A Song From Under The Floorboards (VS 321) : Released January 1980 on 7″
I was 16-and-half years of age when A Song From Under The Floorboards was released. I don’t often express regrets about how my musical tastes evolved and developed, which is no surprise given how often I talk up 1979 as being the greatest ever year for new music and how much joy came by way through, in particular, the first half of the 80s when I lived the student life (on a grant and with the great support of the Bank of Dad and Mum).
But I do get annoyed at myself that I didn’t pick up on Magazine until 1982 with the purchase of the After The Fact compilation, an album, as the title itself suggests, issued by Virgin Records after the band had broke-up.
Nobody at school brought Magazine records into the 5th or 6th Year common rooms to play. I, no doubt, read about the band in one or more of the music papers and probably heard them played on the John Peel show every now and again, but nothing stuck in my brain, albeit I’ll offer the defence that so much was going on, musically and the rest, that there wasn’t much room. And when I really break it down, I was too wrapped up in The Jam who were, in my mind, the greatest band the world had ever seen and indeed would ever see.
To messrs Devoto, McGeoch (RIP), Adamson, Formula and Doyle, I offer a wholehearted and unreserved apology. Can you take any consolation that I think A Song From Under The Floorboards is one of THE greatest bits of music ever recorded?
mp3: Magazine – A Song From Under The Floorboards
Any Magazine fans back in the day must have been ridiculously excited back in January 1980, and would have been counting down the months, weeks and days until the new album was released (the wait turned out to be four months). It is astonishing that no radio stations picked up on this song as it had all the hallmarks of a hit single – if only it had been brought to the attention of the record buying public.
What about the b-side?
mp3: Magazine – Twenty Years Ago
I do wonder, given it contains the refrain ‘Twenty years ago I used your soap’ if the original plan had been to have this one on the album, only to later decide that there were ten ‘better’ tracks’ or perhaps the band felt it would leave them open to accusations of listening to P.I.L. a bit too much? Either way, it means that the few who bought ‘Floorboards’ had two immense pieces of music to enjoy.
The second-hand market via Discogs has quite a number of copies of the single available for very reasonable prices. Anyone who is serious about music should have this i their collection. Just sayin’………