Episode 157: Andrew Gretes / XTC [Part 1]

Summary

Political Beats – Episode 157: Andrew Gretes / XTC [Part 1]

April 30, 2026 | Hosts: Scott Bertram & Jeff Blehar | Guest: Andrew Gretes

---

Overview

In this two-part deep dive, Political Beats tackles XTC, one of Britain’s most unique and criminally underappreciated bands. Fiction writer and writing professor Andrew Gretes joins hosts Scott Bertram and Jeff Blehar to explore XTC’s early years—from their jittery, new wave debut through the mid-'80s triumphs that cemented them as cult favorites. The trio delves into the band’s restless creativity, wit, Britishness, and idiosyncratic evolution, emphasizing the group’s enduring appeal to music-loving, bookish “nerds.”

---

Introduction & Guests

• Hosts introduce the podcast and the focus on XTC, a long-requested band for the show ([01:19]).
• Jeff Blehar: XTC means more to him than almost any other band, calling them “my FUBU rock band—by nerdy guys, for nerdy guys” ([08:02]).
• Andrew Gretes: Shares how he discovered XTC in college, drawn first by the “adventurous, exuberant, eclectic” English Settlement album ([05:13]). Finds the band's “infectious joy” and “nerdy, but optimistic” energy irresistible ([05:44]).

---

Why XTC? Why Now?

• XTC described as “the great lost band in pop music” ([05:44]).
• Their lack of mainstream chart success paradoxically underscores their appeal—a band that retained small-town authenticity and never quite fit any genre box.
• XTC’s music is praised for its risk-taking, craftsmanship, and melodic inventiveness.
• Jeff views them as "the Amazing Crash Boom Band," blending angular energy and glorious melody ([12:00]).
• “They're a band that’s meant more to me than any other,” Jeff says, comparing Partridge to David Byrne and calling XTC “too British to break in America” ([12:57]).

Notable Quote

“This is the music that I would make if I could. If I had the talent, this is the kind of thing I'd want to do.” – Jeff ([10:34])

---

How Our Hosts and Guest Discovered XTC

• Andrew: Introduced by a boss while in college, who said XTC was the only tour-van music his band could agree on ([04:04]).
• Jeff: Came to XTC through the compilation Fossil Fuel, immediately feeling a deep, nerdy kinship ([10:34]).
• Scott: Began at the tail end of XTC’s career, reviewing Wasp Star and Apple Venus for college radio. Only later worked backward to earlier albums ([16:04], [16:36]). Found himself quickly “becoming a huge, giant XTC fan” ([17:26]).

---

XTC’s Origins & Early Years

The Swindon Years

• Born from the nowhere-town of Swindon (“it literally has 'swine' in its name,” jokes Andrew ([24:43])), XTC started as local mates with blue-collar jobs.
• Early lineup: Andy Partridge (guitar/vocals), Colin Moulding (bass/vocals), Terry Chambers (drums), Barry Andrews (keyboards) ([22:02]).

---

Album Deep Dives

1. White Music (1978)

• Described as angular, spastic, and quirky new wave ([27:32]).
• Standout tracks:
  • “Statue of Liberty” – “a fantastic song with a little funky groove, memorable sing along chorus” (Scott, [31:20])
  • “This Is Pop” – definitive early single (“Yes, I think that’s basically as good as early XTC was going to get in terms of pop production.” – Jeff, [43:27])
• Barry Andrews’ organ playing likened to “so many beautiful wrong notes” ([36:20]).
• Humor and nervous energy, even when tackling adolescent awkwardness.
• Their “All Along the Watchtower” cover divides the crew—Scott hates it, Jeff and Andrew defend its irreverence ([38:30]).

Notable Quote

"I liked the energy of punk, but I didn’t feel the need to pretend to be stupid." – Andy Partridge, as quoted by Andrew ([36:59])

---

2. Go 2 (1978)

• Last album with Barry Andrews ([42:29]).
• More experimental, but often regarded as a weaker set of songs ([50:27]).
• Album cover is a Dada-tinged in-joke—a block of text riffing on marketing (“the album art is a great Dadas joke” – Andrew, [57:45]).
• Highlights: “Battery Brides,” “Meccanik Dancing,” “Beat Town” (Jeff’s pick, [50:56]).
• Lowlights: “Super-Tuff,” “My Weapon” ([49:19]).

---

3. Drums and Wires (1979)

• Major turning point: Dave Gregory joins on guitar; sound shifts from keyboard-driven to intricate, interlocking guitars ([59:58]).
• Described as a “revolution in sound” ([63:42]).
• Making Plans for Nigel – The band’s first truly iconic single, featuring industrial, production-line beats and darkly comic lyrics about British small-town life ([64:41]).
• Helicopter – Noted for its clever, literal arrangement; makes the band “sound like a helicopter” ([69:51]).
• Emphasis on tight, memorable songwriting—“I don’t remember ever having a problem remembering an XTC song” ([19:15], [19:19]).
• “When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty” and “Complicated Game” highlighted as standouts ([75:05], [81:38]).

Notable Quote

“There’s no cynicism. It’s just saying, fallen in love—wobbly at times, but it’s worth it.” – Scott ([78:24])

---

4. Black Sea (1980)

• Considered their tightest and finest set; “gateway drug” for XTC newcomers ([90:29]).
• Sequencing is immaculate; every track “dynamite” ([97:44]).
• Generals and Majors: Whistling, martial, dark but jaunty; likened to "Bridge on the River Kwai" ([91:06]).
• Living Through Another Cuba: Danceable paranoia and fantastic groove ([92:17]).
• No Language in Our Lungs: One of XTC’s most moving songs on the impotence of speech ([92:35], [95:34]).
• Burning With Optimism’s Flames: “My favorite XTC song of all time” – Jeff ([100:11]); pure, staccato joy with “no cynicism” ([100:14]).
• Towers of London: A soaring, Kinks-esque historical epic, “a crime people aren’t familiar with it” ([108:54]).
• Travels in Nihilon: A “doom preacher” song foreshadowing Partridge’s later disillusionment ([115:12]).
• Respectable Street: The ultimate Kinks-pastiche opener, modified for radio at label’s urging ([113:00]).
• Sgt Rock (Is Going to Help Me): Innocently goofy anthem for hopeless nerds seeking romantic advice ([104:30]).
• Terry Chambers’ drumming, and overall band energy, especially praised.
• The album’s success in the UK contrasted with lack of US breakthrough ([117:42]).

---

5. English Settlement (1982)

• The group's ambitious, expansive double LP described as “transformative” and “bucolic,” with a rural spirit ([117:42]).
• Senses Working Overtime: Medley of medieval and pop, inspired by a “mistaken” chord ([122:06]).
  “A piece of music can just transport you—and it did it for me on that” – Jeff ([122:34]).
• No Thugs in Our House: Politically charged, multi-sectioned, “microcosm of what makes XTC great” ([127:57]).
• All of a Sudden (It’s Too Late): Sad-and-happy, gorgeous melody ([130:26]).
• Fly on the Wall: Paranoid, Big Brother allegory with buzzing synths and megaphone vocals ([133:38]).
• Jason and the Argonauts: Epic mythic metaphor for touring, “emblematizes what they’re about” ([141:49]).
• Yacht Dance: Delicate, beautiful, Gregory’s nylon string solo, “a seaside mantra” ([143:21]).
• Snowman: Features Dave Gregory’s favorite Partridge lyric ([144:29]).
• Melt the Guns: Politically strident but musically irresistible, even for those who disagree with the message ([145:43]).
• Criticism: The second half’s “dub and white reggae rhythms” can feel repetitive ([125:04]); “Leisure” divides the hosts ([136:34]).
• Marked the end of XTC as a touring band—after Partridge’s breakdown and the departure of drummer Terry Chambers ([149:16]).

---

6. Mummer (1983)

• First fully “studio bound” record, often considered a cult favorite.
• “One of the most beautiful albums of XTC’s career” – Jeff ([153:35]).
• “XTC’s Rubber Soul” – Andrew ([154:24]).
• Pastoral, folk-inspired, and experimental; less commercial.
• Love on a Farmboy’s Wages: British folk rock at its peak, “speculative music…what if the British version of country sounded like this?” – Andrew ([154:55]).
• Ladybird: Deeply personal, “the song I wooed my wife to” – Jeff ([157:54]).
• Beating of Hearts: Ecstatic Middle Eastern/Asian influences, compared to Peter Gabriel ([162:08]).
• Wonderland: Prophet 5 synths create a lush, dreamy soundscape ([162:44]).
• Great Fire, Gold, Toys, Jump: Notable B-sides and outtakes; the band’s B-sides sometimes rival album tracks ([168:52]).
• The record closes with the out-of-place rocker “Funk Pop a Roll,” a “cry of pain” about the music business ([172:38], [174:42]).
• “Deliver Us from the Elements,” “Human Alchemy,” and “Desert Island” explored for their atmospheric or Ray Davies-like qualities.

---

Thematic Highlights & Running Motifs

• XTC’s humor, wit, and self-awareness, even as themes darken or get complex.
• Embrace of being “uncool,” “nerdy,” “bookish,” and intensely British, both in style and lyric subject ([24:43]).
• Lyrically sharp, often observational or abstract, frequently with a comic or literary edge (see: “Scissor Man,” “No Language in Our Lungs,” “Sergeant Rock”).
• Ongoing tension between commercial aspirations and artistic ambitions, addressed openly on songs like “Funk Pop a Roll” ([172:38], [175:09]).
• The band’s sound continually evolving, never staying static: punk, art rock, popcraft, folk, studio experimentation, world music influences, British pastoralism.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On their lack of mainstream fame:

  “This group’s narrative—never quite making it—is kind of inherent in their brand. It shows up in their small town values. It shows up in their ability to write these everyday sketches of normal people because they were just average, normal people.” – Jeff ([12:57])

• On songcraft:

  “Andy Partridge wanted to make every song a single, even though obviously so many would never be a single. But the attention you would put to it would be like a single.” – Andrew ([20:22])

• On musical and lyrical complexity:

  “Everything is recorded to be perfectly, maximally taught. The arrangements are all polished. And there's always something interesting going on.” – Jeff ([20:32])

• On early XTC:

  “I liked the energy of punk, but I didn’t feel the need to pretend to be stupid.” – Andy Partridge (as quoted by Andrew, [36:59])

• Personal connection:

  “Lady Bird is the song I wooed my wife to…that's why that song in particular I think of as the most romantic song of all time.” – Jeff ([157:54])

• On the band's optimism:

  “I also just love the metaphor of optimism being a fire that you have to stoke, you know, you have to keep throwing things in there to keep the fire going.” – Andrew ([103:44])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:04] — How Andrew discovered XTC
• [10:34] — Jeff’s first exposure, “the music I’d make if I could”
• [27:32] — White Music first impressions
• [38:30] — All Along the Watchtower debate
• [50:56] — Go 2 in depth
• [63:42] — Drums and Wires: “A revolution in sound”
• [64:41] — Making Plans for Nigel
• [75:05] — When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty
• [90:29] — Black Sea as “gateway drug”
• [100:11] — Burning With Optimism’s Flames and the lack of cynicism
• [122:06] — Senses Working Overtime
• [127:57] — No Thugs in Our House
• [153:35] — Mummer as “most beautiful album”
• [154:55] — Love on a Farmboy’s Wages as speculative British country
• [157:54] — Ladybird as "the song I wooed my wife to”
• [178:59] — Album and five-song recommendations

---

Essential Albums & Songs Recommendations

Andrew Gretes

• Albums:
  • English Settlement
  • Mummer
• Songs:
  • “Ladybird”
  • “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages”
  • “Snowman”
  • “Generals and Majors”
  • “Yacht Dance”

Scott Bertram

• Albums:
  • Drums and Wires
  • Black Sea
• Songs:
  • “Helicopter”
  • “When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty”
  • “No Language in Our Lungs”
  • “Burning with Optimism’s Flames”
  • “All of a Sudden (It’s Too Late)”

Jeff Blehar

• Albums:
  • Black Sea
  • English Settlement
• Songs (excluding his top albums):
  • “Beat Town”
  • “When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty”
  • “Complicated Game”
  • “Beating of Hearts”
  • “Ladybird”
  • Host’s prerogative: “Life Begins at the Hop”

---

Concluding Thoughts

This exhaustive, affectionate tour through XTC's formative years highlights the band’s restless inventiveness and emotional resonance. The hosts and guest balance insight and personal connection, crafting a compelling case for XTC as one of pop’s most singular, rewarding, and enduring “lost” bands. Part Two promises to pick up with XTC’s later studio innovations.

---

Listen to This If…

You love the intersection of meticulous pop songwriting, British eccentricity, and “outsider” musical brilliance. Or if you want inspiration from a band that never cared about “being cool,” but changed the landscape of melodic, artful rock anyway.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hello again everybody and welcome into another edition of Political Beats, a presentation of National Review. Find us on X at Political Underscore Beats. We're also over on Facebook. Subscribe to our feed for new episodes through Apple Podcasts or where you find your audio. Find [e-mail] to upload in the corner click on Podcasts. Find all the fine NR audio listen. Leave reviews where possible. Help other people find the show. And hey, help us too. Patreon.com Politicalbeats support us help the show stay ad free as it has been. We have entry level support for saying you like us and some voting privileges along the way. Mid level for early access to our shows at a higher audio quality too. And our upper level best friends a lot of you guys there early access, higher audio quality monthly exclusive content, episodes remastered shows, playlists and more [e-mail] politicalbeats My name is Scott Bertram. Find me on xcottbertram My tag team partner standing by as always, Jeff Blair. Jeff, how are you?

[C]

I am doing fantastic. I'm like a spinning top. I'm burning with optimism's flames practically. I've been waiting to do this show for what to say? Nine years. Nine years of Political Beats that I've been waiting to do this episode. There's no need for much prayer. Let's just get on with it because all roads lead to Beat Town.

[B]

I just don't want to get about, you know, 60% through the episode. On the brink of something really good, good discussion. Then have you decide that you can't do it anymore.

[C]

That's can't follow through. We're going to have something else.

[B]

My big fear about this episode. We'll have to wait and see and

[C]

record it in pieces.

[B]

Jeff is on X at Esoteric cd. Our guest for this program is a fiction writer teaching rhetoric and creative writing at Georgetown and George Washington University. Somehow George Mason is not there, but the other George is. Yes, Andrew Greetis. You can find him online. He's got a website. Andrew greetus.com G R E T E S dot com Andrew, thanks so much for joining us.

[D]

Hey, it's great to be here. I'm also very excited to be talking about XTC with you all.

[B]

That's our band. We'll introduce them in a moment. First, we introduce our guest. Andrew, tell us a bit about what you do, what people can find in your writing and what it's like teaching at Georgetown and George Washington.

[D]

I almost adjuncted at George Mason as well, so maybe I'll get The Hat Trick someday. But, yeah, no, I. Yeah, I teach writing, creative writing, and I'm a fiction writer. I've published a novel called how to Dispose of Dead Elephants, which is like a how to guide in case an elephant, you know, drops dead in your backyard.

[C]

It happens. Yeah.

[D]

Right. And now I have a short story collection coming out later this year called Please Don't Feed the Philosophers. And yeah, so I've always loved writing and actually it kind of links in with a little bit with today's band. I think in particular, Andy Partridge is. Is a great writer, really. And so. But yeah, I'm excited to talk about the band with you all and it

[B]

is one that's been on Jeff's hit list for years and years. We've had inklings of potential guests out there from time to time. We had one that we ended up doing another band with. So put this one back on the. On the back burner. And finally, Andrew. Andrew comes through. Andrew volunteers. Andrew makes Jeff's dreams come true. As we have the opportunity to talk about xtc. Andrew, you lead us off here. Tell us a bit about why you like xtc, how you found him and why other people should care about this music. We're going to talk about today in a By the way, two part episode. This is part one of two on xtc, Andrew.

