i'm the stranger's lonely glance
by Sean
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

Two wonderfully fun heyday yee-hah zoomzoomzoom tracks!

The Divine Comedy - "Gin Soaked Boy". The release of this Divine Comedy original (sorry, Tom Waits fans) coincided with the band's 1999 greatest hits album, Secret History. It's a chugging, pulsing chamber pop tune, a circular melody festooned with piano and synths and electric guitars. The song's slightly stupid, but wonderfully so - it's a stolid showcase for Neil Hannon's crooner vocals, for ba ba ba la la's and, most of all, goofy/brilliant rhyming couplets. The inane bumps up against the wise, the cliche against the startling. "I'm the spirit in the sky / I'm the catcher in the rye / I'm the twinkle in her eye / I'm Jeff Goldblum in The Fly..." It's a great deal of fun, carefully arranged, fearlessly excited.

Wheat - "I Met a Girl". The sparkling opening track from Wheat's 2004 record, Per Second, Per Second... Every Second. It's a gutsy, vivacious bit of guitar pop - a delirious, backwards-bending chorus that's brought some verses along for tradition's sake. The drums smack like a solo bedroom dance-party, the guitars zip up and down the speakers, and one of them wiggles like a Modest Mouse runaway. Even more amazing is the middle eight: instead of doing more of the same, Wheat throw in a whole half-a-song of something else. There's a caressing build, a radiant rise - and then we stagger back into the arms of the twisting-and-jocund main melody. Fearless and feelgood, a celebratory dream of freedom (from, uh, being "with someone").

Posted by Sean at April 13, 2004 4:25 AM
Comments

That Wheat track is incredibly unfuckwithable. It kills me. The album's good, but not as good as Hope and Adams, and I wish they hadn't recorded Don't I Hold You... but this song makes up for anything.

Posted by tsjns at April 13, 2004 2:03 PM

Gin Soaked Boy RULES!
It's a really brilliant song :)

Posted by Jet at April 13, 2004 3:47 PM

Gin Soaked Boy isn't just a song - it's a riddle. (Bonus fun.)

Great blog.

Posted by paul at April 22, 2004 9:57 PM

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about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.

Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here.

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Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.

Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
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