THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Thirteen)

A slight deviation from the norm today.

Dalliance was the 13th single.  It was released in at the beginning of May 1991.  It reached #29.   It had been one of the songs recorded in April 1991 at the Pachyderm Recording Studio, which is located in the small town of Cannon Falls in rural Minnesota.

The first version of the song, however, had been aired in October 1990, during a session for John Peel, an occasion I’ve written about before:-

“I remember hearing something that night and just thinking how loud it was – loud as in just a total wall of noise. It was not the sort of sound I normally associated with the band.

It took until the release of the Peel Session box set in 2007 before I could relive those moments from all those years ago. Of the near 100 bits of music spread across the six discs, this was the first I played..I felt like a kid on Xmas Day getting the present they’ve been dreaming about for what seems like forever:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Dalliance (Peel Session)

Give it a listen. The noise that so startled me back in 1990 comes in at the 2 minute 21 seconds mark. It is just after the Boy David has poured his heart out – again – and said “after all you’ve done, that I’m so…I still want to kiss you.””

Dalliance is quite extraordinary.   A woman is walking away from an affair, deciding that her life is going to best spent with someone who, it is fair to presume, is her husband of many years.  Her lover is, understandably, distraught about it.  He recalls incidents from their time together, and in particular how she used to always bin his gifts and presents, because she was scared what her husband would say or do, and he does now finally realise that the two relationships were built on tissues of lies and at least one of them was doomed from the outset. 

Then, the kicker comes.  

You told him what he wants to hear and so you got another chance
But I was yours for seven years
Is that what you call a dalliance?

Seven years??   For fuck’s sake, that’s a helluva time for things to have been going on.   I can say that with some personal knowledge….the affair between myself and Rachel – we were both married at the time – was so intense that it all came to a head after four months, and we knew decisions had to be made one way or another.  Both marriages were soon over, and we’ve been together since February 1990.   There is no way either of us could have tried to keep things secret for seven years………..

I’m digressing.   But the fact this song was released in its recorded form just slightly more than a year later has always made me shiver.

The Peel version proved to be shorter than that which was released as a single

mp3: The Wedding Present – Dalliance

I’m not sure if the band, having listened to the results of the Peel Session, decided a change of pace was required. The studio version is even more intense….the wall of noise maybe doesn’t quite have the same shocking impact, but it then, thanks to the skills of Steve Albini, it then builds and builds and builds in a way that doesn’t happen on the Peel version and brings a whole new concept to how the group was now sounding.  Jingle-jangle in an indie-pop style no more……

I’ve recently read a contemporary review of Dalliance, as part of what was written for a review of the album Seamonsters.  I think it was from the pen of the late Dave Jennings, who wrote for the NME and Melody Maker:-

“Dalliance, the first item here, sets the unsettling tone, building slowly from a choked whisper to a desperate plea, before that astonishing avalanche of gritty noise sweeps away everything in its path.”

Seamonsters has long been my favourite TWP album.   Dalliance proved to be just one of ten pieces of perfection spread across the two sides of vinyl.

It was issued on 7″, 10″, 12″ and cassette.   Until pulling this series together, I only had the 12″, but I went onto Discogs for the 10″ so that, this time around, I can offer up the exclusive live track that was only available via that particular release:-

mp3 : The Wedding Present – Niagara
mp3 : The Wedding Present – She’s My Best Friend
mp3 : The Wedding Present – What Have I Said Now? (live)

Niagara was from the Seamonsters sessions, and it does feel like a good call not to have it on the album.  It’s not that it’s a poor song, but I find it hard to see where it would have fitted on without disrupting the perfect flow.

She’s My Best Friend is a cover of a Velvet Underground song, on which was the TWP contribution to the ten-song tribute album Heaven And Hell Volume One.  The other contributors were Chapterhouse, The Telscopes, Nirvana, Buffalo Tom, James, Screaming Trees, The Motorcycle Boy, Terry Bickers & Bradliegh Smith, and Ride.   It’s a very understated and gentle take on a very understated and gentle song.

The original version of the live track can be found on Bizarro.   It’s one that I’ve long liked, and so was very happy to go and find a second-hand copy of the 10″ single.

One more single was later lifted from Seamonsters. I’ll feature that next week.

JC