I borrowed the book Complicated Game from the library I was working at. It’s by XTC’s Andy Partridge, mainly a bunch of interviews where he responds to questions about the many songs he wrote for the group. It’s actually a book I ordered for my patron Michael at the Millgrove stop. I figured I’d have a read before I have to deliver it to him this Friday. So, when I say I borrowed, I actually just carried it off out of the library – or, unofficially borrowed. It’s okay. I’ll be bringing it back on Friday for Michael. He won’t miss out. It won’t hurt the library if I have a read of this thing in the meantime, okay?
And, so far so good. The songs are in chronological order, starting with Statue of Liberty. I jumped to my fave XTC song, Chalkhills and Children and read what old Andy had to say about it. It’s based on a dream of flying. Andy’s flying dreams are different to mine. He flies standing up. I fly in the classic Superman position. Something is making me do it, not me, and so I start to flap my arms cartoonishly when I start to fall. When the song came out, the internet wasn’t around to clue me in to what Andy meant by Chalkhills. I always thought he meant hills of chalk drawn by children on pavement. When I went to England in 1990 I visited the area of his hometown in Swindon. It turned out the hills are actually made of chalk, and some nutters scraped the grounds to reveal the chalk, making patterns of giant horses and such animals from it. What a great way to unlock a song!
Also listened to a couple of XTC tunes based on my reading of Andy Partridge’s Complicated Game book. Each chapter has Andy talking about one song in his band’s discography, all in chronological order. I just finished reading the one on the song Meccanic Dancing, from Go2. So I’m listening to these songs as I go. The one before was This Is Pop, which informed me there were two versions of that song, an album version and the single version. I listened to both, and the single version was definitely better. Vocals more confident, music more adventurous. Meccanic Dancing is a snapshot of 1978, dancing to Kraftwerk and other ‘German disco’ records at the local Mechanic’s Institute in Swindon. Andy apparently wanted it for the single, but it’s a little too repetitive for my taste. Think I prefer the dub version, which I also played, called Oh We Go, Germany, from the GO+ EP.
I’m back into reading Andy Partridge’s Complicated Game book. The interim was necessitated by my patron Michael borrowing the book, which he returned to me yesterday during my job van run. He told me a few things about what’s in the book, but I’m looking forward to discovering them for myself. I read the chapter on the song Beatown, from the Go 2 album by XTC. My plan with these interviews about Andy’s many songs with XTC is to have a listen to each song and read the lyrics, and then read the interview. Then I’ll listen to the song again to catch the nuances mentioned in the interviews. Andy said this song was mainly about his group’s manager of the time, who was seemingly frustrated he couldn’t get him on the phone. Andy explained this was because, at this time (about 1978), he and his partner/future wife couldn’t afford a phone and he always had to go to the phone box up the road. I still don’t think it’s one of their better songs, from probably my least favourite album of theirs.
Later, I read the interview about Roads Girdle the Globe, one of my fave XTC songs. Andy said he’d done some research because the song had been inspired by a film. Turned out it was a Finnish film called Gas In the Veins. It’s basically an anti-car anti-road song. Andy seems to have a thing about this. There’s also the later song, River of Orchids, which imagines a post apocalypse future where roads are overgrown and reclaimed by nature – as a good thing. This song always reminds me of a short story by Robert Heinlein called The Roads Must Roll. But Heinlein’s story is not about cars or normal roads but about movable walkways that people ride. Thematically it’s a bit similar, but it’s mainly that ‘Vernon Yard Male Voice Choir’ bit (basically XTC roped in anyone around to do the group shouts), the shouty singalong that makes it sound like a road construction Union song, like the one referenced in the story. There’s a nice hammer-on/off guitar part in the song that I love. And, as mentioned in the interview, its big sound that anticipates the sound of the next album, Black Sea. A great, great song.
I read another section of Complicated Game. This time it was the song Real By Reel from Drums and Wires. It was a song they often used to start their shows, and Andy revealed that he would often get sleepy just before a gig, which is hard to believe. But apparently it’s true. He also mentioned his vocal on the song was sped up because he was having trouble singing in the right key. Then it was mentioned that even Paul McCartney, on When I’m Sixty Four, had his voice ‘raised’ to fit the song’s key. Hilariously, Andy remarked, ‘McCartney sounds about nine inches high on that song’.
I read another interview in Andy Partridge’s book Complicated Game. This one was about the song No Thugs In Our House from XTC’s English Settlement. He revealed the character of the ‘thug’ Graham was based on, in part, bassist Colin Moulding’s mysterious brother Graham, whom he had never met. It was the third single off the album, and I still have my copy, which has an amazing picture sleeve that features puppet show cutouts.