[D]

Yeah, let's see. Well, I first heard about XTC kind of later in college. It was probably around 2003 or 2004. My boss at the time, he had been in a band and he just told me a story about how when they were touring, they could never agree on the music they were playing in the car. And then he said the only band they could agree on was xtc. And that's where I entered the story. And I was like, who is that? Who's xtc?

[A]

Falling I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 senses moving over time Trying to taste the difference Between a lemon and a pleasure and the church fell softly shine.

[D]

And so he took pity on my musical ignorance and he burnt me a copy of English Settlement. And that's my really introduction to the band. It's their fifth album and. And I really just loved it. It's very adventurous, it's very exuberant, it's very eclectic. And I think at the time also I was very. I was into like Radiohead and kind of post punk, Joy Division, Echo and the Bonnie Men sort of bands.

[B]

Oh, you. You and Jeff wouldn't get along at all.

[C]

Yeah, right. He's like literally my, My. My own personal list of greats.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So anyways.

[D]

Yeah, exactly. So I. But I found XTC to be kind of a nice kind of tonic or like counterweight to that. There's just kind of an infectious joy even when they're tackling really kind of heavy topics. There's a nerdy, but I think optimistic energy to the band and I really love that. And I think they just hit me at the right. That kind of the perfect time where I needed kind of a tonal shift in what I was listening to. But why should people listen to them? Well, I think they're kind of the great lost band in pop music. People generally have not heard of them in my experience when I bring them up and you know, to me they're kind of like Sparks or David Bowie. They're just so. They're so all over the place. They're always taking risk and I think a lot of their risks land incredibly well. So I'm kind of hoping this episode and the next episode will be like an open sesame moment where, you know, something will open up and listeners will have these incredible albums to listen to.

[A]

What was I supposed to do? I turned around with the water. She simply was there. My blood ran like ice right through. She had your face and your lips and your eyes and your hair. You're the wish you were I had. You're the wish you are I had. You're the wish that I had. I wonder if she knows it. When I made her up, I made her into that one. I made her drink a cup or two. Wish, wish, wish, wish, wish, wish, wish, wish.

[C]

That's actually a wonderful way of thinking about it. And that's kind of, kind of been my goal with the show overall. But specifically with this episode, folks, you're going to hear some of the most amazing music that never charted. And that brings us to what do I have to say about xtc? Well, why do you do a two parter on a band that only ever had middling commercial success in the United Kingdom and even less in the United States? Because they're a band that's meant more to me than almost any other. You know that urban wear brand fubu for us, by us. You might, as you might have might imagine I didn't wear a lot of FUBU back in the day.

[B]

I accidentally got a sweatshirt for Christmas one year from a well meaning aunt and uncle who didn't quite know what that was.

[C]

Oh, that's wonderful. But man, I was a pasty, bespectacled nerd back in high school. I'll Admit it, I was studiously bookish and I was also increasingly fascinated with exploring rock music as a means of expression, because what could I do? I could sing, I could play music. And when I discovered xtc, I pretty much went off like a rocket from a bottle, shot free. Here was my FUBU rock band by nerdy guys or nerdy guys. XTC put the art into art pop and, you know, they. It ended up occupying a very curious niche. This gloriously melodic, clever tune and then adorned with lyrics that maybe sometimes are a bit too clever for their own good. Every song is either like a puzzle to be decoded, or maybe it's a. A clumsy moral parable that had to, has to be heard and to be understood. XTC could sometimes be on the nose, even if their conceits were abstract and strange. Andy Partridge had an almost autistic, like, way of talking about it with such directness. David Byrne is the guy who I find a lot of parallels to. And Partridge himself says, I never understood where they compared XTC to Talking Heads. It's like, man, I all over the music. I don't know if they're like withdrawing from one another. Maybe Partridge is kind of embarrassed to say, like, well, yeah, we copped a few lyrics from David Byrne and those guys, but they came up with their absolutely own unique sound. When I heard that, I heard their music. I think I first got it on that Fossil Fuel 2 CD collection. It's great, actually, to this day, it's a fantastic introduction to the band. It takes you through all of their main label career, just the singles and the singles, but they released a lot of great songs as singles. And then I heard this and I said to myself, this is the music that I would make if I could. If I had the talent, this is the kind of thing I'd want to do. And I even then realized this is kind of nerdy. And he's dealing with a lot of like, very high conceit. Things like, you know, millions, millions of Chinese are going to invade and they're really. It's a song off of drums and wires, like. And I also knew, like, this is just not the kind of stuff that appeals to girls, right? This is very artistic, pretentious music in its own way. It's funny because it's. It's very energetic. It's got a lot of anger and rage to it at times. But yeah, there's like, it's nerd rage. It's like the way I would be after reading a lot of books, I'd write A sermon about history or something like that. Andy Partridge writes like that. And again, it spoke to me so directly, all of these songs. I don't, I don't feel like there's any, there's any carelessness to be found on any of the XTC albums we're going to be talking about. I think frankly, and I, in both, both episodes, they're always so considered and thoughtful, even when they're weird and angular and strange, which is what they're going to be like for most of this early part of their care. They were the group of my dreams. They never became stars either. And you know, but what would XTC have been if they'd been famous? They would have been a different group. This group's story, their narrative, never quite making it, is kind of inherent in their brand. It shows up in their small town values. It shows up in their ability to write these everyday sketches of normal people because they were just average, normal people and they remained normal people. I mean, Andy Partridge might be a weird eccentric and, you know, a musician. He never became a superstar. He never became, he never left Swindon. You know, he's always going to be the same guy he was. And that gave them such a unique British worldview that also I think probably, you know, provided proved to be an impediment to them becoming famous, you know, in the United States. They're just too British. The way the Kinks during like the Village Green Preservation Society era were just too British. But they were so beautiful, they could be beautiful when they were clanging together. I called them once the Amazing Crash Boom Band, you know, where there's just like violent sounds that, that throw like these dis and rubs up together and yet it sounds so structured, so intentional and frankly and it's sort of terrifying way beautiful. And then of course they evolved into the most like peacefully bucolic and melodic groups of all time. And that would be a story we're going to tell in part two. But for part two, for part one, I want to talk about this amazing. What were they? New wave? Were they punk? Were they art rock? What were they? They were xtc. They never quite fit in with the times, but they always made amazing.

[A]

Strange land. It's a solid sequence. Showbiz moon I am floating over strange land and stranger still there's no balloon But I'm getting higher Wafted up my fame Spickle fire To the trampoles and children and turn my feet.

[B]

I came in completely chronologically backwards to xtc, a band that admittedly has been up until this point, a relatively big blind spot in my musical knowledge, which is not quite true, because I knew the story of XTC far more than the music of xtc. I knew the people involved. I knew the stories about Partridge, I knew they stopped touring. I knew the albums in the 80s, which, again, were built from a perspective that we'll never have to play these things live. XRT in Chicago, big XTC fan. I'd hear the occasional song, but my first exposure was the absolute end of their career. Wasp Star, Apple Venus, Volume 1.

[A]

I'd smile so much my face would crack into. Then you could fix it with your kissing glue. I like that. Yes, I'd like that. I'd like that.

[B]

Which I got to review for the radio station in college. And that's a very soft and gentle album. It's very good. And then Volume two, which is the louder, more rock half of that grouping of songs that ended the career. That's where I started. And then move backwards to some of the late 80s output, the mid-80s output. Again, not listening to full albums, but hearing the occasional song here or there. Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead. And

[D]

there is a song that Mayor of Simpleton, probably.

[B]

Yes, exactly. So Mayor of Simpleton was the other one from that era that I.

[C]

Big radio hit at that time and

[B]

began to like an awful lot. In fact, that. Well, I'll save that song. I'll save that story for part two. But there's a particular story about Mayor of Simpleton I'll tell later on. But even at that point, I hadn't heard any.

[A]

Any.

[B]

Literally any of the stuff we're talking about today, since it's working overtime. Maybe, maybe. And so digging in here, it's a. It's quite the revelation that this stuff. That's what I like about. That's why I love the show. That's why I love about music. There's always something. There's always something you haven't heard. I mean, Jeff and I know a lot about music. We've heard a lot of bands. There are.

[C]

I have enormous gaps. I mean, I joke about it all the time.

[B]

Yeah, frequently. I'm saying, Jeff, you must know these guys. And they said, no, I have no idea. Never heard him. And Jeff will do the same thing to me. Surely you must have heard X and. Not necessarily. And then you spend a good three weeks and you become a huge, giant XTC fan, which I, of course, am at this point. And one of the things that I tried to figure out as I was listening was why did they sort of fall into this gap because there are so many elements here of bands that I truly love. Like, they're very British. Like, Squeeze is probably too British for their own good. Very erudite in, you know, lyrics and the way Elvis Costello was very sort of edgy and angry at times and gruff in the lyrical presentations, the vocal presentation, like Joe Jackson. Certainly throw in something like the Clash and all that. All this stuff, all these elements are there.

[A]

So what.

[B]

What makes them different? What's their unique perspective they bring? And I think I figured out a few answers that I'll reveal along the way. Here's what I'll say to fellow travelers who are perhaps experiencing XTC for the first time. I can't remember another band I came to relatively cold that in a short amount of time. All these songs are individually interesting and individually memorable. Each song is constructed in a way to maximize the probability that you'll remember it and love it. When we do these shows, Jeff, and I'm sure you do this too, you'll come across something in your note and say, how does that song go?

[D]

What?

[B]

I don't remember that particular song.

[C]

I never have that problem with xt.

[B]

Never. Never.

[C]

I was thinking this very thing last night. I was just thinking about, like, I can name the random song off of white music I hadn't heard for five years. I was like, no. But I still know exactly how it get.

[B]

Every song on Drums and Wire. Every song on Black Sea. Most of the songs on English Settlement I could hum to you right now just from being given a title.

[A]

I've seen it in engraving. I've seen it in their faces. Clear as the children's joke. Lions on the railing.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I think Partridge talks about how he wanted to make every song a single, even though obviously so many would never be a single. But the. The attention you would put to it would be like a single.

[C]

Yeah. Everything is recorded to be perfectly, maximally taught. The arrangements are all polished. And there's always something interesting going on. Scott, I mean. Well, I like to say welcome to the club.

[A]

The insect headed worker wife will hang her while stays on the line the husband burns his paper shuts his wife while studying their cushion his sister's polypast breath comes out the wallpaper world is shepherd by his shout A boy in blue is busy packing out a headache on the kitchen door but all the while Ram snaps on dreaming of a world where he could do just what he wanted. No thoughts in our. Are there, dear? We made that clear. We made little man promise us he'd Be a good boy.

[B]

Well, it's good to be here it's good to be here and I don't know how here's. Here's my biggest fear. I've got to put aside some of this music to get to the next half for part two. But I don't want to do that. I got to figure out someone to balance it.

[C]

She's. Wait till you get to Duke's Stratosphere, your head's going to explode. It's going to be so funny because you hear the Apples and stereo is what you're going to hear. Okay, so I guess it would be my job to actually introduce this band. Who is xtc? Well, XCC is. It started off as a four person band and then the personnel changed. We'll start with the original cast and that is Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, Annie Partridge on guitar, Colin Moulding on bass, Terry Chambers on drums. And they were all school chums or grew up around, you know, near lived one another in a place called Swindon, which you got to understand what Swindon is in the United Kingdom. Swindon is relative to the London, I'd say, as what's the most down and out like this plains is to Chicago. It's a nowheresville town. There's nothing there.

[B]

The oasis.

[C]

Yeah, you're right, exactly. They have the Desk Plains oasis. But you see, you know, what I mean is that this is not a scene. These are just kids in sort of a working class, middle class town, you know. Colin Molding was like an assistant to the milkman before he joined the band. Andy Partridge I think was at a school doing art stuff. Terry Chambers I think might have been working with sheet metal or something like that. Or maybe I'm just imagining that it sounds he should have a job that involved bashing things, right? But anyways, they weren't rock stars, right? But they managed to come together and they formed like their initial act. They had many different names. I recalled one of them being like the Helium Kids, right. And they also had keyboardists who they fired. And then they got a replacement by the name of Barry Andrews, who I think had. Has a really interesting keyboard sound and contributed I think a lot to the first two records in the band. And at that point they just started gigging. They started this back in 1972. They did not actually end up securing a contract until about 1976. And then, you know, there are a couple early demos. You can hear them on the XTC box set. But they actually had a pretty smooth and quick career because they got signed to a major label. They had a pretty fast ride to their first official Reese's after they got signed. So they did four years of gigging and then in 1977, out comes their first single. It's called an EP, but it's this weird little like curate called Science Friction. And that's where the story begins. Unless you have anything else to add in terms of context. We're talking about a small town band that basically just, you know, they're not even rockford level Rockford compared to Chicago. Rockford at least had Cheap Trick. Swindon is just, you know, it's nowhere as ville, but it was the home of one of the greatest rock groups of all time. And they came out out determinedly odd at first you were saying.

[D]

Well, yeah, I was just gonna say it's kind of like the proverbial bumpkin town. And I feel like it frees them up because they know they're not.

[C]

It literally has the word swine in its name. It's like this is swinetown.

[D]

Right, Exactly. And it frees them up not to be cool. They know they'll never be treated as someone who's cool or hip. And so they can just kind of lean into the. The nerdy great musicians that they are.

[A]

I look out my window at night I scissors. Science fiction that burns my fingers Electrics I take their lingers.

[C]

And that's the thing, they lean hard into the eccentricity. This was 1977. Punk had just happened, obviously in 76. And you know, all these bands were then, you know, you know, scrambling to get their first albums out. XCC's was very different. The closest analogy it had to anything that was on the scene at the time might have been early Buzzcocks, because Magazine didn't even put out debut until 1978. Magazine and. And XTC do have a lot of commonalities that as well.

[D]

Yeah. And apparently John Lecky, I think he produced Real Life by magazine.

[C]

Exactly right. And so I could definitely hear some commonalities there. But XTC were on the scene first. They have that first great single, by the way. This is what I mean when I say every single song by XTC has a purpose and a meaning. They open with a. They have a great career opener. Science Friction is a really catchy little like bippity boppy tune. I think it was about, you know, one of Andy Partridge's paranoid fantasies about like science fiction, in fact. And then the other side is she's so Square, which is a Colin Moulding song. And it's kind of a really fun, blazing modern rock tune. At this point, you know, who is xtc? What kind of music are they? It's hard to really get a sense of who they are. That's going to become much clearer on their debut album, which is called White Music. And before actually I go into what my spiel is on this record, I wanted to know what. So Scott thought about this one, because this is certainly the most different. XCC is going to evolve as a sound. This is certainly the most jagged and angular ear of these first two records.

[A]

My wife get lazy she's going get you crazy she wants the pouches coffee table.

[B]

So I mentioned I came at this reverse chronologically. When I began to listen to this era, I actually started with drums and wire and then I went to Black Sea and then went to either side. So I listened to White Music after already having heard what came next. So it clouds my opinion a little bit. And I think it did. The first one or two times I listened. My first one or two times I listened, I thought, hmm, this is like, pretty good. Maybe it should have been an ep. I'm not sure there's quite enough here to sustain an entire album. I will say my initial take, and I maintain I'm correct, is that all along the Watchtower cover is terrible. I. I really, really do not like it. I know you're going to disagree, firm disagree. But the. The more I listened, the more I liked White music. This is fast. This is rough. This is, you know, this is pop. This is actually punk for the most part, although with an. With an eye towards being played on the radio. You know, radio's in motion. This is pop. Even Statue of Liberty, which I think is the best song here, they all sort of had that idea. You can just sort of hear it. I think this is maybe the only time they're writing music, at least in this era, that I can speak of intelligently and saying, boy, it'd be good to hear this on the radio in

[A]

my sky but everybody will keep looking but everybody learning how but other kids are complaining that there's nowhere to go all the kids are complaining that the sounds are too slow. Radios in my chat.

