Said the Gramophone

QUIET IN THE BACKGROUND

The Underpainting - "The Underpainting".

First let us talk of "underpaintings".

An underpainting is a painting that lies hidden beneath another, on the same canvas.

If we add capital letters & definite articles to the above, we can get metaphysical: The Underpainting is the painting that lies hidden beneath The Painting, on the same canvas.

Or in other words, The Underpainting is the meaning of life.

The Underpainting is also the name under which Brian Michael Roff now records. Furthermore, The Underpainting is his new album, due soon (with artwork by Matthew Feyld). And "The Underpainting" is the title track.

So. Is "The Underpainting" the underpainting of The Underpainting's The Underpainting?

Yes.

But listen, before I get too lost in my own silly circles, let's pay attention to the song. It's a gentle, thoughtful work, perhaps the best track Roff has ever composed. "Hey there Bobby Kennedy," he begins, "I wrote a song for you." It's a song, he explains, about "the long winter, small spring, and the persistent incumbent summer". And there it is: so much of my own work, encapsulated. Grappling with the long winter, small spring, and the persistent incumbent summer.

In a great run-on sentence, Roff then sings the "contour figure", the body of the song, the image that distracts us from the small secret of that opening. And a saw sings, and a piano plays, and an electric guitar makes things so simple - a man's hands singing all the loose parts together, whole.

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Groom - "Waking Up Before Her". "The Underpainting" is a song of great maturity. It says nothing foolish. Whereas the appeal of "Waking Up Before Her" is entirely in its foolishness. It's childish, playful, not-at-all wise. A guitar waggles through a barnyard, handclaps join shakers, someone ye-hoo-hoo-oos like it's his birthday every day of the year. And here's the dumbest, falsest, most naive line (and they make it the centrepiece of the song!): "I'm in love with you, and that's really all that matters!" By the end of the track, Groom have almost realised the lie - but still they're yelling it, all together, like fools, like fools, like lovesick fools.

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