A guest series by The Robster
#28: Inaugural Trams (2009, Rough Trade)
In a parallel Super Furry universe, there is a utopian European town that has just opened a new public tram system. The authorities have dubbed it a day of celebration and a public holiday has been announced. Yes, of course, it’s an obvious subject for a song. Well, it is if you’re Super Furry Animals, anyway!
mp3: Inaugural Trams [edit]
The first track released from the band’s 9th studio album ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ is a blinder. There’s a real krautrock feel to it, supplemented by some spoken German from special guest Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand. His rap in the middle is, as far as I can make out, quite nonsensical, but that might just well fit the general SFA aesthetic. Let’s face it, there really haven’t been many songs written about trams, and certainly none with such a brilliantly unique chorus:
It’s a secular day and it will be even better tomorrow
It’s the first day of the integrated transport hub
Let us celebrate this monumental progress
We have reduced emissions by seventy-five per cent
The inspiration behind the song seemingly comes from an event involving one of Gruff Rhys’ family: “My great-grandmother was run over by a tram in the Mumbles*. But I’m still very much in favour of trams as a low-emission inner-city transport solution. The song is about commemorating the opening with a secular holiday. It’s a celebration of living with science rather than religion.”
Inaugural Trams was a sign that the new album was going to be a little more elaborate than its stripped-back predecessor. Also, in comparison to ‘Hey Venus!’ being the band’s shortest album, ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ is their longest, weighing in at a full hour. It showcased a real mixed bag of styles and was described by Gruff as having a “biblical sound”, with songs that couldn’t be played indoors!
“There are not a whole lot of chords in these songs; they’re not as song-based in the conventional song-writing way. They’ve been developed out of band jams, but it turned out sounding like songs pretty much anyway.” In fact, many of the songs on ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ had evolved from jams, riffs and grooves the band had been working on for a number of years. Some had originally been mooted for the previous album, but ended up being held over.
I think Inaugural Trams kind of sounds how Gruff described – there are only two chords, by-and-large, but it has a great melody and a compelling groove. There are a few songs on the album that follow this trend – the psychedelic odyssey Pric probably being my fave of the lot. That said, there’s a sequence of songs in the second half of the record that show the poppiest side of the band we’d ever heard before, which is ironic considering ‘Hey Venus!’ was a deliberate attempt to make a straight-up pop album. Helium Hearts in particular has “massive chart smash!” written all over it. Maybe if it had been performed by some teen heartthrob of the period, I’ve no doubt it would have fulfilled its potential. It wasn’t a single, but it’s the most obvious single the band ever wrote.
There were no physical formats of Inaugural Trams made available, but promo CDs featured two edits – a radio edit and an album edit, so-called because it is the album version, but it doesn’t crossfade into the next track. It’s also about 15 seconds shorter than the version that would appear on the 2016 compilation ‘Zoom! The Best Of Super Furry Animals’.
mp3: Inaugural Trams [album edit]
While there was no official tour to promote the album, they did still play some shows. So with there being a distinct lack of b-sides, I’m going to give you some live versions of ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ songs taken from a bootleg of the band playing in New York City in 2009.
mp3: Inaugural Trams [live at the Highline Ballroom, NYC]
mp3: The Very Best Of Neil Diamond [live at the Highline Ballroom, NYC]
If you cast your minds back a few weeks (to the Slow Life post, to be precise), you’ll remember I posted a few links to an interview with my friend Graham of Goldie Lookin Chain. In one of the clips, he spoke about his disbelief on learning that SFA had a new song called The Very Best Of Neil Diamond.
“I texted Cian and said ‘If you’ve written a song called The Very Best Of Neil Diamond…’ I think I offered to chop my bollocks off, but I changed it [to] ‘You owe me a pint’. Lucky old bollocks!” I mean, it’s an utterly brilliant song title that only a band like Super Furry Animals are worthy of, if you ask me. According to Gruff: “[It’s] about how you can’t choose the soundtrack to your life.”
Hmm, maybe not, but if a film was made about my life, I’d want Super Furry Animals to soundtrack much of it.
Next week, a single with something of a new voice…
* For those unfamiliar with this part of the world, Mumbles is a headland just to the southwest of Swansea. The most famous person from Mumbles is Catherine Zeta-Jones.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 