[C]

Like, I. I don't.

[B]

I don't know anything past this album.

[C]

I think that was Chris Cow's theory. Like, well, this. This band, whoever they are, are clearly making a play for American audiences. Like, there's a message in Milwaukee that could be me to my scout Gets

[B]

you out of your red, white and blue and Radios in motion and Statue of Liberty, which Is near. Or like they're so weird and odd and awkward that past this, I don't really hear that concern popping up again. But here you're on white music. You do hear them say, oh, it would be cool to break in America. It'd be great to have a big first album. Be good to have this song on the radio. And those are the moments that really do pop.

[A]

I lean right over to Kiss a stone and bo a little jealous of the ships with whom you word a billion lovers with the cameras stop and look and in my fantasy of sail beneath your sc. You've been the subject of so many dreams Since I climbed your tongue.

[B]

The three songs I mentioned, Statue of Liberty is a. Is a really fantastic song with a little funky groove, memorable chorus, memorable sing along chorus. That's one of the fine moments here on the back half of the record. New town animal in a furnished cage. That's a really good song with a special chorus.

[A]

It's gone 11 and the bar is shut I'm sitting waiting like a real good nut there's nothing decent on the TV page Like a new town animal furnish cage.

[C]

Those spastic little parts. It's like everything is slightly out of conjunction or junction with one another, but it all sort of comes together. It's. It's this very wiry song.

[B]

Well, I mean, that's how so many of their songs are, where you have these verses that are sort of spastic and angular and weird and then all of a sudden you click and there's this really huge memorable chorus with 13 different hooks inside. And even on this first record, there are portions like, I mean, this is pop is the same way. Very angular verses and you. And you flip the switch and this is pop. Like that is gonna get stuck in your head.

[A]

This is pop, yeah, yeah. This is pop, yeah, yeah, this is pop.

[D]

Right.

[C]

I think that's another thing to say about the sound of the band at this point. So it's important to understand that they're going to sound a lot different by their third album. But on this. On this record, one of the most prominent features is that glittering organ sound. And it's wild, it's squiggly. There's nothing tame about what Barry Andrews is doing on the keybo, to the point where it almost seems like, you know, it's having a spastic fit. But, God, it. It works with the sound of this music so well. A lot of these things are very avant garde. I'm bugged. It's like a piece of. Shouldn't Work. But, like, it's just like little stabs at the organ, stabs on the guitar, stabs on the drums. It's a song about, like, you know, probably a guy's, like, having a drug overdose. Or he's like. He's high and he's uncomfortable. I'm bugged. You all look like insects in your brand new sun specs. You're like, I'm just in a bad scene. I gotta get out of here. But that paranoia comes through on the arrangement. And that's what you mean. It's like, even now, they're actually, like, putting their arrangements to service to the lyrics.

[B]

And then, like, you know, neon shuffle shouldn't work. It's kind of annoying, but damned if that squiggly synth line doesn't live in my dreams. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, talk about things that shouldn't work. Crosswires. Oh, but you didn't like that one very much, Scott.

[B]

Okay. It's okay.

[C]

But. Yeah, but you see how distant it is. Absolutely. It's like stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. And he's like, sque de. It's like, you know, what is that? It's the sound of wires getting crossed. Right. It's like a telegraph wire getting crossed. And yet, you know, there's Colin molding this. Is this really a song? It's not quite a song, but it still works as a construction, as a. As an art piece, really. And right at the start of their career, XTC is doing art pieces.

[A]

You get.

[D]

Yeah. I feel like the way that Angie Partridge talks about it in this really good documentary called this Is Pop, which is on show, Showtime, I think he talks about Barry Andrews playing the keyboard. He says, so many beautiful wrong notes.

[C]

Yeah, that's right.

[D]

And I love that line. And it's so true. It has this kind of. There's just little moments of dissonance in here that keep everything exciting. He also has a great line about punk because I feel like they're not a punk band, but they flirt with it. And he's got a great line. He says, I liked the energy of punk, but I didn't feel the need to pretend to be stupid.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

It's just a great way of putting it.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

The other thing. I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?

[D]

No, no, Good.

[C]

I was just gonna say. Other thing to keep in mind here is that we have multiple songwriters in the band. I didn't really focus on that at first. I should have put that up front because Andy Partridge writes the majority of these songs. But Colin Moulding also wr, like three songs in every album. And of course, he's kind of like that George Harrison where, like, he picks his shots and they all hit. Right. Because he knows me. The other one on this record that he does is I'll Set Myself On Fire. And it's so weird and manic and twitchy that he's actually like, like you, you're, you're seeing a compulsive personality. You can almost see this person like, like, freaking out. Like, I'll set myself, I'll set myself I'll set myself I'll set myself on fire. Obviously a song about romantic panic from, like, an adolescent. Right. It's so funny too, in that sense, because what's he really talking about? He's awkward around girls. Boy, I can relate to that theme. I certainly could relate to the theme at least when I was 16 years old. That's why I say that.

[D]

I was gonna say, I think that's key to them too, is they're funny. I mean, there is kind of like, you know, angst in this album for sure, but I, I don't think ever loses their sense of humor. It's one of their enduring charms.

[C]

And I guess I do, I do have to speak up in favor of all on the Watchtower.

[D]

Me too. But. Yeah, go ahead.

[C]

Okay. I love this. There's a, There's a long history, a tradition, I think, actually the XTC might have begun on this record of doing these sort of slightly irre, Irreverent, deconstructive versions of famous songs. So, like, they do all on the Watchtower magazine did. Thank you for letting me be myself again. The curated Foxy lady, which I'll again, they didn't want it on the record, but I kind of like it. This is just sort of a tradition among these new wave, these art rock acts. And I like the way they totally tear apart all the Watchtower. It's not Dylan anymore, it's not Hendrix anymore. It's just a weird drone. And then the harmonica people always laugh at, like, Andy Partridge playing on a harmonica. But of course he's huffing into that thing the same way he's huffing out the lyrics. He has his barking seal approach to singing these. There must be some kind of way out of here, right? It's. It's his signature song. It's signature vocal approach. Right. Again, I can understand why Scott hates this sort of thing, but I, I, I, I like the way they're totally irreverent to that song and they reassemble it into something interesting. And, yes, it turns into this long drone that sort of basically just expires. It just exhausts itself at the end.

[D]

I love the bass on it. I don't know. It's so hypnotic. I. I just. Yeah, the bass just strikes me. On that song in particular,

[C]

I was

[D]

gonna say, like, it makes me think of, like, Brian Ferry's first solo album. He does a weird cover of A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That's a great analogy.

[D]

It's like doo wop, and it's weird as hell. And this is all. This is not as similar. It's just like, you're going to totally go against the grain here. But to me, it kind of brings the song to life. I never heard the song anew until I. I listened to this cover.

[A]

There must be some kind of.

[C]

It also makes the title of the album make sense. Like, what is. What is white music supposed to mean? I think they originally wanted to call it black music, and then somebody pointed out there doesn't seem to be a lot of soul or funk on this record. So they actually pointed out, yeah, this white music. And it really is. It's, like, very, like, nerdy and arty and. But there's also, like. You listen to the rhythms of these songs. There's reggae, there's attempts at funk. They're certainly, like. They can groove, right? They just groove in a very nerdy way. And I'm slightly stiffer, slightly more uptight in. In a poised way. But they're using those same sort of pop styles that, you know, are familiar to everything, which is why I just think, you know, the title is very, very, very accurate in the sense that this is music made by guys from the science club, you know, the After School Science Club. And that's what you're going to hear on it. And I think it works fantastically.

[A]

Just the way. Just the way.

[C]

Any other thoughts before we move on to the second and last album of the Barry Andrews years?

[D]

I mean, I think I also love the COVID as well. But, I mean, New Animal in Town. I agree with Scott. I really enjoy that song. It's also where I feel like you start seeing Partridge lyrically kind of getting his feet wet. I love the lyric. I watch TV with an actor's Actor's rage Like a new town animal in a furnished cage I think that's wonderful. And he gets better and better as a songwriter, but there's, like, a punk poetry there that I appreciate.

[C]

Well, before we move on, actually, to go to. We actually we should stop to observe their first encounter with trying to make a really big hit single. They went and got the services of one Robert Mutt Lang to remake this Is Pop. And boy, you know, it has that Mutt Lang hit sound. This thing is amazing. The re. The original version on the album is a little bit sedate and I guess this is my. You know, Scott, you were talking about how you're affected by how you. These songs.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I first heard this Is Pop on the Fossil Fuel Collection, which is the. The nice, sparkly single version. And then eventually I went back to the album. I was like, well, this sucks. Who would ever want to listen to this version now that I've heard the other one? But I don't know if you had any thoughts on that or. Because I think that's basically as good as the early XTC was going to get in terms of a pop production.

[A]

Downward. Like a song much too loud. Yeah.

[D]

I think it also just kind of speaks to them being like, all right, we don't want to be pigeonholed weirdly. We are just doing pop.

[C]

Question mark. Right?

[D]

Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. But I feel like Partridge thinks that it certainly is. I don't know, for me, like, when he sings, I kind of love his early vocal style. You said seal barking, which. Yeah, I think a lot of times it's called. I kind of think about it as almost like a. He's like doing a scatter plot of like a really good melody. He, like, sings like he's connecting the dots.

[C]

He's throwing darts at the board. And they're all just going around in a circle. There's nothing quite on the bullseye there, but they're in a pat.

[A]

Say hi now when we're out. Okay, your mouth. And we're supposed to play. When we're in Kiss. I'm missing out to someone else and I.

[D]

You can see the pattern. And the pattern is actually weirdly super melodic. And it's going to anticipate their love of the Beatles and the Beach Boys and all that stuff.

[C]

Yeah. And. And I think a lot of this shows up on their second record. Now, I know the Go to is the final one of the Barry Andrews era. Not a popular record with fans. Not a popular record. I think with Scott, I'm the guy who's going to make a strong defense of this record. It's not perfect. There's flaws and they're well known flaws. So, like, what happened during the recording of the ban. Recording of the album, rather, is that, you know, Eddie Partridge basically, you know, put his foot down with Barry Andrews. Andrews suddenly came to the sessions with multiple songs. He didn't have anything on White Music. He came in with four songs and they were four good songs. So Andy Partridge said, no, you can't put them all in this record. You have to take two of them away. And. And in Andy's infinite wisdom, the two songs he removed of Barry's were the two better songs wrote. So there wasn't, as on the album, not that great. There are other tracks on this that. That are interesting ideas, but sort of Churn, Meaninglessly Crowded Room, the rhythm. I don't really like either of those that much. And then there's like jumping in Gamora. That's clearly probably the weakest things on the record. But there are moments, there are moments on Go to where XTC has never rocked with more fury and more purpose, where the. The band is actually on fire. It happened parts of Red and Beat Town in particular. The explosion of those two songs when they. When they hit their climaxes is really the closest XTC ever, really would get to rock. Whatever they were doing in the rest of their career. There wasn't a lot of, like, pure rock energy, but you hear it on those records.

[A]

Sam, I spoke to your father this morning.

[C]

And of course there are a lot of other songs on this album that are fantastic and I know you guys want to talk about a few of them. Those. But I really still appreciate that. Every track on this record has purpose. I think it's poorly sequenced. I would literally give you a version of Goto that swaps out some of the songs and reorganizes them and that would be considered as good as White music, I think. But as it is, yeah, nobody needs to hear Super Tough.

[B]

Super Tough's not a good song. And the other Andrew song, My Weapon, is a bad song. And I will see to Jeff's knowledge on this, that the ones left off are bad.

[C]

Us being us and things fall to bits and they're both just a delight to bits.

[A]

Have a shuffle once I come back because they do fall to bits and the shuffle won't take them back.

[B]

I listened to this a couple of times, as it did with all these records, and it never grabbed me. And, and, and the. The best explanation I can have is that it's just flat out a weaker batch of songs than the debut and it's weaker than what's going to come next and you can't pull it off. This is. This is one where I don't remember These individual songs, I don't remember the little nooks and crannies inside. I can differentiate one from the other for the most part.

[C]

You don't hear anything of the kinetic energy of Beat Town, where it starts off with that circus organ and it's almost like, you know, elements winging in from different places. Then the guitar starts scroking out that riff and then it just gets into this wonderful verse and chorus. All roads lead to Beat Town Beat Town that's just, to me, one of the most memorable moments of XTC's early career. Maybe that's why I'm a little more forgiving of this record than you.

[B]

They're pros and the talented and so there. It's not without some good moments. I think Molding's Crowded Room is very good on here. I think his eye on the audience. Late is a pretty good song, but there's too much here that for me just sort of runs together. I don't hear the distinctiveness that I want to hear from these XTC songs that I did on the debut and that I would on the very next record. Look, there's so much great stuff here. I'm not wasting my time going back to go to.

[A]

Much too much. I felt the punch of a punch. The language was enough. Fire escape.

[D]

Yeah. It is my least favorite XDC album, but I actually really love the first two tracks. I feel like Battery Brides, you know, is a wonderful kind of avenue. They never really explore that much, which is kind of doing this ambient music. It's like an. An electronic dream, I think, is one way I heard it described.

[C]

It's taken Tiger Mountain by Strategy. Yeah.

[D]

No, which is fantastic album.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. And it's, you know, it's subtitled, that album.

[C]

Right, right. Andy paints Brian and I think he wanted him. They wanted him as a producer and he said, you. You don't need me as a producer. You're fine on your own.

[D]

Exactly. Yeah. And in a weird way, I guess Barry Andrews is the Brian Eno of the band. He's there for two albums. He leaves. They become a very different kind of band.

[A]

Me

[C]

to break up to

[A]

see.

[D]

But I think the first song is fantastic. Mechanic Dancing. I didn't actually know what Mechanic referred to, so I had to look that up.

[C]

Mechanic Dancing. It's just like doing like the weird German. Like you dance with your arms straight and it's like. It was a fad at the time. But I used to use this every. This. I liken this to go into frat parties when I was in college. Every time I go there'd be people sort of standing there kind of, you know, moving up and down. I just in my mind the Lord was mechanic dancing. Oh we go can't wait until the weekend comes. I'm going to be with all my chums and I'm just like is this all there is? Looking at these sad people listening to bad music. That song again this is what I mean when I say XCC has been around my entire life.

[A]

Alcohol is.

[D]

Yeah, no but I mean the Mecca. I mean if you. When I look this up I guess Mecca here was also kind of. It was a company that owned a lot of these dance halls. There's kind of a play on this like Mecca that people would go to when they, you know, for the weekends getting you know, drinking and just kind of letting loose and actually like lyrically the opening verse there I think is fantastic is Woolworth Beauty Factory bow Arm in arm they must go to the church of dance with a light on low. I love that and lyric that I

[C]

love is Alcohol is an easy key it helps you unwind. Come dance with me to a disco track from Germany. Oh mechanic dancing oh we go yeah that Such well observed lines this. The other thing we, we really haven't talked about enough is that these lyrics are all so witty and strange. Every one of them is a little cure egg, a little gem. I think the problem actually is the Andrew songs is like my weapon is sort of like a sour sentiment and I don't like super tough either like almost anything worth hearing.

