At long last, the series emerges blinking and slightly bewildered from the many different limited edition/Record Store Day releases that accompanied the album Valentina.
Discogs has this one down as being released on 21 October 2013. If so, and I’ve no reason to doubt the info, it makes perfect sense as the following day would see The Wedding Present go out on a UK tour taking in Wolverhampton, Cardiff, Leeds, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leicester, Northampton and Liverpool to commemorate the 21st Anniversary of The Hit Parade LPs, which you might recall were two volumes compiling the 12 singles released throughout 1992.
As you can see from the artwork above, a new 7″ single had been recorded and made available for sale during the UK tour. I don’t recall seeing it for sale in Glasgow, but then again, I may have got myself to the merch stall a bit too late as the numbers each night were likely to have been limited as only 1000 copies were actually pressed up. Many years later I would pick up a second-hand copy of the single housed in a blue sleeve, and I have read on-line (so it must be true!!!) that every single copy has a different sleeve due to the printing proces that was used, with the variations in colour being due to ink running out. “The colours vary from black to blue to red, orange, turquoise, green, brown and probably more in between.”
Oh, and the Latin text on the sleeve front translates as ‘Thirty Years of The Wedding Present’.
Enough background stuff, what about the actual song?
mp3: The Wedding Present – Two Bridges
It’s a bit different, almost as if there are two and maybe three tunes with different tempos all battling for attention across its four minutes. It starts off perhaps a bit derivative of the increasingly harder-sounding edge that the band had been bringing to their songs over the past few years. But then there’s some hand-claps and a sing-along chorus to make things kind of pop-like, before a quiet section which is followed by a lengthy middle section that goes all sort of experimental for a bit and then segues into a fade-out that comes complete with a touch of feedback. It’s interesting enough and probably took a few fans out of their comfort zones.
There’s an indication that David Gedge may have had a bit of regret that he made Two Bridges available in such limited numbers, as he revisited it in 2016, and a re-recorded version was included on the album Going Going…
The sleeve indicates that the b-side was called Whole Wide World. And yup, it was a cover of the new wave classic recorded by Wreckless Eric back in 1977.
mp3: The Wedding Present – Whole Wide World
It’s up there with the usual high standards of TWP covers, although the sudden ending feels a bit premature.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Not their best single, but decent enough. I don’t have this one – it’s rather expensive to get hold of these days when you can find a copy.
Not heard these in ages, so was good to catch up on them. Two Bridges sounding ace.
Related to this release, I found myself upon a London tour bus a few years ago and spotted a pub called Two Bridges. It’s in Southwark, not too far, perhaps unsurprisingly, from London Bridge and Tower Bridge. Just round the corner from the ‘Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?’ dry cleaners and ”Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft’ bakery.
Strangeways