We’re starting off this series with the 1985 debut album, Back in the D.H.S.S. For younger (and/or non-Brit readers) that’s both a reference to The Beatles’ Back in the U.S.S.R. and to the UK’s unemployment/welfare system of the time. For the first edition, I thought I’d begin with a slight stream of consciousness tracking how my thoughts progressed across a week of listening. I’m gonna potentially have about 20 of these to write so I might experiment a bit with the format of the reviews as we go.
A reminder, if you want to listen along, that we’re using the original 10-song track-list as per below (it’s on the streaming platforms with a 17-song expanded re-issue track-list, so the proper album begins at track 2).
Day 1: They immediately signal that they’ve got their tongues pretty firmly in cheek with the spoken word intro – “1,2,3,4, John the Baptist knows the score“.
Paedophilia joke within the first song – nice.
Is it possible to sing sarcastically? Because he’s clearly singing sarcastically.
“James Dean was just a careless driver, and Marilyn Monroe was just a slag” – fantastic line.
I don’t think I really like it though. It seems perfectly fine musically, but it’s post-punk. I’m not sure I can really be impressed with it 40 years on, when we’re up to about the 10th wave of post-punk revivalism. I also didn’t realise it was all gonna be a piss-take. It’s dangerously close to musical comedy and I kinda hate musical comedy.
Day 2: OK, I’m sort of getting into this. These tunes are proper catchy. “Everybody’s doing The Len Ganley Stance” is implanted in my head; I even turned it into a lullaby to get the child to sleep.
Day 3: Yeah, I’m liking this music, there’s actually quite a lot going on.
God Gave Us Life and The Len Ganley Stance are jaunty post-punk takes on country. Sealclubbing is something like country psych, with added synths. I Hate Nerys Hughes is a stuttery punk banger. And Reflections in a Flat brings in some Joy Division-style paranoid gloom rock.
But there’s an almost nursery rhyme-like simplicity underpinning these songs. Adult nursery rhymes maybe…Nah, that sounds a bit top shelf, forget it.
Day 4: Coming round on the lyrics as I start to make more out, but still slightly off-put by there seemingly being a complete lack of seriousness.
Day 5: Actually, there is more beneath the humour and snark. Sealclubbing is perhaps as overt as they get (which means it’s not particularly overt), seemingly describing depression and the mundanities of life on the dole. The aforementioned James Dean/Marilyn Monroe line is presumably a comment on the over-glamourisation of celebrities.
It becomes its own side-mission just trying to interpret the deeper meanings here, although I also feel like they’d take the piss out of me for trying to analyse too much. In fact, it’s as if they’re actively throwing you off the scent at times. The closing track sounds like they’re doing a fairly sincere and straight-forward love song until they put in a total curveball to confuse the fuck out of you – “Ali Bongo’s good at contortionism”.
Day 6: I do wonder whether this has any relevance outside of a certain demographic. I’m from Northern England and was born a couple years after this came out, and I vaguely understand maybe 1/3 of the references. But I imagine if you’re not British and/or skew even a tiny bit younger, that this would be virtually indecipherable with its copious nods to crap British celebs (BTW I Iooked up all the people that were name checked in the titles and I’m still none the wiser why the vitriol towards Nerys Hughes).
Day 7: So, the verdict; after a shaky start, this quickly won me over. Musically, it’s not just catchy but also sneakily weird and inventive. Beneath the surrealism lies stories of life in all its mediocrity. It’s understandable why they inspire such a devoted fanbase as making sense of the songs becomes part of the fun, plus it’s actually funny. I’m interested to see how the cultural references develop over the years, I may even start to properly get it as the releases enter my lifetime.
Rating:
You can read edition 2, covering 1986’s The Trumpton Riots EP, here.
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