[D]

Yeah well I mean I think maybe one of the biggest charms at least for me is the album cover. We haven't talked about that yet but it's a great, I mean it's a funny story. They go to Hypnosis, this company which I guess gives you like prepackaged album covers and apparently the reason they go is because Barry Andrews doesn't want Andy Partridges art on the album. He was going to draw the. The COVID and so they go there as a compromise, compromise. And they are shown all these different covers and they don't really like them. They think a lot of them are just kind of silly and so they're walking away and on the wall there's the go to album basically cover. And they're like what's this? And the people are like well it's kind of just like a joke. It's like an in house joke of like it's almost like Magritte the visual art where it's like this is A pipe. And it's just pipe. It's like this is an album art, which is the whole purpose is just to sell the album.

[B]

Album.

[D]

And it's this great kind of Dada's joke. And they're like, we'll have this one.

[C]

It's so well written too. That's the thing. Like this. The spiel would fail if it wasn't brilliantly written. And it really is. It makes you laugh right at the end. It goes circles back right to the beginning again. You know, it's like it's its own Finnegan's wake or something like that. Yeah. And okay, so I guess if we're done with Go to. We have to say bye bye to Barry Andrews. The. The issue with the band, you know, in the studio where Andrews had too many songs, obviously bit token to Fatal Split. They went on tour, I believe even in early 79, but somewhere about the middle of 79. Andrews. I don't know if he was fired or if he quit, but either way, Angie Partridge wasn't going to work with three songwriters in a band. He could deal with two, but he could not deal with three. Andrews went on to some interesting stuff, by the way. He played with Robert Frater in the League of Gentlemen, which is a pretty interesting collaboration. But they got that guy who I think in most people's minds, it's fair to say that XTC is defined as xtc. The moment Dave Gregory, guitarist Dave Gregory, one of their old friends from Swindon, guy they known from school days, comes into the band, gets hired on, Andy says, well, you know what? Maybe a keyboard isn't what we're looking for. We need another guitarist. And the lineup changes. Now instead of being a keyboard based band and one word, you know, Andrew's keyboard was very loud and shrill and it could dominate the mix on those songs. Now they have two guitars and now. Now it seems like the sky's the limit for this group.

[A]

In the house. Bad like a white man standing in the big.

[C]

They start songwriting and songs are now capable of being written that they would not have been able to do with a keyboard setup. And it leads to an album that I find it almost difficult to talk talk about it because I think Drums and Wires is a revolution in sound in many ways. But before we do that, we don't even have to talk about drums and wires. Let's talk about the single that came before it because this is my summer song. And there was a time, ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, there was a time when I was under 21 and I couldn't drink and so I had this song to bop along to when I had to go to the under 21 shows and I had to like watch my older friends, friends, like go out and have parties. I just kept saying to myself, life begins at the hop.

[A]

Come with me to the church on the corner the H There's a sand script and this. A good time had by those boys and those girls at the house Tell me what do you say? Tell me what do you think? Excited.

[C]

You know that song, it's such a winning tune. You talk about the optimism, the poptimism of xtc. This is the first time that really just comes shining through. I think of. I think of a. A shining midday afternoon. The breeze is out, the weather is nice and this song is playing on the rad in the car. And that's actually what happened to me during my childhood. What is this song about? Life Begins at the Hop is basically about the teen guitars. They're too young for the guards at the hop. And this is, you know, where you go, where the party happens. It's probably some local joint in Swindon. It's nothing big, it's just a place that everybody can get together and dance and have a good old time. It's very, very wholesome, in fact. And of course, like almost all the other XT singles, it went nowhere. But it certainly deserved to. That second chorus where the guitar guitars by the newly edition, the new new edition. Dave Gregory plays these wonderful answering guitar lines on the second final verse of Life Begins at the Hop. I think it's really the moment they. They become.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, I'm with you and Dave Gregory, to me, kind of makes xdc. Xdc. I mean, I really. I didn't. The first two albums I had, I came to their last two albums I, you know, I actually ever listened to. And it never really sounded like XDC fully, but drums and wires, immediately you get the sound. Which continues for really the rest of their career. Even though it changes a lot, there's still. There's something about Dave Gregory that just snaps everything into place and that. That I love.

[C]

I mean, right now, to get to the album itself, which is just to me, I said a revolution in sound. Right off the bat. They do a trick that not XTC love to do, but then Radiohead would totally steal from xtc. And they do it a lot too, which is they start you in a place where you're completely thrown off the beat. You hear those sort of like, almost. What do they feel like? Industrial, like Drums descending on the first song on the record, Making plans for Nigel as it descends. And you think, where's the guitar? Then the guitar flashes in like it actually sounds like somebody's turning the key on a big, like, engine. Right, right. And then the chord structure and the rhythm comes in and you're not in the place that you thought that you would be with that song.

[A]

For Nigel, we only want what's best for him. We're only making plans for Nigel. Nigel just needs that helping hand. When the young Nigel says he's happy, he must be happy. He must be happy. He must be happy in his world.

[C]

And of course, it's probably, I think, maybe XTC's single most famous song from this era. Of course, they had some other hits. We'll get to those on our next episode. But from this era, it's sense, it's working overtime and it's making plans for Nigel. So what do you guys think about the first song on this record and the one that really signals that these guys are not just making pop music anymore, they're making art styles statements.

[B]

Well, it's. It's a molding tune and he gets off four winners on this record we'll talk about in a bit, but we're talking specifically about this first song. Yes. It's totally different and for various reasons. One of the most important is they slow the pace down a little bit. For me, incredibly important, because with Gregory in the band now, they're doing some even more interesting. Interesting and intricate arrangements and how those guitars intersect. And I read that he'd leave, you know, he'd leave the tricky stuff for Gregory. So the more intricate guitar parts Gregory play and then Partridge would sing and play some of the more chunky parts, but they'd. They'd pop off back and forth. And when you slow things down, it gives so much more room to breathe and space for the songs to breathe. Breathe space for the arrangements to breathe. And you get such cool stuff because these guys really are thinking about the songs and the music in a specific way. I mean, think about making plans for Nigel. Jeff mentioned this kind of industrial, you know, production line feel to the drums. And then you've got, I think, pistons stand.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then, you know, at the end of each line in the verse, you have. Have that, you know, line that I think Partridge is singing back backing, you know, backing for molding.

[C]

What's it there for? Why is it there? It's there because it sounds weird and creepy and instantly memorable.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It creeps you out and you Remember it. And you look for it happening at the end of each line. And then even lyrically, you know, you begin to get a little. Not stranger, but ominous.

[C]

Like, we've made plans for your life, young man. We know exactly what your career is. Clearly, you're.

[B]

You're. You're happy now. You're going to be happy. You're going to be working for the British Steel. Everything in your life's going to go exactly according to plan, won't it?

[A]

We're only making plans. Yeah.

[D]

I love the lyric. He likes to speak but loves to be spoken to.

[C]

In his world, Nigel is happy in his world. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Apparently molding, I guess wrote, I guess he says it's a bit biographical. That is a bit of his father, you know, had university dreams for him and all that. I love the one, two punch, though, of plans, you know, making plans for Nigel. And then Helicopter, you get the idea that they can go two different speeds. I love the fact that they can slow down finally and do something a little bit more almost somewhat traditional, weirdly traditional. And then Helicopter has got that crazy energy. But it's such a fun song. I just. I love the. Right, the. Yeah.

[B]

The energy of it, but it's also fun. And Helicopter is one of the first songs. Songs that. That stuck for me. And the punning on that is.

[C]

Is amazing.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

She's my laughing giggly whirly bird she's got to be obscene to be upheard. I really think it's about time that she came down. Just that's. That's where XTC are humorists. There's so many good jokes in that.

[A]

I'm crouching here with a telescoping hand looking up to cross our Lego line. I really think it's about time that she came down She a laughing giggly whirly bird she got two be up, seem to be upper. I really think it's a.

[B]

But listen again. Listen to it. The. The. The drums are. Have a phase around them so they sound different. The. Everything around it is set to. To sound like a helicopter.

[C]

The.

[B]

The chopping and even the. The lyrics. You go short, short, short, short, short, short, short, short, long, short, short, short, short, short, short, short, short, long. Just like helic. That big. The big bottom bass where it goes thump, thump, thump, thump, thump in the chorus. And then if you listen again. I always listen with headphones. If you listen in the headphones, I think it's Gregory on that second guitar in the chorus playing almost something like Nile Rogers would play. It's so Funky. Not something you'd expect in a song from XTC at this point, but it's so funky in the chorus. There are so many little pieces that come together to make Helicopter a fantastic song.

[A]

Copter, copter she's landing up the D It's about time that I stop her Stop her when she's up there twirling round wow, wow. Just like a helicopter copter A headache, a headache.

[C]

It's such an outrageously nerdy high concept too. Thing too, right? Because he's like. The whole thing is about the woman who can't be kept down. She's an irrepressible. She's gone from a nice young lady to a child. I really think it's about time that she came down. And I object to all the air mails that she pick up. It's so many goofy puns again. But yeah, it's. It's. They present the whole thing as a sound of a helicopter. Every one of these songs has that. Even like the minor ones. Like they're, I'd say the weakest songs on drums and wires, maybe day in, day out. But even that's just a very kind of taughtly like, you know, structured mood piece or, you know, or outside world, which is probably as close to they come as they come to like punk or any. Anything like that on the record. Yeah. But then there's. There are things on this record that almost strike me as like alarmingly prescient. Have you ever taken a look at the lyrics of Reel by re up to there, I mean that. That predicts the future and it's. It's even scarier now when you listen to it. It's like talking about how everybody's watching, everybody's recording you. I. The exact lyrics are. I have to pull them up.

[D]

Busy little bees Recording everything you feel right on Real by real documented down like rats that's right.

[C]

You know, in the secret time Invading on our privacy unknowingly we mime we play for the ministry they can film you in bed or when you take a bath they can tape every cry they can tape every la they can turn you around so you won't know what's real by real in the age of AI in the age of everything being faked and boy, I deal with this every dang day in my day jobs. That song resonates more than ever before. It's amazing that. You know, back when I first heard the album, I didn't identify that one as one of the great songs, but now it just stands out And I

[D]

think, to me, I think Spotify actually has a mistake there because it's real by real. It's a pun. You know, real is real.

[C]

And then.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. And I don't think Spotify picked up on that. But, yeah, the pun there.

[B]

And that's a song. It's not the last time I'll make this observation, which is, I never would think about XTC as a dance band. But, yes, Reel by Reel is a dance song. It's a, you know, it's got that almost four on the floor kind of beat. And as I mentioned to you guys via. Via messaging, Franz Ferdinand was absolutely listening to Reel by Reel and other songs like it from XTC in this era. There's an entire three, four years. And there's one, I think, on the next record, or maybe it's on English Settlement that I'll mention again, where some of the big dance rock acts like Franz Ferdinand clearly were influenced. We're listening to xtc. You can. It's the drum sound, it's the guitar tone, it's the hi hat. It's that disco rock. It's hard to say real disco rock, but it's a dance, it's a dancy track. And those. Those bands certainly identified that and carry that on into the future.

[C]

Yeah, I want to. I want to say a little bit more about, like, why this album has always stood out to me. I think there's really. There's no other record that actually ever sounded like it. I think it's a unique piece of work and that's why I keep calling it, like, it's a revolution in sound because it's some of these art pieces on it that works so spectacularly well that I sat there again as a kid listening to this and just sort of in awe. I was like, how could people come up with these ideas? When you're near me I have difficulty. It's a song that even its opening riff seems like, well, where is this going? It's like a strange sort of collapsing, like water sort of slumping down a hill, kind of a rift. But then when it starts up, when you're near me I have difficulty respirating I have difficulty concentrating I can't sleep upright I can't stand upright I can't sleep at night. And then when it gets into the second part of it, first of all, you establish that there's a second melody that is just as good as the first melody. And then you have that great, like, guitar painting. And it's got to be Dave Gregory Doing it where he's like, I'm feeling like a jellyfish. Just a spineless, wobbly jellyfish and it's great. So.

[A]

When you leave me I have difficulty concentrating. When you leave me I have difficulty standing upright when you leave me I have difficulty sleeping at night I used to stand dry like a space it's in a noble immovable state and then your heart now be under a J, Just a spish and it's great, great, so great.

[C]

And then it finally breaks into that triumphant middle a. You know where I used to be an iceman living in iceman in town so I'm warming all you Cool, cool Iceman Better get better be prepared to get melted right down, down, down, down, down. And that moment is like when XTC just sort of jumps the rails of pre.

[A]

Sam. When you leave me I have difficulty respirating. When you leave me I have difficulty concentrating.

[C]

You've taken that song into a place that it never would have been able to predict when you started it. And that's the. That's the kind of moment. When I was young, I heard when you're near me I have difficulty. And I. Of course, first of all, I was like, I could relate to that.

[B]

Well, certainly you were saying, that's the point I want to make. Make. Which is lyrically, well, that it's, you know, it's a band by nerds for nerds. This lyrically. And if you guys are like me, you had this experience. Is the first guy in your group that actually had a girlfriend. You're like, right, oh, that's weird. But also interesting. What's that like? And the guy's gotta say, well, it's great, it's great, but it's also uncomfortable and you don't feel great or you don't feel well all the time. And you're like a spineless jellyfish and you gotta prepared to be meltdown. There's weird stuff happening, but. But it's great. Like, that is the optimism that shines through a lot of XTC songs, especially on a. On a few albums to come. I have a couple of notes on that, but it's like there's not. This is. There's no cynicism here. It's just saying, fallen in love. Wobbly at times, but it's worth it. And it's pretty great. And maybe you guys should try it sometimes.

[D]

It's great. Becoming spineless protoplasmic jelly.

[C]

It's great to meet a woman who can reduce you to ashes. He does this all the time. Great Fire burning through my heart, you know. And even the abstract experiments on this record work like Rhodes girdle the globe. This is a song written about, literally, highways. It's about we're all safe in your concrete robe. Hail mother rotor. Hail piston rotor. A song, again, that shouldn't work. Listen to its opening, or I guess, would you call the chord of its rift. Who comes up with that? And who aligns two guitars to play those sorts of chords? They're impossible chords. You can't actually play that with one guitar. You need two overlapping one another to get the sounds out of it. So there's Dave Gregory squealing around on the top, and there's Andy, like, wailing underneath this weird. Like sort of a post industrial anthem, like an anthem to do travel and the inevitability of our concrete world. And it's just a strange experiment. It's a complicated game.

[A]

Sam.

[C]

And that's how this album ends, with another incredible strange experiment. It's Andy Partridge with Besseline, with an echo box, with the delay effects. And I asked myself, should I put my finger to the left?

[A]

No.

[C]

Should I put my finger to the right? No. It doesn't matter where I put my finger. Someone else will come along and move it. It's always been the same. That opening lyric not only sums up everything you've been listening to over the album. It's a complicated game, but it's also just. It raises itself. Its voice becomes such a titanic roar by the end of the the record that it's the only way the album could have ended. And it's a perfect way to say goodbye on a record that just dares to experiment and get weird and yet still remain poppy and memorable.

[A]

Sam.

[B]

I have to say something very quickly about molding. Molding pulls off making plans for Nigel day in, day out.

[C]

10ft tall.

[B]

And that is the way the album works too, because those songs are such effective counterpoints to some of the things that. That are happening elsewhere on the record. Like 10ft tall. That's such a twist coming off of when you're near me. I have difficulty. It's lower key, it's acoustic. But man, that chorus is so insistent, you know,

[C]

feeling 10ft, it's all diminished. All right, so you say, feel like I'm walking around. I'm 10ft tall. It goes down. Even as he claims to be I'm 10ft tall. It feels like he's shrinking, the way he sings that melodic line.

[B]

Although, again, if you listen to the lyrics, it's actually. Actually a very Close companion piece to the last one. It's saying how great he feels when he's in love.

