’s second incarnation, the internal dynamics of the remaining three members meant that they ceased activity for a second time in 1991.

Unexpectedly, the band reconvened for live shows and to produce another LP ‘Send’ in the early Noughties. Since then, although Gilbert left the band for good after ‘Send’, the band have enjoyed the most active phase of their career, releasing four albums and a mini-LP since 2008 with another album due at the end of March 2017 (and one more for good measure arrived in 2020).

Today’s song was released after Chairs Missing, but prior to 154:-

mp3: Wire – A Question of Degree

It’s an excellent piece of music, and I’d love to be able to tell you that I picked up on it as a teenager back in 1979.  But I was quite late to Wire, albeit I was aware of Pink Flag as it was a favourite album of a flatmate in the student years.    It’s no surprise that the single was a huge flop, but I don’t think the band or the label ever thought it would deliver any mainstream success.  The first two minutes or so move along at a fair lick, almost power-pop in places, but then it changes tempo and seems to go through some sort of machine that forces a change in shape, to something approaching psychedelia; it only lasts 30 seconds or so, but it is quite disorientating and makes it nigh on impossible to play on daytime radio, before reverting to that earworm of a tune.

The b-side:-

mp3: Wire – Former Airline

I’m very grateful that I didn’t buy this single in 1979.  If I’d played Former Airline, then there’s every chance I’d have made a fool of myself by taking it back to the shop and asking for a replacement copy on the grounds that the record was so badly damaged it was unlistenable.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

JC

Sex Pistols

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : PRETTY VACANT

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

P is for Pretty Vacant released by Sex Pistols as a single in July 1977.

I did think long and hard about featuring this.  I do despise everything that John Lydon has become in recent years, and the blog really should be giving him as much oxygen as it does Morrissey.  But I never invested anything near as much, emotionally and all the rest of it, in Lydon/Sex Pistols/PIL as I did with The Smiths/Morrissey, and as such, I can, in my head, make some differences.  Besides, homing in on Pretty Vacant, and extending it to the b-side, does allow some sort of link to how yesterday’s post finished off.

It was released on 2 July 1977 as the band’s third single, reaching #6 in the UK singles chart. And yes, I’m still amazed all these years later that the BBC and all other radio stations accepted that the singer was pronouncing it as ‘vacant’………….

mp3: Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant

Here’s the b-side, seemingly a one-take in the studio, featuring a cover of a Stooges song:-

mp3 : Sex Pistols – No Fun

Talking of covers, The Ukrainians, the band fronted by Peter Solowka, formerly of The Wedding Present, did this in 2002:-

mp3: The Ukrainians – Цiлкoм Baкaнтнi

JC

Ida Maria

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : OH MY GOD

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

O is for Oh My God released by Ida Maria as a single in October 2007 and re-released in January 2009.

Ida Maria was born in 1984 in the small town of Nesna, Norway.  At the age of sixteen she moved to the bigger town of Bergen, looking to try and make some sort of career as a musician.  It took another move, this time to Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden, before she was able to gain some success, fronting a band and becoming a reasonably popular live act within the Swedish rock scene without any commercial success or record deal.

It would take until 2006 to make her name back home in Norway, thanks to winning national competitions for unknown artists and capturing the attention at rock festivals.  She was signed to the Norwegian arm of Universal Records, releasing Oh My God as her debut single in late 2007, with the album Fortress Around My Heart following in July 2008.

The album was a huge success in Norway, and was also picked up on by the music press in the UK, thanks largely to the success of the single I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked, which was a Top 20 hit and helped land Ida Maria slots at summer festivals as well as an appearance on Later With Jools Holland.

The decision was taken to re-release Oh My God as the follow-up, but for whatever reason, it was held back on a couple of occasions and didn’t hit the shops until January 2009. It didn’t crack the Top 75, despite it being an infectiously catchy piece of indie-rock:-

mp3 : Ida Maria – Oh My God

Here’s the b-side from the original release

mp3 : Ida Maria – We’re All Going To Hell

Later in 2009, Ida Maria released a remix of Oh My God, one win which a grizzled rock veteran added his co- and backing vocal:-

mp3 : Ida Maria – Oh My God (remix featuring Iggy Pop)

It’s a pity that I’ve previously featured The Passenger on the blog as it would have made for a neat follow-up tomorrow.

JC

Vince Staples

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : NORF NORF


The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

N is for Norf Norf released by Vince Staples as a single in June 2015.

The first in the series not to actually get a physical release, as a single.

I’m sure it was SWC who brought this to my attention.  If it was, then thank you….and if it was someone else, then I apologise profusely.

