ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #090

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#090: Serious Drinking – ‘Country Girl Became Sex And Drugs Punk’ (Upright ’84)

Hello friends,

to be honest to you: it took me a considerable amount of my teenage years to learn that music and, more importantly, lyrics does (or should this be ‘do’?) not necessarily always need to be deep and meaningful in order to be good, in fact sometimes all you need is a good laugh, really! It’s hard to describe, but if you had to compare, say, Joy Division or Mazzy Star to Half Man Half Biscuit or I, Ludicrous – would you be able to judge which band is better? I certainly could not do this, because all of them are great – in their own style.

Serious Drinking, despite their name, do not have to be taken all too serious, I would say – but the thing is, if I had to guess: they never expected to be taken too seriously, contrary to many other bands. And that’s an attitude I can sympathize with, to be sure!

So, a brief CV for you: Serious Drinking came from Norwich, were active from ’81 to ’85, two albums, two (great) compilations, three singles, heavily into football, girls, drinking, not consequently in this exact sequence – and that’s all you need to know really.

And should you still be wondering what I was trying to say above, perhaps the band’s humour is best shown in the title of the second album, a quote from one of those hilarious 60’s ‘Batman’ movies starring Adam West, in which Batman says to Robin: ‘They may be drinkers, Robin, but they’re also human beings …. they may be salvaged!’

I always loved this title, and this humour is drawing a more or less continuous line throughout many songs Serious Drinking wrote: ‘Love On The Terraces’, ‘Bobby Moore Was Innocent’, ‘Don’t Shoot Me Down’, ‘Baby I’m Dying A Death’. Especially the latter is ace, and I could easily have chosen it here, but no, I went for their final single instead, because it’s a song which tells a story, and mind you, it doesn’t happen often that a story as sad as this one puts a grin on my face until the needle reaches the lead-out groove … each and every time:

mp3:  Serious Drinking – Country Girl Became Sex And Drugs Punk

Perhaps I should dedicate this to SWC, because a) he lives in the middle of nowhere and b) he has a young daughter: so be warned, my friend!

For the rest of you: as always, enjoy,

 

Dirk