[A]

Happy I'm floating around on my feet now you make me go dizzy I'm weak at the knees Yes. I feel like I'm walking right a tener feet old I feel like I'm walking around a ten well you say I'm faking and I say don't worry the way light I bubble the something in the Ms. I feel like I'm okay,

[B]

you know, 10ft's like two people standing on top of each other. Chemistry is right. The feeling goes on and on. They go from strength to strength, like all this good stuff. And yet kind of the same way that when you're near me I have difficulty says well there's going to be some weird times too. 10ft tall musically is where the weirdness shows up and the uncomfortable sort of odd minor key sort of things show up. But, but lyrically, have you heard the

[C]

single version of this song?

[B]

I don't think so.

[C]

Ah, well, you should check that out because they realized the same thing that you're pointing out. It's like, hey, this could be a single. But now we need, we need some positive things. So they redid the middle eight, you know where it goes. They added a much more melodic section to it that brings the piece back into the verse. You should just check it out because they identified the same product and maybe this music is kind of not. It's contradicting what the lyrics are about. Right. And of course that single didn't go anywhere either.

[A]

From strength to strength I'm 10ft like.

[D]

I guess the one track we haven't talked about on there that I really like is Scissor Man. It's kind of a little bit like Helicopter as well.

[C]

But it's a comic book.

[D]

Yeah, it's just a funny kind of adult morality tale and apparently based on. I never heard of it but like a 19th century German character called Shock Headed Peter. But he's like a kid who like grows into his nails out, he grows his hair out and then somebody comes over and cuts his fingers off. Basically. It's like, you should groom yourself or else.

[C]

And then, oh, it's one of those like little fables for kids and then

[D]

Partridge like turns it into this. Like if you're, you know, if you're a prick, this guy called Scissor man is going to come and chop something off. But I love the energy of it, the oddness of it and there's an edginess To Partridge. But I mean, Complicated Game, as Jeff was saying, is it's really. I mean, it really kind of almost predicts, like travels in NI where they're going to get pretty dark. And Scissor man is kind of like a fun, almost a. A dark humor sort of a story that I really enjoy.

[C]

Well, I don't know what to do now, except I'm scared to move on to the next album. Maybe we should stop it and mention at least briefly. Wait until your boat goes down. It's a non album single and it's not that good. I don't have much to say about it. In fact, this one of the rarest things XTC did in the sense that they actually made it a non album single and they devoted the time to it and it's like one of their least memorable songs. It just doesn't work for me in any particular way. And unless you guys have any strong thoughts on it, otherwise I was going to move on to one of the greatest records of all time. Yeah, I have a problem when it comes to talking about 1980s Black Sea. And that problem is that I basically already talked about it on Patreon. When we did our 1980 episode. I think I accepted like seven songs from. I spent like 40 minutes probably waiting through it because at that point in my life, we didn't think we were going to get an XTC guest. I was like, well, I'm going to use my shot now. Needless to say, this is the album where even though Drums and Wires is an experimental gem, it's a masterpiece. It's really impossible not to think that Black Sea is where it comes together for this band. Every track on this record is dynamite. The whole of the record is. Is even more grand when you take these individual songs. There's a lot of great singles on them. Again, none of singles ever performed that well. One of them was one of their big hits. But there's so much more than the singles and the album deserves to be heard as an album. It flows so well as such a whole. What do you guys say about Black Sea? When XTC really become daring, they become Jason and the Argonauts on this record. And I think that cover is very appropriate for them. They're sailing off into uncharted waters.

[A]

There is no language in our L To tell the world Just how we feel no, no, no Bridget so

[C]

no

[A]

mental L no letting out Just want to think. There is no language in our love.

[D]

Yeah, I feel like this is the gateway drug for xtc. Like if I Was going to try to pedal this musical drug. I would start here and then offer this one for free and get them hooked. Yeah, it's such a fantastic. It's the tightest they ever get, I think. I mean, it's just such a tight album. I love Generals and Majors. To me, it's one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard. It's like the theme song for like Pinky in the Brain. If they were like a general and a major and you know, it's all kind of this whistle along kind of siren song of war. I think it's fantastic. I love the British whistling.

[C]

It's. It reminds me of like the bridge on the River Kwai. Right. That's what you meant to think so it's like military, right? But it seems just so jaunty. It seems so lively and happy. Even though he's talking about how generals and majors seem so unhappy. Unless they got a war, they're going to kill us all. You almost. You wouldn't mind dying to these generals and majors, at least you're going to do it with a happy tune in your mouth. Always seem someone happy

[A]

sun, nature like never before. I tired of being in the shape. Calling General. General.

[D]

Exactly. And even the dark next song, it's like. It's got, you know, living through another Cuba. It's got this danceable paranoia. It also has just like such a great lyric. It says he loves me, he loves me not. He's pulling fins from an atom bomb. I just thought that was. It's just a fantastic.

[C]

That's the daisy ad, right?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, no long. No language in our lungs to me is like a new. As a new kind of color in their crayon box. Like I just. They finally. They slow stuff down and I know it's a very moving song about, you know, being inarticulate and not being able to say what you want to say. Of course, the irony is somehow he. He does say what he wants to say because I find it incredibly moving.

[C]

Just on a personal note, that that's one of the songs that when I was in high school and I was a kid, an awkward kid, I meant the most. To me, that lyric. I've. I've memorized it since I was 16 years old. I thought I had the whole world at my mouth. I thought I could say what I wanted to say. For a second that thought became a sword in my hand. I could slay any problem that would stand in my way. It was. I felt just like a crusader Light hearted holy land invader but nobody can say what they really mean to say. The impotency of speech came up and hit me that day. I would have made this instrumental, but the words got in the way. And then it goes off into that wonderful silence. There's not even a guitar solo after that. That's the thing. The guitar solo comes before that instead. After that, it's silence. They don't fill it with anything. They just, you know, keep the pace on. And then they finally go back into the final ve. And that, again, is very symbolic. They did it because they wanted to convey a message like, I have nothing in my lungs. I have nothing to say here. Let's just let the band play on.

[A]

Is instrumental. But the words got in the way. Sam. There is no Henry.

[D]

Something we haven't talked about is, you know, Partridge has synesthesia. And so a lot of times it is kind of the sound, right? Dictates an image, which then dictates, you know, the lyrics, the story, and that's going to come out. And sense is working overtime. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of times, you know, I. I know you can see the synesthesia and how he writes the songs, and it's very. It's very cool and unique.

[C]

Scott, I literally adore every song on this record, so I want to let you say something.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Because I could just take over.

[B]

Let me say quick a few things on songs I already mentioned. One, no language in Our Lungs is one that stuck. Probably struck me the same way it struck Jeff. Lyrically, it's. It's incredible. And it said. It really says something, even though it's saying how language can fail you. Musically, though, very powerful. I love the beginning of that song at first, 10 seconds. Love it, Love it.

[C]

That guitar line.

[B]

And then there's those ringing riffs.

[C]

And it works so well because it fades out. It crossfades from Rocket from Bottle. Yes, has that note. And yet that note adds so much in terms of, like, suspension. Like, you're really, like, waiting to hear what comes next.

[B]

And there's two different parts in at least two different parts in that song where they do this escalation. One's in the middle late, and there's one later where they escalate, escalate, escalate, escalate. And you expect some sort of pop. And it just sort of hangs there before it continues. It's wonderfully constructed, living through another Cuba. Despite what someone else on the show is going to tell you in about 10 minutes. That's the most impossibly tight groove in this XTC collection. That's a song that's. It could span out 12, 15 minutes just working on that one groove throughout. And as, as, as Andrew said, you know, lyrically it's this like nuclear war paranoia. So it's this weird set of lyrics connected to this impossibly tough to deny. Groo.

[A]

Just for what happens every 20 years or so, They make it up. If we get through this, I'll write their due for replay. 1998. I love you.

[B]

I love Black Sea, man. This is one of the.

[C]

I want to talk about every one of these tunes.

[B]

This is one of the greatest finds from the show. There's not a bum song, there's not a race. Wrong move Jeff mentioned is sequenced just immaculately. You know, one thing runs into the next thing. It's paced well. Everything, everything works. So a couple things I want to mention. Paper and Iron, they never hit harder than Paper and Iron. It is the toughest, loudest, hardest, punchiest song. Oh my goodness.

[C]

It feels like an act of physical violence.

[B]

Terry Chambers. Terry Chambers. Chambers is incredible on Black Sea. And part of it has to do with Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padjam who produce and engineer the record. By this point, they're already working on experimenting with the open gate miking of the drums. And boy, Black Sea, the drums are gigantic. They power everything. And Paper and Iron hits so hard.

[A]

Handle the factory trees Walk right the hand and please I take home my notes and coins every week I'll inherit the earth, I'm told But the church says to remain this me, remain this me.

[C]

Again.

[B]

Lyrically, this set of lyrics about how this down and out guy works every day, tough job, probably comes home dirty and coal mine something. And he's saying, well, the church says the poor shall inherit the earth. The church says we should remain weak But I'm just this wage earner, this proud guy blending in with a crowd and they're like, is this anybody's golden age? The question that gets asked at the end, it's such a powerful, powerful, powerful song. I think even more powerful is the very next one. Man Burning with Optimism's Flames.

[C]

My favorite. It's my favorite XTC song of all time. Scott.

[B]

I, I, you know, I said this. There is no cynicism in this song. First of all, it, you know, musically it is perfect. Lyrically, it is this tale about a woman who says she's just found a way to make her own light. All you smile get banished the night you smile, you're upbeat, you're happy, you're burning with optimism's flames. You're creating your own light, you know, burning all the guilt and the shame away. It's not. And no one comes in and says, well, that's just. That's just phooey. That's silly. Life is hard and life is. No. He actually influences the girl, influences our narrator to do the same thing. To live positively, to be happy, to use your own engine, to light the way. Moving forward. There is not a drop of cynicism in this song. And this is one where, when they

[C]

play live, Andy Partridge would say, like, this is our attempt at writing joy to the world.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, it really is great. Yeah.

[A]

Never seen her glowing all that bright

[B]

she's growing like some aurora from her

[A]

head is growing, reaching to the ground and I'll lay around like I never hoped, never heard her sing now she's gently ringing like copper wind, chunk, bottle earth is bringing up the screen the guy who got the creamers Licking her

[C]

lips and smiling like her treasure cousin

[A]

she claims she's found a way to make her own light all you do is smile, you banish her she says she's burning wet afternoon.

[C]

The verses are so, so quick, quick,

[B]

quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. And you know the way they fit all those words.

[C]

That nervous energy shouldn't be literally. He has so much to say about how happy, how excited he is about this. He can't fit all the words into the meter. So what's that like, you know? Oh, cat, that was it. The cat that got the cream is licking her lips and smiling like her Cheshire cause. And then he goes boom. She claims she's found a way to make her own life. It snaps, there's nothing. La final moment where it finally kicks into the middle eight. And it's like, again, I. I liken it to just a ray of sunshine now every burden be just fuels the fire for me now every closing door just fans those flames some more Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And the melodic line as he runs up and down the scale inspired stuff. It inspired me as a kid.

[A]

Now everybody, me just feel the fire for me Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes now every closing door just. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She claims she's found a way to make her own life. All you do is smile, you banish them. She says she's burning. She said she's burning.

[D]

I was saying, I also just love the metaphor of optimism being a fire that you have to stoke, you know, you have to keep throwing things in there to keep the fire going.

[C]

And it's. Yeah, it's a really good metaphor. It's. Again, it's one he returns to quite often with great fire.

[D]

Yeah, exactly. No, you're right. And imagine it's so funny because it's so different.

[B]

Yeah. Imagine burying that. That third from the blast on the album. Like, that's how strong Black Sea is. You have Optimism's flames.

[D]

Third from the end travels in neon. So you have quite the. You have quite the change in the tone.

[C]

And so you've got to travel through that there by. By spending some time with Sergeant Rock. Now, this is the one that Andy Partridge claims he doesn't love that much because it's too on the nose. But I'm not gonna lie, I think it's very funny.

[B]

It's All Right song.

[C]

It's like. Come on.

[A]

It's.

[C]

It's about again. This is about band written by. Banned by Nerds 4 Nerds. So it's about a kid who can't really score with girls. And what's he gonna do? He's gonna. He's got. I'm enlisting overseas aid. I'm gonna find Sergeant Gro. It's like basically a comic book hero who's going to tell him how to be a man and hang around with the women. You know, if I could only be. The way he sings it is so funny. If I could only be tough like him, then I could win my own small battle of the sexes. It's so funny. So I. I don't. I don't mind it one bit. It was the big hit off of this record, ironically enough, when I think there are several singles that are far better you could take from this. But still, it's a. It's a decent song and it doesn't deserve it. It's bad rap.

[A]

If I could only be tough like him then I could win my own small fact about the sexes. And Sergeant Rock is going to help me make the girl keep the student line and Sergeant Locke is going to help me make the girl mind Keep a student line make the girl mine Wave the victory side. Yay. Sometimes relationships don't go as planned Some girls can make themselves so cold.

[D]

I agree. I've always been surprised he wanted to. Yeah. Not have that reissued on the album, but, yeah. No, it's really fun. Kind of innocent, delusional, but. Innocent, delusional song. Yes.

[C]

I don't even see it as sexist. It's like a kid who just obviously has no Experience with women. He's just like, desperately naive and he wants. He wants someone to come along and teach him how to score right.

[B]

And I. I kind of get like a 50s rockabilly feel, like there's a sense of innocence to it. That's not. Like you said, it's not sexist. It's not meant to be in that way. It's meant to be a sort of innocent.

[C]

It has a pastiche, like sound to it. You know, it's a little. Okay, gosh, we could talk about all these songs. There's two that are essential and I feel like I'll spend a year on both of them. Rocket from a bottle. Rocket from a bottle Shot free I referred to it right at the beginning of the show, but this is. You talk about things that you have strong emotional connections with. So I was into XTC at the same time. What a coincidence. I was first getting into girls, so this is why these lyrics really just meant so much to me. But, man, I myself was set off by a pretty little girl Like a rocket from a bottle. Shot free I know who it is. There's a name associated with it. I've been just. I've been just explosive since she lit me. I've been up with the larks. I've been shooting out sparks and I'm feeling in love, the excitement of that. The pure joy of that kind of love. And this, this. This thumping, thrumming, insistent piano melody, the thing is carried about. It has a wonderful guitar solo where Dave Gregory takes off into this skyward thing. It actually sounds like a rocket being shot from a bottle, but really it's held together by that. That piano stop, which keeps it all grounded.

[B]

Reminds me of. Jules Holland is right.

[C]

There you go. It's a very Jules Hol.

[A]

Shot free. I've been just as though.

[C]

And then, of course, the other one that has to be mentioned is Towers of London. I don't know if. Andrew, if you love this song as much as I do, maybe I'll just give it to you.

[D]

Yeah, no, I do really enjoy this one. Apparently it's. Andy Partridge said he was trying to do his own Waterloo Sunset with this song, which I thought was.

[C]

Was. Well, yeah, and I think he kind of got there.

[D]

Yeah, he kind of succeeds. But I love it, you know, lyrically even just this idea of kind of talking about the building of the city of London from the point of view of the people who actually built it. But it's so. Yeah, it's so catchy. I don't know.