Here’s all music’s take:-

One of the most talented voices in rap to emerge in the late 2010s, Vince Staples took the hardened perspective of his Long Beach-via-Compton upbringing and elevated it above his contemporaries with forward-thinking production choices and lyrical introspection. After releasing a batch of mixtapes that were well-received by fans and peers alike, he issued his official debut Summertime ’06, a 2015 hit that spawned the gold-certified Norf Norf. Staples quickly followed with 2016’s politically charged Prima Donna EP. With his star swiftly rising, he had a breakthrough year in 2017 with a spot on the Black Panther soundtrack, a feature on the Gorillaz track Ascension, and another hit single, BagBak, from his critically acclaimed sophomore album, Big Fish Theory. Pivoting to shorter LPs, he released the brisk FM! (2018) and Vince Staples (2021).

Norf Norf did not peak in any major chart, but received widespread acclaim by critics and was placed on several year-end lists. In February 2018, the song was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, which I am assuming was based on the number of downloads over the years.

mp3: Vince Staples – Norf Norf

The song, which is a hard hitting and gritty tale about life on the streets, gained notoriety over a year after its release. It was all on account of social media lighting up after a woman, a Christian mother, posted an eleven minute-long video blog in which she tore into the song, lamenting the fact it was being aired:-

“This is on our local radio station, this crap is being played.  I couldn’t even believe the words that I was listening to. As a mom, it infuriated me.”

The woman was ridiculed, largely on the basis of privilege and was accused of being racist.  Staples, however, refused to jump on the bandwagon, stating, via twitter, that everyone was entitled to an opinion, and adding that he didn’t believe she was racist.  His take on it was the woman in the video was confused on the context of the song and this caused her to be frightened, and understandably so. He went further and called out those who were attacking her.

It seems to me to be a strange one.  I get the idea of Staples suggesting that those who were attacking the woman were displaying as much a lack of understanding as she had shown back when she posted the video online.

But surely there is some noise to be made about the fact that the woman displayed such a shocking lack of empathy towards the situations being described in the lyric?  If white parents continually stigmatise young black people and pass on their unjust fears to their children, then the issues that have caused so much pain and grief these past 12 months in particular are never going to go away.

Apologies for a bit of a Sunday sermon today.  I’ll try and pick out a happy song tomorrow.

JC

Tindersticks

A RANDOM A-Z OF SINGLES : MY OBLIVION

The traffic to the blog slows up over the Festive period, and it’s therefore something of an opportunity to take a bit of a breather.

Over a period of 26 days, I’ll be posting a single never previously featured on its own before – it might have sneaked in as part of an ICA or within a piece looking at various tracks – with the idea of an edited cut’n’paste from somewhere (most likely wiki) and then all the songs from either the vinyl or CD.

M is for My Oblivion released by Tindersticks as a single in October 2003.

This is the sort of thing I sneak out on the blog when folk aren’t paying too much attention.

Tindersticks had released a sixth studio album, Waiting For The Moon in June 2003.  Even for a band who rarely made the most commercial of music, this was a difficult listen, one which it was later revealed to have taken a long time to get down in the studio, with the recording process running from September 2001 – January 2003.  It also proved to be the last album the original line-up would make as by the time The Hungry Saw was released in 2008, three of the original six members had quit….a genuine case of musical differences.

For some strange reason, the label that the band were on at the time, Beggars Banquet, felt that a drip-feed of single releases would somehow help with sales.  Both of Don’t Even Go There and Sometimes It Hurts had bombed, and there really wasn’t another track suitable for release as a single…..and besides, there was no radio station prepared to play their music except when it was the time of day, dead of night when listening numbers were miniscule.

And yet, the decision was taken to edit down the seven-minute version of an album track, into something just a little over four minutes, and issue a third single from the album:-

mp3: Tindersticks – My Oblivion (edit)

I’m not saying that My Oblivion is a poor piece of music – far from it – but it is a ridiculously poor choice for a single.

But then again, all the diehard fans went out and bought it as there was a previously unreleased song along with what was thought, at first glance, to be an instrumental version of another track on the album:-

mp3: Tindersticks – Now It’s Over
mp3: Tindersticks – Running Wild (extended instrumental)

Now It’s Over is a decent enough song, especially for a b-side and actually could have gone on to the album as a replacement for one or more of the hard listens.

Running Wild, in its original form, was the closing track on the album, coming in at just over four minutes and with a typically morose vocal. This version comes with a warning. It is more than 14 minutes of compiled takes, recorded during the various sessions for Waiting For The Moon.

Anyone who gets all the way through it without hitting the off or fast-forward button deserves some sort of reward. Or at least a long lie-down.

Happy New Year!!!!!!

JC