Read the chapter on Travels In Nihilon in Andy Partridge’s book Complicated Game. This was never one of my favourite XTC songs. The regular drum pattern, though well played by Terry Chambers, was boring to me, and the song’s a weak attempt at something like Tomorrow Never Knows, by the Beatles. I must say I’m a bit disappointed with this section of the book and this album, Black Sea. I wanted Andy to talk about my favourite song here, Paper and Iron. I wanted to know where he got the unusual main rhythm for the song from. It sounds uncannily similar to the rhythm on Kate Bush’s single Sat In Your Lap, which came out about a year later. Did he ever hear it, and did he have some thoughts? Has Kate ever made a statement about it? I wanna know!
Read more of Andy’s Complicated Game. This time he was talking about his classic single Sense Working Overtime. I was interested to read that the single version was edited slightly. I had a listen to it on my copy of The Compact XTC and, yep, there’s a small edit during the middle section. The buses are no longer skidding on black ice. The interviewer suggested this was cut out because the record company were scared of bus crashes. Andy just figured they wanted to shorten the song for the usual reason with a single – to make it shorter and more playable to DJs. But it’s a short edit – must be only about thirty seconds shaved off it. The single version is still well over four minutes long. It’s not a bad edit. Doesn’t ruin the song. I don’t know the Manfred Mann song that inspired it. But it was nice to get the insight into those ‘England’s glory’ and ‘a striking beauty’ asides – they were advertising copy for a match company, and Andy loves matchbox art.
Read another section of Complicated Game. I’m up to the Big Express album. This was on the song Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Her. I’d always found the melody a bit ungainly, and in this interview Andy explains why. His melody goes outside of the chord structure he uses – something the producer David Lord and band member Dave Gregory frowned upon, but Andy stuck to his guns. I like that in his defence of this he said, ‘…it makes a rub there, but that’s what I’m going for’. He even went on to say it was his favourite of his XTC songs at that point.
I read another section of Andy Partridge’s book Complicated Game. This was a terrific discussion of the XTC song The Everyday Story of Smalltown. Andy confesses that the album it came from, The Big Express, was something of a concept album for him. This blew my mind. I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s true! He also talked about The Kinks, because he was sort of influenced by the Kinks song Autumn Almanac. Disappointingly, he wasn’t much of a fan. Liked some of the songs but hated the production, which I can understand. Producer Shel Talmy has a lot to answer for.
I read more of Andy’s Complicated Game book. This time it was Rook he was talking about. It’s one of his most unusual XTC songs, very moody and orchestral. He says he thinks of it as an early Apple Venus song, even though it was on Nonsuch, the album before it. Listening to it, it occurred to me it reminded me of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast Trilogy, which is full of rooks and crows and owls and intimations of mortality and so forth. Would it be possible to make a playlist of Songs That Sound Like Gormenghast? What would be on it, besides Rook?
Read more of Andy Partridge‘s Complicated Game. I’m near the end. He talked about two songs from the last album, Wasp Star. They were Stupidly Happy and Church of Women, both of which I listened to. Andy mentioned Stupidly Happy was inspired by the Rolling Stones, especially some of their ‘groove’ songs, like Miss Amanda Jones and Jumpin’ Jack Flash. That’s because it retains the same guitar riff throughout and there isn’t the usual bridge or middle eight. It just adds elements to keep interest, like Colin’s bass coming in half way and additional instrumentation. I’ve always liked it, especially the little interjection about the Devil that Andy did apparently holding his nose for that distant nasally sound. Not such a fan of Church of Women though. There’s a part with a trumpet that Andy said was a steal from Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, which was interesting, but he gets too technical with some of his music talk here. I liked his comment about writing songs, how the songs usually just ‘come out with an idea, a phrase, or a couple of lines simultaneously with chords’, and how the whole lyric comes later. That’s certainly been my experience.
Finished Andy Partridge’s Complicated Game book. Last bits were a talk about 2 Rainbeau Melt, a song from his Fuzzy Warbles series, and an Epilogue where he talked about songwriting. His advice for writers to not be afraid to make mistakes and just start recklessly pouring forth with ideas and impulses reminds me of the first Tarot Major Arcana card, the Fool. His story about the origins of 2 Rainbeau Melt was quite enlightening. He’d had an argument with his partner Erika, and they went for a walk and encountered a beautiful double rainbow that immediately melted their differences. Nice. Is it a song or a poem put to music? I think it’s a song, an impressionistic song.
It was good getting an insight into Andy’s thinking on songwriting and all the anecdotes about the guys in XTC. His personality really comes through – especially his penchant for making funny voices (which got a little tiring, truth be told). Todd Bernhardt was a very sympathetic interviewer who was clearly on Andy’s wavelength. So much so that he could match Andy pun for pun, which would not be easy.