[C]

To me, it is it's Kinks ish in that sense. It's like it's. It's always pure historical experiment. But the music is so the most like soaring and inspiring that the band ever did. There's. There's science, there's practically science and genius in the construction of that piece. Those guitar solos that Dave Gregory takes and then you think that's gonna be the peak of the song. That's the climax. That's the best thing you've ever heard. Then you go back into that final course and then, then they surprise you with that. Towers of London. Andy holds the note and then there's a guitar turn around and then they go to the na na na Didier. That's like that almost their hey Jude, right? We have instead of like na na na na. That's the hate Jude of XTC is the fade out of Towers of London. You've got two all time peak musical moments and they're contained in the same song. And it wasn't a hit. Why? Because it was four minutes. It was too long. It was four minutes and 58 seconds. It was never get played on the radio. It's about Irish exploiting the Irish to build the towers of London. The BBC wouldn't like it, but it is a masterpiece. It is a creative genius to have the idea, the inspiration for the song, to execute it so gracefully and to also make those drums sound so vibrant and so alive. I think of Terry Chambers as banging on kettles sometimes. I just don't know how they get that giant deep resonant sound. It's obviously just messing around in the studio. But I. I hear them play live and he comes across basically the same way. So I think it's really about the way he plays them. Towers of London is to me a landmark of pop music. And it's like a crime that people aren't as familiar with it as they are. It's, you know, what can you say? What's the most Beatlesque song XTC ever wrote? I don't know. XTC wrote tons of Beatlesque songs. But this is the one I think of when XTC is paying tribute, direct tribute to their progenitors. This is their Beatles song. Everybody should know it.

[A]

Ram.

[D]

No, no, I love it too. It also, it makes more sense for the album art. I mean, I don't think the original title for the album was not Black Sea. It was something like Working Under Pressure. It had like a nautical kind of theme to it where you know, they're talking about actually building the city and Then apparently the producer, or not the, you know, whoever inversion, someone was just like, look, we could. You can't call it working under pressure because it makes it sound like we're bad bosses.

[C]

Of course, Andy would say, you are bad bosses.

[A]

Walking pretty lane is there. Is the sweat of the never never navies who pound pound, pound pound pound Spikes in the rails to their very own heaven. Towers of London when they had built you did you.

[C]

I think we talked.

[B]

I know there's a. Well, we didn't talk about Respectable street, did we?

[C]

Or Trap. We haven't talked about the first or the last songs. And of course their major songs as well.

[D]

Yeah, the first one. I feel like there's Kinks again. Like, I mean, to me this is an absolutely Kinksy tune and I love that because I love the Kinks. And this is, yeah, fantastic.

[B]

It's a great album opener. I think they open a lot of concerts back where they played them. With Respectable street, you can find a few live versions on YouTube if you look hard enough. This is one where you don't necessarily question why it didn't become a hit. Talks about abortion and contraception and sex positions and so.

[C]

Not if you've heard the single version, Scott. They re recorded it with different lyrics. Now it's now it's now it's which proposition pleases him.

[B]

Just like the Kinks, they're willing to re record lyrics to be more commercially acceptable.

[C]

And by the way, it's a much better mix. If you've not heard the single mix of Respectable street, that's the one to hear it. It's just they do little tricks, little sonic tricks in the background to make that final verse come off much more punchly than it does on the.

[A]

Turn down. I can see them when they're still.

[D]

I was just going to say the. I mean, the last song is. I. I do like. A lot of times they end an album just on a total left field kind of song, basically. Like, we could do this sound if we wanted to. I don't know. Travels In Nihilon is something they've never really quite come back to, but it's. It's such a dark song and I

[C]

think it's one of the most compelling things.

[D]

I heard it compared to Tomorrow Never Knows and I thought that was kind of a really cool comparison. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, the message on that record really foreshadows all of Andy Partridge's disillusionment with the record business. You've learned no lessons all that time so cheaply spent There is No youth culture, only masks they let you rent. It's such a dark lyric. And he means every word of it too. That's the thing. Like Andy Partridge, when he gets gets up and he decides to sermonize, he's never doing it in jest. He's always dead effing serious about it. And I think actually this is the first time I really think of him in that role. He's going to do a lot more of that as XTC's career proceeds. But this is the best. I mean, it's just so. It's doom. It's a preacher saying doom fashion. The vampire drapes itself across your back as you fall from style Waits its rebirth on the rack. I mean, he's basically saying you're being exploited, you're being used, used. Everything here is being sold to you. It's all hollow. And he's also making sort of an implied statement, which is that we are authentic and, you know, I'll buy it. There's nothing that sounds more authentic than that like shit hot drumming flame that Terry Chambers gets out of the. The song on Travels on Nylon. That to me is like one of the reasons why I think I spent a lot of time talking about this on our Patreon episode. But the drum track on that record is an achievement. I think it's the best thing Chambers members ever did with the band. And I think it's like something that I don't. That other. Other groups would not be capable of, other groups would not have dared to try that. To go basically African tribal is really the way they're headed. And they're going to be doing a lot more of that on the next two record.

[A]

And I'm so keen.

[C]

But this, this is Black Sea. It actually broke them big in Britain. Drums and wires did okay. Black Sea did very well. They had, I think four maybe singles hit the top 20. Now, of course, the top 20 in England is nothing like the top 20 in the United States in terms of the market, in terms of what kinds of products. The massive stuff you're moving, but it was good enough to really get a lot of buzz going on around them. And this is, by the way, I heard a lot of live xtc. They only toured for a little time, but I've got all the tapes. They were really wonderful live during this era, 1980. And they had such seemingly, seemingly endless energy. It seemed like they. Eddie Partridge talks about how he had stage fright his entire life. And of course he's over this time developed a crippling drug addiction To Valium, a sedative. You know, it's a Benzodio Aziza pram. Because, you know, he doesn't want to get out there on stage and he doesn't want to fail. And of course, I would actually understand because I would think to myself, these songs are so fricking hard to play, and they're getting harder. They're only getting more and more difficult. It's kind of like that Beatles issue where the Beatles, you know, the longer they stayed around in the studio, the more, you know, difficult their songs became to reproduce live. And so this is creeping up on Annie Partridge as he sets about to record their next record. And I guess there's another big tradition where these traditions with the UK bands. There's the. There's the weird Jimi Hendrix cover, there's the weird, you know, rock tribute, and then there's the ambitious double album. And we get to English Settlement, and again, we talk about records that have meant an enormous amount out to you. Well, basically this entire trilogy, but English Settlement in particular, it just. When I found it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And that's a strange thing to say about a record that's very British, and it's about British problems and British people in a place that I've never been and never going. And yet this was the record that, like, opened my ears and opened my mind to all sorts of weird and wonderfully consonant sounds in rock music. I'm fascinated by some of these tracks. I'm fascinated by the way they were arranged, by the way they're written, by their lyrical conceits. I've spent a lot of time talking about them in various other places just for that reason. So now I'm going to have to try to not repeat myself when I talk about. If there's anything better than Black Sea, it's arguably English Settlement.

[A]

Watching Turn to stone they turn to stone they turn the snow.

[D]

This is my first album that I had of theirs. And like you, it was also something that was just incredibly. I don't just feel like it pulled back a couple. Curtain for me, I mean, senses working overtime is it's such a catchy, wonderful song. And when you listen to, you know, Partridge, who, If you listen to him in some of his interviews, he's really fun to. When he talks about his actual song songwriting process, he talks a lot about making mistakes and kind of like the fortuitousness of making mistakes. So I think he, like, hit like an E flat. Like a messed up E flat flat, he says. And then he was like, oh my God, that sounds really medieval.

[A]

Hey, hey the clouds are way the straw for the donkeys and the innocent.

[D]

And so there's this kind of like beginner's mind Zen quality in which he finds a sound he's never found before, like a chord he's never, you know, strummed. And then he's like, okay, how do I build a song around that? And this is really a great medley. Very Beatles, like in that way. Like it's a middle medieval chant meeting a 1, 2, 3 pop song. And it's. Being able to fuse those two together seems like a Herculean task. And. And yet for me it's. It's one of their catchiest songs. Yeah, it's quite.

[C]

Again, it's the construction. The drama just keeps rising and rising until you get to the. You know. And the buses might skin on black ice. But it all climaxes so beautifully with Andy like going. It's not even a lyric, it's just a melodic part. He goes, do, do, do. Suddenly like you feel. It's such a bucolic kind of feel that they're going for. It's like you're. It's a rural thing. You're sitting out in the woods and you're enjoying the glories of nature. All of a sudden you feel like you're part of nature when the instrumental part plays on that song. And you know, there are so many other things that can be said about sentences working overtime, but I've never forgotten the way you can. A piece of music can actually just transport you. And it did it for me on that.

[A]

Jesus. And all the world is football shape. It's just for me to kick his face.

[B]

First time I listened to English Settlement I was walking on the dog, which is just the perfect length for an album. It's 45 minutes. Like 40 minute dog walk. Get it done. Perfect, right? And so I was visiting my. My parents and so I didn't know exactly how long. How far I was going, you know, So I listened to English Settlement and I'm like, okay. And okay. And like all of a sudden I look down and like I've walked almost three miles and oh no, this is a double album. Okay. Like, it's not ending, which is not a bad thing. So that. That was my first exposure to English Settlement. I like this album a lot. I don't like it as much as Black Sea or drums and wire. And I'll. I'll say something about that in a bit. But some of these.

[C]

So goodbyellow Brick Road. Do you know what I mean by that? It's a double album. That if it had been a single album, it would have obviously been their best.

[B]

You know what? I might as well put my problem up front. Here's my problem up front, which is the back quarter or so of this record. You end up getting a lot of like, dub and white reggae rhythms. Those songs, to me, start feeling a little close to each other. Like when you get into Knuckle down, down the Cockpit, even like English Roundabout, those sounds aren't as distinctive as I might like of them.

[A]

Knuckle Down. Love his skin. It doesn't matter what comes in his lot. Knuckle Down. And

[B]

there's some good stuff in the back too. But that's. That's one of my big problems with English Settlement. Maybe if you had one of those three on the record and you'll tell me they're all great in a second. I understand it may have. It may have been a little bit better from a flow perspective, but great songs here, you know, they. They. They were. They were in debt because they weren't going to be touring after English Settlement. They're already in debt and they were about to stop touring, I should say. And so you find a record here where already you find hints of what's going to come. Runaways, the very first track, which is a molding track, actually. I woke up with that chanting in my head this morning. This slow build, this drum.

[C]

Oh, run away. It just niggles. It just gets under your skin, doesn't it?

[A]

And die. You run away to escape from the fight. Now you're lost in a maze of neon light and she is worried he is worried, she is worried.

[B]

Atmosphere and tension and the Prophet 5, that very specific synth sound that would pop up on this record and. And the next record, the thing that I love here. Did you just use no thugs in our house in our crime episode?

[C]

Yes, I did.

[B]

I knew you did. And so it was already semi familiar. That's one of the great songs on this record. It is one of the more upbeat uptempo ones, but that's not necessarily why, because it doesn't hit as hard as it might have on Black Sea. You can just hear the production is not as thick here as it was in the past. It doesn't take away the power, though. And this is a great little microcosm of what makes. Makes XTC great. These. The. The verses have. The now have acoustic guitar and this wicked Gregory guitar pattern. A beautiful pre chorus on this song. A fairly Straight chorus again. You sort of straighten things out in the course. No thugs in our house it's very straight. Before you get back into something different on the verses. Vocally, I think both guys are getting even better at singing. And Partridge specifically can sort of add that gruffness, the graveliness to his voice when he needs to, and he does. Here are no thugs at our house, especially on those choruses when they're talking about having their kid be part of the national front in British politics, or his friends, at least, are part of the front. And so that's such a little microcosm of what makes XTC such a great band.

[A]

They never read that tattoo on his. They think that it was just a voice come back they never thought he said. The insecurity woker won't hang her walkers on the line she's singing something stale and simple now this dizzy fizzled out her little tune is such a happy song her son is innocent he can't the stands a judge knows exactly what the job of judging's all about.

[B]

And then just a few songs later, I think maybe my favorite. All of a sudden it's too late. This is the sad, happy song. This is. Is the opposite of a straight song with optimism and nothing. This sounds so sad even though it's. Or it sounds so happy even though it's kind of sad. Life's a firework you're only lit once. You gotta stand and radiate.

[C]

Radiate correctly.

[D]

What a wonderful pairing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is sort of the beautiful XTC that I was promised. Like, when I. Before I. Before I started diving in, my idea of XTC was more this very beautiful, well constructed, gorgeous melodies, you know, slower, but it all works here. That bridge, that chorus, all of a sudden It's Too Late is a gorgeous, gorgeous song. They pull it off wonderful.

[A]

Far away you have to get. Life's like a jigsaw. You get the strike.

[D]

I feel like they're also adding, like, there's a yearning in that song that maybe has. Hasn't been there yet. It's. You know, there's kind of like an honest song about creeping despair and I know. I just really, really enjoy that. I feel like he is opening up his voice a little bit more. It's not just barks and all that kind of stuff.

[B]

The other one I'll mention before handing off to. To Andrew is Fly on the Wall molding song, which is on the back part of the album. This was weird at first and then really grew on me quickly. It's. They bring back Sort of the idea about spying and Big Brother and government. But just like we talked about like Helicopter, everything here is built to serve that metaphor. This buzzing like fly esque synth treatment, the vocals are through like a megaphone, megaphone treatment. And you know, I know your income, your daily crust, your pleasures, your passion, your lust. This is another song that I think, again, those early 2000s rock bands. There's one called Hot Hot Heat that I like to back in the day, which is now 25 years ago. This sounds like a Hot Hot Heat song. Again, that very dancy rhythm. And the whole way the song is treated and arranged. There's definitely bands like that that were hearing a song like Fly on the wal.

[A]

Start looking through your bottom. I just keep flying through your room. You didn't notice that your number has been called. I see the right.

[C]

Okay. You know, it's. There's a funny story behind that song. So the EMI executive, whoever the label was, they heard the demo of that song. They said that's a single. Once you record that, that that's a definite candidate for a single. And so the band, knowing exactly what they were going to do with it, sort of chuckled themselves. Okay, they recorded it and they were trying turned it to EMI with this giant like buzzing, clattering sound. Wildly uncommercial. Like I kind of. And. And then they said like now what? It's not a single after all. We're gonna go in a different direction so that it's in the box set. That story, it's kind of fun. Yes, I agree with you. It's a fantastic song. I think all Colin Mo songs on this record, he puts four on and they're superb. They contribute to everything. You said you didn't like English Roundabout. I think you're crazy. English Roundabout is to be one of the best songs on this record. That five, four time signature first of great the way it's played, like almost like a jazz piece. It's just snare sticks, you know, clacka clacka, clacka clacka. Again, that reggae feel to it in a strange way. But the final verse on that one where the Dave Gregory guitar counterpoint just sails away as Colin is singing again. It's one of Those examples where XTCs just mastered arrangements at this point. It would actually get over elaborate in their later years, but here they know exactly what color, what note, what part has to be played to really bring the piece to a stirring, perfect conclusion. And that's what I hear in a song like English Roundabout.

[A]

Because I just want to get out. Let me.

[B]

Well, I could say one more thing and then please can tell us why I'm wrong or what things I'd missed out on. The other song I really liked though was Leisure.

[C]

I hate that song. With a passion. Are you serious? I think it's the worst song on the album by far. I'm shocked.

[D]

Oh, it's actually. It's actually my least favorite as well on the album.

[B]

Yeah, well, different opinions. I. I look, I like Leisure. This is a song. What it made me think of is, you know, Hang Fire from the Rolling Stones. Same kind of theme. Not necessarily musically, but lyrically. In a sweet old country where I come from, nobody ever works, nothing ever gets done. And Leisure, when I hear it, is a song about people who want to work and want to be productive but can't. If you think I'm clowning, I assure you that I'm drowning here in leisure. I don't want. This is not what I think my life should be or would be post AI world coming but it's the world we have found ourselves in. I like it. I like that awful kilter groove. I like the kind of y yer.

