X Is For . . .

26 artists, A to Z.

XTC / "Stupidly Happy"

Yes, I really was that clueless. For years, whenever I heard the name of this band, I thought they were rappers. Y'know, like Run DMC or N.W.A. Never mind that they were English and started recording under that name in 1977, way before the rap era. I guess I have an excuse -- they were never that big in the States, and after 1982 they stopped touring due to Andy Partridge's crippling stage fright. They kept recording, but became increasingly a cult taste. Well, that wouldn't have been a problem for me; there's nothing I like better than a cult band. (I am, after all, a lifelong Kinks fan.) Still, if no one I knew was listening to these guys...

But thanks to my Kinkette friend Julie, I became enlightened in 2007 or so, and XTC is now firmly ensconced in my regular rotation. Quirky, British, literate, funny, more than a little off-kilter musically -- well, that's the sort of stuff I just eat up.   

This is from their 2000 album WaspStar -- which is really the second half of their 1999 album Apple Venus. By then, the band had shrunk to just Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, plus session musicians.  (No need for a full band if you never perform live.) 

As I recall, this was the first of their songs I ever heard, the one that convinced me to listen to more. Sneaky little number, this.

Those crunchy buzzsaw guitars set us up for some real rock 'n' roll, y'know, innit? But Andy Partridge's almost fey vocals float over the top, as he marvels, "I'm stupidly happy / Everything's fine / I'm stupidly happy / My heart's pumping wine."  He describes his "idiot grin," says he's "coming unscrewed," and offers the final proof of being unhinged -- "The world's making sense." 

So maybe it's stupid to be so happy? I wonder. Is that the subtext behind the grating guitar riffs? Is he like a Benny Hill video halfwit, a dim Monty Python gumby with his handkerchief knotted around his head? 

But then -- that free-wheeling swooping melody wins me over, especially in those lyrically sinuous bridges. First he tunes into the natural world: "All the birds of the air call your name / As they land on my kitchen roof / All the fish in the lake do the same / Should you need extra proof."

And in the second bridge, the ties to his music are even clearer: "All the lights of the cars in the town / Form the strings of a big guitar / I'm a giant to play you a tune / For wherever you are." 

He's like Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels, a giant striding the world, He's feeling strong enough to take on the Devil; he's invincible.  Ah, yes, it's love -- her love -- that makes him so happy that's he's almost stupid. (Which is a very different thing from feeling happy only because he is stupid.) 

The final word comes from Andy Partridge himself:  "The dumbest but happiest song I ever wrote. I found the one riff that Keith Richard hadn't. Hopefully says in music what the singer (me) experiences. I'm in love and in a happy groove."

That clinches it for me.  I'll vote for happy.

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Let There Be Peace on Earth" /
Vince Gill

I'm so tired of the shooting. So tired of the killing. Beirut, Paris, San Bernardino, and those are just the latest installments. So in this season of what we expect to be joy and love, can't we PLEASE put some urgency behind the call for a stop to all the madness? #nomoreguns



I'm embarrassed to admit that I know next to nothing about singer-songwriter Vince Gill, who (I now learn) has won 20-some country music Grammys. Blame my old C&W blind spot, tripping me up again. A flurry of interweb research tells me that he's an Oklahoman, started out in bluegrass, was in Pure Prairie League in the early 1980s, is married to Amy Grant, and is currently doing duets with my country-music main squeeze Lyle Lovett. And he has a voice like butter. So how has this guy been so completely been off my radar all these years?

True to his country roots, Vince Gill is apparently a great believer in the Christmas album: This is the title track from his first one, in 1993, but he's released three others since then. I don't hear anything cheap or cynical here, though. The arrangement is tastefully simple, with Gill's earnest voice front and center through all the inspirational chord changes. And then his daughter Jenny -- who must have been, what, twelve at the time? -- chimes in, just as earnestly.

This song may be a holiday chestnut, but it's one with a good back story.  Written in 1955 by Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller, it reflects her turnaround from near-suicidal despair after a failed marriage. That's a hard-won wisdom, which is probably why there's nothing smug or self-righteous about its message of worldwide brotherhood. Basically, it keeps coming down to the unavoidable: If we want change, we have to be personally responsible for it. "Let there be peace on earth / AND let it begin with me."

Sign those petitions, go to those rallies. Don't just sit on your hands, people.  Let it begin with you.

PS  A little bonus -- not a holiday song, per se, but a song that's been rattling my brainpan all day...

"It's Nearly Africa" / XTC

Why?  Cuz it came up on my shuffle, that's why, and I was waltzing around chanting "Shake your bag of bones" and "Any day now" for hours.  Oh, how I wish I'd known about XTC back in 1982 when this came out, on an album cryptically entitled English Settlement.   I guess this polyrhythmic sport fell somewhere between the Talking Heads' baffling Fear of Music (I remember putting the needle down on "I Zimbra" in 1979 and wondering what David Byrne had been smoking) and the mainstream-ification of African influences with Paul Simon's Graceland in 1986.  I owned both of those records -- so where was XTC in my life in 1982?  Nowhere, I'm afraid.     

If I had know about English Settlement in 1982 -- just supposing -- I would have owned it on vinyl, would have set that thing on my turntable and patiently listened to the tracks in order, trying to make sense of the album as a whole.  (Not to mention that cover image of the White Horse, primitive as a cave drawing.)  I hope I'd have been struck by the LP's intricate mosaics of rhythm, whether African, Latin, or Olde Englyshe.  If I'd already been an XTC initiate, I would probably have worried that the band was drifting away from accessible pop, except for the glorious "Senses Working Overtime." But how could I have failed to be charmed by this track?