[C]

Oh, that part that always. That always set me off, that. That opening.

[D]

It's one of the times where his vocal just oddity irks me. Usually I really love it. But this is one of the few times where I was like, that doesn't work for me.

[B]

You know, That's.

[C]

That's about right.

[B]

He's got one. Three of us

[A]

correctly. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. They had retired before I left school just so no point in the standing in line. So I spent lots of time lounging at home. Why not come in? Cuz the carpe is mine. What a waste.

[C]

Well, you were wrong, Scott. But it's okay. We're an understanding bunch here at Political Beats. And. And as for me, I. Since I could again talk about every song on this album, there's got to be a way to edit it down. I'll start by saying it's a two disc album. The first disc disc is perfect. I mean, there's literally. Not only is it not a flaw, there is not one song that I would think is like. I would not put on my greatest hits if I were making an XTC compilation. Every one of these songs has to be there. I love the way that it's formatted without egos. Why does Colin Molden get the first two songs on the record? Because they're great and they have wonderfully as an introduction to the album. There's no egos here. In that sense, it's all about the work. And when they come together and they work up a piece like Jason and the Argonauts, that again, when I heard that, I was a transformative moment for me as a kid, this was a journey. It was clearly meant to be an epic. An epic sea ballad. Right? Of course. It's really about Andy Partridge's own experiences, like traveling the world, touring. In fact, he's like, I. I've been all over the world and I've seen also all manner of crazy things. My head is spinning like the world it is filled with beasts I've seen. I'll put my bag down and tell you it all right from the start. And so he uses his own experiences, seeing different countries, seeing different people and places. And he uses the metaphor of Jason and the Argonauts forever sailing to find that Golden Fleece. There may be no golden Fleece, but human riches I'll release.

[A]

Woman who become a boy she. Man who made a hobby of breaking his wife sings the more I travel from the home to gravel as the lips unravel all exotic picture I find like a son of the army.

[C]

So that's what he's like getting the whole touring experience.

[D]

And I feel like that line. I don't know what I really love about this song is it's such an ambivalent line. It, like, that line lives somewhere between a threat and like an altruistic vow. He's going to release human riches. However, he's going to do that, like whether in a Jason sort of way, kind of a terrible way, or in like bringing joy to people through his music. I don't know, it is kind of a. A strange line.

[C]

It's. It's such a big, sweepingly ambitious song that it even includes some of XTC's flaws. Like, so here's the truth. Andy Partridge, every now and then could have read a bum lyric. You get too cute. And I always cringe slightly when I hear him saying, I have watched the Manimals go by. Manimals? Come on, man. I mean, I know what you're getting at, but that's just.

[D]

He's getting that from H.G. wells. It's the island of the Dr. Monroe.

[C]

Or maybe he was a huge fan of the short lived TV series Manimal. You know, that's the other thought. I think it might have been the right time, 1982 or thereabouts. But any. Anyways, that's. This thing encompasses every virtue and maybe even some of like, you know, the merits of XTC to the set in the sense that it becomes their perfect song. It becomes the one that most really kind of emblematizes what they're about.

[A]

I have watched the manimals go by Find shoes Buying sweeps and buying knives I have watched the animals and cry Buying time Buying ends to other people's lives.

[C]

That record alone justifies English settlement. But of course there's so many different other songs on this record. Like Yacht Dance. It Falls. Follows right out of it actually falls right out of no thumbs. Bugs in Our House shows a completely different side of this group. It's got that, that nylon string guitar solo from Dave Gregory which is just beautiful, classy. And of course it's classy like it should be because we're talking about boats sailing on the water, wheeling seabirds. It's this bucolic vista where you can almost see it like a painting. Like we're all like. He's using a wonderful metaphor here. So our love will just go wheeling across the water like we're yachts dancing upon the water water. And it's again a very thoughtful concept and impossibly delicate production. These sorts of things.

[D]

My actually favorite song on the album really. It feels like a seaside mantra to like ward off all the kind of storms that are swirling nearby. I really love it and it kind of sounds like the Kinks. It's like sitting in the midday sun. Not to give you guys PTSD from preservation, which I know both them of you are not fans of, but the Spanish guitar there is just fantastic.

[A]

We will dance like tiny boats with constant sails upon the top all the same that would pull us down to depths and brush us flat to give an half a chance no need to look back Two pictures of lost when all was

[D]

Snowman. I love Snowman. It's just such a fun album.

[B]

A closer.

[D]

He's doing some weird kind of just growling and scatting, but there's actually. Apparently that song has Dave Gregory's famous or favorite lyric of Andy Partridges. And it's a wonderful lyric.

[B]

It goes.

[D]

People will always be tempted to wipe their feet on anything with welcome written on it.

[C]

Written on it.

[D]

Such a great line.

[A]

The d. People will always be tempted to wipe their feet.

[B]

Jeff, I know what I was going to say, which is you I, I, I previewed something you were going to say and you didn't say it. So I need to prompt you to say something about Melt the Guns.

[C]

Oh yes. That's my guiltiest of all pleasures. That is something I wanted to talk about. So, okay, this is not a political show. This is. Is a rock show. Nevertheless, the lyrics to Mouth the Guns, they're actually kind of offensive. It's not even just that I disagree with the politics. There's a lot of hate in those lyrics, man. Really? He freaking hates America. He has this whole thing in the middle.

[A]

He.

[C]

This is his rap, you know. I'm speaking to the Justice League of America, the usa. Hey, you. Yes, you. Yes, you in particular. Basically, he hopes. He hopes that anybody who likes guns, you all shoot yourselves, right? You all die. Because we don't need guns. In fact, we need to melt the guns and never mind more, desire them. So the politics of this song are all wrong from my perspective. And the most horrible thing of all is that the music is so good. It is so compulsively good. That reggae track, that clacka clacka clacka clacka clacka beat. And they know, they lean into it. They. They play it out even after the song is done. They know there's something compulsive about the way Terry Chambers is doing that drumming. But also the melodic lines, the like, the wonderful ideas melodically that that song is interlaced with. It's one of those. Those things where I know every lyric and I still sing them myself, but I sing them with a side eye. What I'm saying. Prevention is better than cure. Bad apple's affecting the pure. You'll gather your senses.

[B]

I'm.

[C]

I'm sure. And I agree to melt the guns. No, I will never agree to melt the guns. But I do love that song.

[A]

We know the germ which is man made in metal is really the key to your own tomb. Prevention is better than cure. Bad apple's affecting the pure. You'll gather your senses and show that. Agree to melt the guns. Melt the guns. Melt the guns and never more den. Melt the guns, Melt the guns.

[B]

Yeah. As I said, I think I understand your points, but I think they're made better by living through another Cuba. In terms of. That's the best groove. I mean, that's the groove that I could listen to forever.

[C]

They always knew how to string together a solid rock beat. And they were in fact a really crack live act. And that was about to come to an end, however, because Andy Partridge had finally had enough. The story had has to be told at least briefly. Any Partridge has long standing Valium addict. We've talked about that. He started taking these pills to sort of get over his stage fright. And he started at a very young age, at the age of like, I believe, 14 years old or something like that. So he had a long acquired habit and then he suddenly quit cold turkey. I believe the story might be that his wife at the time flushed his supply down the toilet. And it's just, I guess, never a good day, never a good idea to quit something like Valium cold turkey. Because he immediately had a massive nervous breakdown. We're talking about a guy who's always seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Well, he had the real. The Full Monty this time. He cracked up. He left stage, I believe, like, you know, after the first.

[B]

You can, first, you can find that on YouTube. It's there. I watched it. Oh, you.

[C]

Have you seen. I've never seen it.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's out there. He just throw. Puts the guitar down, walks off. Bank continues playing guitarless for a little bit. And that's it.

[C]

That's it. And he just walked off in the middle of a show. First song, xtc. XTC is never respectable street.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

Was it respectable street? Yeah. He decided, I'm not going to do this anymore. He dropped tools, he just walked out, he canceled the tour, he went home. Now first of all, imagine what kind of problems that's going to put your band in. You got debts that you now immediately accumulated from breaking all those commitments. Then also, well, you're not going to be able to make any more money in the future because you're not touring anymore. Also, you never sold that much in the first place, so you're not going to really have a lot of chances to put, promote your work because that's what live music is for. It's to promote your albums. So this puts XTC in the spot that they remain for the rest of their careers a purely studio bound act. And it was obviously the right thing for them to do. Nobody wants Andy Partridge to have committed suicide from being so stressed out or who have like suffered a legitimate nervous breakdown, like just fractured his consciousness. No, they were going to get off the road. And that of course meant a lot of different things. First a, they were never going to become rich. So this is basically the beginning of the end of XTC's dreams of, you know, becoming world famous rock stars. They found out immediately, by the way, that their manager at the time had basically been like totally not ripping them off, but misappropriating their funds. Basically he was negligent. And the band ended up owing millions of dollars of pounds in back taxes because Ian Reid didn't Know what the heck he was doing. He then sued them for their, their earnings. They got locked into a battle in the courts that to led lasted for like most of their entire rest of their mainstream recording career. So this is all bad. And then what happens after that? They finally reconvene. I think it's late 1982 in the studio and they get together, work on the new material. I think, you know, they recorded a couple of tracks. Seems like they're making decent progress on this next album, whatever it's going to be called. And then at one point, Andy Partridge is trying to show a drum pattern to Terry Chambers. He's like tapping it out and at that point Terry just snaps, he's like, you know what? I'm not playing any more of this poofy music. He downsticks, he gets up, he walks out of the studio, he leaves the band permanently. And from that point onward, XTC is now a trio. And so in a lot of ways this brings us to the end of our show, the last album we'll be covering during this era. It's clearly a transitional album. Terry Chambers plays on three tracks. They're not the biggest ones on the record. A studio drummer then plays on the other tracks and. And from this point until Forevermore, XTC is going to be the province of these players minds and their ambitions. They're never going to worry about reproducing something live. They're never going to worry about anything other than really making art. Because at this point they're not quite at this point, but at a certain point they're beginning to concede that, well, their singles just don't hit the charts for whatever reason. So they're going to make great art from now on.

[A]

Do you know what noise awakes you every morning from your bed? Coming from the far that's inside Coming from inside your. You have heard, you have heard the loudest sound in this and everyone you could think about. Louder than tanks on the highway Louder than bombers in flight Louder than noises of hatred dancing.

[C]

And this first album, Mummer, 1983's Mummer. It's strange when I was a kid and I got it, I, I, I, I guess it's been given a bad reputation by the reviews that I had read. I'd been told to look out that it's kind of a weak one, that there's not a lot of energy. I think Mummer is one of the most beautiful albums of XT TC's career. I think it is really them like finally in Technicolor They're. They're taking chances. Their ambitions are to paint sonic palettes that are completely unrecreatable live. But they come up with some of the most wonderful and. What's the word, you know, pastoral music of their entire career. Mummery is a great record and I think maybe the one that. The one of this episode that we'll be talking about is the real, truly under rated one.

[D]

Yeah. For me, this is my favorite of. Of the batch that we're talking about today.

[C]

There you go. Right.

[D]

It's XDC's Rubber Soul. I actually love the title too. The alternate art for the. The. The album is wonderful. They're dressed like mummers. And mummers are these, you know, medieval kind of tradition of kind of like putting on a mask and doing morality plays. But this is them kind of putting on a mask and basically, like, are we. And trying things out and in the studio. I love, obviously. I mean, the obvious one to love here is Love on a Farm Boy's Wages.

[C]

Oh, that song meant so much to me personally.

[D]

So, yeah, to me it's like speculative. It's something, you know, like in. In fiction or speculative fiction. Kind of like a what if this is kind of like speculative music. It's like, what if the British. What, you know, what would the British version of country. Country music sound like in an alternate dimension? And it sounds like this. It sounds amazing.

[A]

Night when my work is done we will borrow your father's carriage we will drink and prepare for marriage so, my darling so, my darling Shilling motherfeller who brings the sheep in Shilling motherfellow who milks the herd Shilling Bella bella With a wife for keeping how can we feed love all the farm boys wa J.

[C]

Well, it sounds like Fairport Convention. And it's. No, it's no surprise that Fairport Convention actually did cover Eventually Love on a Farm Boy's Wages.

[D]

Oh, really?

[C]

Yeah. British folk rock is what you would call it, you know, which is different because it draws upon those Anglo roots as opposed to, like, American folk rock.

[A]

People think that I'm no good I'm painting pictures of carving wood Be a rich man if I could but the only job I do well Is here on the farm on the farm and it's breaking my back. We will borrow your father's carriage we will drink and prepare for marriage calling.

[D]

Yeah, exactly. Apparently. I guess Andy asked Colin when they were rehearsing the song, can you get more cow out of your bass? Which I just. I just love. But really, the song for me, I Mean, I love a lot of these songs, but Ladybird, I just think is totally. This is them leaning into the Beatles. Apparently the story is that halfway through, kind of repeated recording it, Andy Partridge didn't like it because it sounded too Beatlesy. And the producer stopped him and says, what's wrong with that?

[A]

And.

[D]

And he kind of calls it like a crossing a Rubicon moment, where at that point he's like, yeah, what's wrong with sounding like the Beatles? It's such a beautiful song about, like, quiet hope. Like, it's like an ode to spring after a difficult winter. And to me, every time I hear that one, I want to replay it. Yeah.

[C]

Lady Bird is a song that has a very, very particular, special meaning to me. You talk about how much you love music and, well, what do you do when you're a musician who loves music? You end up playing it, and you sometimes end up playing it for girls. Lady Bird is the song I wooed my wife to. I mean, I literally took her to a practice room and I sat out and I came up with my own arrangement and I sang that song for her. And that was the. The first night that we kissed. And it would talk about like, I was playing for all the money. I was like, the big throw. I'm gonna sing you a song that's so romantic that you will not be able to say no. And I did. So that's why that song in particular, I think of is the most romantic song of all time.

[A]

To stay you with my wit but bit by bit you face to go. All through the iron season Love was hanged and chism became something all apart again now sun is back in power I'll ask your name, your name oh, Lady Bird.

[C]

And we've talked about how XTC are nerdy group and they're for nerdy people. But, you know, it's no surprise that when I've really tried to want to impress girls, I usually reach for an XTC song because I know these songs are so impressive that, you know, all you have to do is sing them. It doesn't matter with the name of the band. Just sing that song and people will love it. And Lady Bird is one of those songs for me.

[B]

I was somewhat surprised by Mummer and do realize that I don't have the benefit of knowing what comes next. So I don't know exactly where you go from here, where they go from here in terms of. Well, I've heard a little bit of skylarking, but for the most part, I don't. I expected something a Little bit different. I liked it more than I thought I might. I had. I read and heard, oh, this is. This is where, you know, Partridge really gets into his own head. And as Jeff said, you know, they're only worried about what's in the studios. It's really elaborate. And this and this and this. And I admit that it's a little. There are some tough fits here. And reading about the way the album came together, the label kept asking them to go back and give them more songs. We don't hear a single. Write more songs. We don't like that one. That one didn't do well. Write us more songs. And so by the end, you actually have. We don't have to talk about this yet, but there's a batch of unreleased songs that ended up being B sides that are quite good, some of them are quite good that weren't on the album. And there are a couple points of the album where that sounds a little different, that doesn't quite fit in with what happened last. It's a weird amalgam of things, I think, because there was. And then they brought in different people to mix. So different people are mixing different songs. They wanted them to be more commercial. So, all that being said, some of the individual tracks here are particularly strong. Right. And. And. And Andrew already talked about two of them, Ladybird and Lebanon Farmers, Farm Boys With Wages are great. The first two songs here, Beating of Hearts, which I know Jeff likes a lot, and Wonderland, you have to recalibrate your comparison points. I had mentioned at the start of the show, oh, there's a squeeze and Joe Jackson and those people and punk. And now you have to say, well, some world music, there's some talk. Talk there. And Wonderland, I first thought as well, that's something Kate Bush might have done. Totally different comparison points you make as this song begins or as this album begins to unfold. And yet the songs are just as pretty, the songs are just as beautiful. Beating of hearts as Asian, Middle Eastern influences. A sitar would not be out of place on Beating of Hearts. And then I actually.

[C]

It reminds me of, like, a Peter Gabriel outtake from Us. Like, it should be a. Like, you know, come talk to me. And it goes into Beating of Hearts. It's the same spirit. And they're really ahead of the curve on that.

[B]

Yeah. And in Wonderland is a molding song, which, again, the Prophet 5 is in heavy use. You can hear that very distinctive synth, you know, burbling the synth tone on Wonderland, which has a really beautiful memory. And lyrically about memories of some girl.

[A]

D welcome to reality Wildly stone late night parties Flirting with the lower gentry Lost in your magical up under, Out of death act of class phase of your life will come to pass Countingless, tragic

[B]

Great Fire is one of those that sort of sticks out as being. Oh, that's. That's. Maybe that doesn't depend on belong. Quite right there. It's one of those that was written later they asked for a single. I hear this and think about like Clive Langer and the production he did with Punch the Clock, Elvis Costello as that sort of really open ringing, clean production that sounds a little different than some of the other things on Pisacato

[C]

strings in the instrumental break. It's beautiful with those. That little string break where it's like. I think Great Fire is a wonderful song. You seem to think it's out of.

[B]

No, I think it's just out of place in terms of sequencing and stuff. But I think it's a really good song.

[A]

Memories of old love's crack and blister Mr. Fireman that you could have put with me I'll give you try. Gl so that y' all the tinder wood you never spoke but I understood. Great fire burning Great fire burning Great fire burning.

[D]

It's just funny that this is. They asked him for a single and he turned in Great Fire. I love the song, but nobody's ever idea of a hit single, right? Oh, geez. But I mean, then you get the melon after that. With Deliver Us from the Elements, I feel like you get so much.

[C]

I.

[D]

There's a lot of joy. Even though it's like a very unjoyful. It seems like moment of. In their lives in. In recording this album. Because there's so much uncertainty. I. I don't know. There's so much kind of experimentation and fun in the album.

[C]

You feel like Andy Partridge almost wanted to make it a manifesto. It's like, yes, we're going to have to be cheerful because other. If not cheerful, we're screwed because we put ourselves in a difficult situation.

[D]

Exactly. And it's kind of like whistling in the graveyard. Like if you look. If you look at the song Gold, like the lyrics are this wonderful. Whistling in the graveyard like it's okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

The setting sun will color everything around you gold and all those pebbles in your shoes are precious stones I love that gold.

[C]

But then again, there is. There's some of that. That true booming optimism is still there beating the hearts. I know. Scott, you pointed out this has been a favorite of Min for a very long Time. And it's one of those things where I'm really looking forward to putting the clip in because I wonder if it will come through in like a lower bit quality. There's a section in the chorus here that is one of the most stirring parts of XTC's musical career. Whereas you have heard. You have heard the loudest sound in this. In every world you can visit. Again, that very weird Arabic scale that they're playing. Louder than tanks on the highway Louder than bombers in flight and as he sings that line, there's this very low bass note. It's. It's almost a note that you feel more than you hear that goes. It's a sonic painting. It's the sound of the bombers in flight Louder than noises of hatred Dancing us from the darkest night the rhythm of love powered on by the beating of hearts Another one of those, like, parts of the lyric that's a little too wordy. He's trying to fit it all into the scansion. But this is like. I imagine, like. It's like a happy tribe dancing around the fire, celebrating. It's. It's got that primitive is thing, right? It's back to. It's nearly Africa or something like that. But this is like mystical. This is the kind of music that XTC had never made, never even thought of making in their first few albums. But you're right, it just makes me glow. There's a hopeful glow that comes off of this and I guess I'm learning to value that all over again. These days.

[A]

Come louder than. More louder than rattling sword Louder than loading of rifles Louder than screaming warlords Louder than tanks on the highway and louder than bombers in flight Louder than voices of hatred dancing A small darkest night Is the rhythm of love Powered up by the beach.

[B]

Andrew mentioned gold and so I'll at least brush broached the subject of these songs that were left off but then added onto the CD release in the us. So if you have it, you might know them. There's a bass.

[C]

Everyone's got favorites.

[B]

There's a couple instrumentals, the two that I really like. And again, if I would have sort of re. I think there's a case to be made to sort of repackage the record. And maybe they felt the same way, or at least the label did, which is why they put these songs on the CD release that you'd sort of put some of these on, move them around. I think Toys, which was the B side of Farm Boys Wages, is really good. It's harmonica, blue bass. And again I think that's the last

[C]

piece they recorded with Terry Chambers actually too.

[B]

Yeah, Such an. I'm not sure, but such an interesting lyric where the toys. He describes toys quarreling with each other like Toy Story 20 years before the movie is actually made. And, you know, toys are quarreling among themselves. What hope do we have for the world later? It sort of implies that the kids are. I think the kids are controlling the toys in the way that the parents are acting. So the parents are acting, the kids are learning, the kids are doing it. So it just sort of bumps down one to the other to the other.

[A]

The microchip master race Are melting them down in a dolly concentration camp the world's gone mad but inure the kids can only do what they feel See them copy what their parents looked on

[B]

Till they're old enough to do it

[A]

for real oh dear, what can the matter be? My children, sweet children what gives down in the nursery? My children, sweet children oh dear, what if the cradle falls? My children, sweet children Toys are only human after all

[B]

and then Andrew mentioned gold. That might be. That might be my favorite song, or at least very close to my favorite song in this entire Mummer sort of catalog. I know Chambers plays on this one. It pops like little else on the record. One of those songs that was recorded as a potential single. One of the few songs, I think, that has horns on it. Few XTC songs that have horns. I don't know if there'll be more in the future, perhaps as they get more studio bound. But, man, what a. Just meticulous, perfect melody in the chorus of this song. Almost has like this circus type atmosphere. Because again, as Andrew said, you're trying to make yourself happy. The setting sun will color everything around you as gold the pebbles in your shoes are actually precious stones Everything's okay maybe you don't think so, but really everything's okay and it's okay for the

[A]

setting sun we'll color everything around you go that it's okay all the setting sun Will color everything around you go Go, go, go and all those pebbles in your shoes are precious stones and all these skeletons in closets Merely piles of humless bodies.

[D]

You get the same thing on desert island, right? I mean, I love desert Ireland as well, but it's the same kind of motif. It's very Ray Davies esque, I would say as well. But like, I love. It's all, you know, trying to drink and convince yourself that this band is going to get along and they're going

[B]

to make it the actual album. Closer is one called Funk Papa Roll, which is upbeat and, I think, kind of out of place. I.

[C]

Hold on for a second.

[B]

Scott, let me say I think Gold would have been a perfect album, Closer, considering the song and the themes. But, Jeff, tell me why.

[C]

I think it's really funny that we've talked about the B sides of this record and we've each mentioned different ones. None of you guys mentioned Jump, which is my favorite B side from this era. It's, you know, again, it's one of those, like, happy, upbeat songs. Andy Partridge is almost somewhat naive. Scared of love, love and swimming pools falling in you said was for fools. He's obviously working this sort of metaphor where you've just got to take a chance. You got to go ahead and jump if that's what your heart's wanting to do. This is real life you're dreaming through. And of course, maybe they thought the melody wasn't fully developed. Maybe they felt that the production sounded a bit too much like love on a floor Farm Boys wages. I think that's the real reason it's not on the album. But it's such a lovely little starts with acoustic bass song, then the drums come in, then the little, like marimba, like keyboards are playing in the background. It's just one of those delightfully happy, untroubled tracks from a guy who's actually very troubled. You almost get the sense that he's writing these songs to. To buck himself up. He's trying to, like, you know, make himself feel better because he knows he's not in a great place knowing this.

[A]

Can you tell me you're scared of the love? I'm sweet of stubbornness I say it's from you but if you're standing on the edge you won't hear me because your light is singing jump, jump go ahead and jump, jump Is this what your heart is wanting to do? This is real life you're dreaming through and there'll be no way come jump, jump go in and jump, jump if it's about your mind is one to say this is really

[C]

funk Papa Roll. It's funny you mentioned that one. I. First of all, I like that song, but it is such, like, a clear yp of pain. In fact, it occupies exactly the same spot on this record. And I think, you know, spiritually, that Train Running Low on so Cold does on the next record. Scott, maybe you haven't listened to the Big Express yet.

[B]

No, you're.

[C]

You're gonna find out that one's a real, real personality crisis and song Funk Papa Roll beats up my soul. He's like, well, we're just talking about how like this industry can just destroy. It'll fix you up. I've already. That's the line. Funk Papa Roll. The only goal the music business is a hammer to keep your pegs in your holes. But please don't listen to me. I've already been poisoned by this industry. That is. They were saying, what does he do at the end? He yells bye bye, bye bye. It sounded kind of like he was going to go jump off a cliff after. After the end of that song. Right. Because he's so angry and so despairing. But it's the only rock moment on the record. That's the most ironic thing of all. It's the only thing on this album that sounds even vaguely like what they were doing on say Black Sea or English settlement. Everything else is experimentation. It would actually return to some more raucous moves later. But this is really where their, their horizons open up on this album.

[A]

Business is a hammer to be. Authority before the matters industry.

[C]

Like a song we didn't even mention, like Deliver Me from the Elements. I love it. It's so dramatic. It's one of Colin's little things he's basically talking about. I laugh about it. Like this is the song about how hard it is to be a rural peasant. It really sucks to actually have to farm and raise your own food. Subsistence farming is no fun. Right. You plant a seed and watch it grow. But what if the. What if the sun don't shine?

[B]

What if.

[C]

What if the rain comes? Or what if not enough rain comes? Oh Lord, deliver us from your elements. We've got no. We've no defense. We are impotent. We're at your mercy and your reverence. It's a wonderful song. And the melotron gives it those ghostly bones. Kind of like a horror movie moment.

[D]

I mean Human Alchemy is just. Even sounds like a horror movie soundtrack. You got zombie like chorus, tribal drumming.

[C]

Yeah. You imagine like slaves and chains are walking around. That's by the way. That's where I think the second half of the album has a few songs that don't work as well. Human Alchemy is one of my. One of my least favorite songs.

[B]

Agreed.

[C]

The concepts, concepts, fine. But the melody isn't there. Yeah. A loving memory of a name Me and the wind. They're good. Good. They're not great. But the thing is we're talking about maybe three or four songs on a ten song record. And of course that second set of the record has Ladybird on it, which is. I've already told you, it's one of my favorite songs of all time. So, yeah, this is. This is maybe a step down from English Settlement. And of course it was a huge commercial step down because the band wasn't touring anymore. They certainly weren't making the same kind of music that was playing on the charts. And, you know, they were basically considered to be on the downslope, as it turns out. Turns out they weren't. But this is, I believe, unless someone else has more to add, where we're going to end this part of the show.

[B]

Yes, it is. But we will return with part two, including a sidetrack, which is actually fairly important. Jeff's sort of main track as far as I'm concerned. We'll talk about that in part two of xtc. But here we get to the part of the program where we recommend two albums you must own and five songs you should hear from possible era of xtc. And thankfully our guest gets to go first. Andrew Gres is with us again. Andrew, tell us your two albums and your five songs.

[D]

Yeah, really, my. My two albums are going to be English Settlement and Mummer. I. I just love the fact that they're opening up the. The color palette and they're becoming more experimental and I'm actually probably a bigger fan of their later work. So this is kind of an anticipated, maybe other later work. As far as the five songs, I'm gonna do Ladybird, Love that song. I'm gonna do love on a farm boy's Wages, Snowman. I don't know why Snowman just always makes me feel good. So Snowman Generals and Majors because it's so catchy and Yawk Dance because it's just a beautiful song.

[B]

All right, My two albums that I've hinted at during the show are those back to back ones the I can't get enough of. Although I'll have to put aside to get to part two, Drums and Wire and Black Sea, which is a perfect record. As I choose my five songs, I'm not going to avoid songs from those records because there might be people just like me who hadn't heard this era before you got to have some place to start. Well, the five songs I choose to best represent this era. Helicopter from Drums and Wire and when you're near me I have difficulty from. From Drums and Wire from Black Sea, no language in our lungs. Jeff did a tremendous job of explaining that one to us and then I hopefully did a fine job of explaining why Burning With Optimism's Flames is also on my list of five. And then from that last sort of era from English Settlement, give me. All of a sudden it's too late. My fifth song on the list. Those are my first five songs. Jeff, over to you.

[C]

I don't have an answer. I can't do. This is the hardest task I've ever had on this show. Talking about a band that not only has meant so much to me, so that makes it difficult in one way, but also in the other way. It just has such high consistent quality that the final choices almost become. It's like you throw a dart. All right, for me, I'm going to go with Black Sea and English Settlement as my two top album albums. And on that sense, I'm gonna have to exclude everything from those records in my top five songs. You've just gotta go listen to those albums. The albums are practically perfect. So to represent the, I guess, the early part of XCC's career, I'm gonna say Beat Town Go to is a fantastic track. Then I'm gonna go to Drums and wires and I'm gonna say when you're near me I have difficulty. It's again, one of those art rock classics that I don't understand how they came up with the idea for it. I don't understand how they were able to. Able to execute on it. I think I would apply the same kind of things to a song called Complicated Game, which is what ends that record and has working with the Echoplex got a wonderful, wonderful lyric that basically gives up. Maybe perhaps it reveals a little bit too much about how Andy. Andy Partridge approaches songwriting. And then since I'm skipping those other records, I'll go to the Mummer and I will say that the Beating of Hearts is maybe one of their great record openers. I think I prefer to. To any other song on any of the earlier albums as an album starter. It's so hopeful, it's so soaring, and it is so different than anything you'd heard from XTC up until that point. And I guess, of course I have to end with Lady Bird because, you know, it's a song that has a lot of personal meaning for me. As I've explained, I guess also finally host Prerogative. I can get to include a sixth song when I go with a song that I used to consider my. My college anthem. I went to a place called Johns Hop Hopkins University, and as everyone knows, life begins at the hop where fun goes to die.

[B]

All right, there are our little lists of albums and songs from Part one of xtc. We'll return in a few weeks to cover Part two. But it is not just one of Jeff's most desired episodes. We've had many requests, so hopefully listeners also enjoy this path as well. Andrew Greedis is fiction writer, teaching rhetoric creative writing at Georgetown and George Washington University. More@andrew greedis.com G R E and I certainly hope he'll return for Part two. I mean, we haven't confirmed because maybe he hated the experience. We can't say.

[C]

Andrew, just get another guy.

[B]

Andrew, thanks so much for joining us and we'll talk to you again real soon.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

All right, Jeff, I gotta go back to work. Gotta go back to the woodshed. Gotta listen to a few more XTC albums to get rid of.

[C]

Seven more albums to get through, my friend.

[B]

We'll be in good shape once we're ready for part two. Jeff's on X at X esoteric CD. I'm there Ott Bertram. Don't forget. Support the show at patreon patreon.com politicalbeats Multiple levels for your support, including our favorite the upper level for early access, higher audio quality, monthly exclusive content shows, including a look back at 1977, most recently remastered episodes and more. Patreon.com politicalbeats subscribe to the feedback. For new episodes, check out audio2@national review.com you can find us on Facebook. We're on X at PoliticalBeats, where you can join the conversation. This has been a presentation of National Review. This is Political Beats.