And I'm sure I'd have puzzled over Andy Partridge's lyrics, with their brooding apocalyptic message.  (Again, I think of the Talking Heads -- "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around!")  At first he seems enamored of the tribal man, the noble savage -- "Chant your spirit free / Rush to meet truth like a dart" and, better yet, "That's not traffic roar / That's a leopard in your heart."  But later in the song, skepticism leaks through, as we see it's just a Westerner posing as an African, with the faintly ridiculous lines "Unplug your future plans / Finger-paint the sun on you."  

After all, it's nearly  Africa, not Africa he's singing about. As he continually looks over his shoulder, he frets about "false prophets" and "drug traffickers," "warboys" and "leeches."  "We're dancing with disaster," he warns in the chorus (at least I guess you'd call it a chorus, though traditional song structure seems beside the point.) In the last verse he gets more explicit, lamenting, "Our civilisation car is running wild, / Who did you give the wheel to? / The fat man driving us over the edge of the nearest cliff-face, / Is he the same God that I've seen you kneel to?" (Note: listen to XTC's most popular track on iTunes, "Dear God," for Andy Partridge's religious views.)

Though Africa is just a metaphor for a chaotic society, however, it's those cascading African polyrhythms that make this track so compelling.  Melody takes a back seat to that playful percussive beat, with discordant chanting vocals that have a comic wink to them. Just a touch of English whimsy, with an absurdist slant, to keep the satire light.  It's the same street Robyn Hitchcock lives on -- my cup of tea, in other words.

I guess it's no surprise that these guys didn't "cross the pond" successfully; I mean, if Squeeze didn't (yes, I am getting around to another Squeeze post soon!), how could the more oddball sound of XTC?  Too bad for me -- I could have used some music like this in the depths of the Eighties.  Still, I've found them now, and better late than never. 

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who left us 30 years ago today.

1. "Like Humans Do" / David Byrne
From Look Into The Eyeball (2001)

Funny, I was just talking about the Talking Heads this morning with my dog-walking friend Dan. I so loved them once, but then David Byrne jumped the shark for me. I have no idea where this song came from -- I actually think it's an iTunes sample track -- but I have to admit, it's an utter groove.  Makes me feel guilty that maybe I dropped David B too hastily...

2. "Senses Working Overtime" / XTC
From English Settlement (1982)
"And I've got one two three four five! / Senses working overtime" -- I'm rarely sure what XTC songs are about, but who cares, so long as they're larded with koan-like statements ("tryin' to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and lime / Pain and the pleasure and the church bells softly chime ") and surreal images ("And all the world is football-shaped" -- well I guess that makes more sense if you're from the land of round footballs...) 

3. "Long Road Ahead" / Jim Ford
From Sounds of Our Time (2007 compilation)
The album tells me this track is from 1969, but considering how little of Jim Ford's music ever hit the mainstream, I'll have to take it on faith.  Nick Lowe vouches for this guy -- the epitome of country soul, with a trailer-park stoner groove -- and that's good enough for me.

4. "Nothing To Say" / The Kinks
From Arthur, Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1969)
A generation gap face-off from Ray Davies, intoned in a stagey old-man voice (at least the father's half is).  So many great songs from this criminally neglected album. This is the first rock song I ever heard that mentioned chilbains -- and come to think of it, it's still the only one. 

5. "Bring the Old You Back" / Jon Lindsay
From Escape from Plaza-Midwood (2010)
Lindsay again? He must have rigged my iTunes. But it's so snarky and melodic, I won't complain.

6. "Young Conservatives" / The Kinks
From State of Confusion (1983)
Another blast of Kinksian satire, from later in their career when Ray Davies worked a little harder to churn out topical numbers.  Hate to tell you, Ray, but they're still with us, only older -- and now they're running Congress.

7. "Ashgrove" / Dave Alvin
From Ashgrove (2004)
The album's title track is a tasty bit of blues from the ex-Blasters brother Dave, a tribute to a seminal music club where he first fell in love with music.  Heard this once live, and it was killer.

8. "Frida" / Sanseverino
From Le Tango des Gens (2001)
A toe-tapping treat from Paris, a sassy track of modern swing-jazz (go figure!), sent to me years ago by a fellow Kinks fan. Wickedly addictive.

9. "Take Me In Your Arms and Love Me" / Alan Price
From Songs from Top of the Pops (bootleg compilation)
No link, sorry, as this is a fan recording, capturing Price's many appearances on the late beloved British weekly music show.  It's true that Gladys Knight and the Pips did this song better, but those of us who have a weak spot for Alan Price -- and I'm one -- enjoy his rendition just fine.

10. "George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues" / Drive-By Truckers
From The Fine Print (2009 rarities compilation)
Please listen to this one -- it couldn't be more fun.  An oddball scenario (aging country music star wrecks his car while chatting on his cell), with a refrain that cracks me up every time: "If you don't change your ways, my friend / You'll be singing duets with Tammy again." 

Alas, not a single Lennon track, or even a Beatle song, but such an eclectic sequence, even John might have gotten a kick out of it.  I'd like to think so!

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

I've been stuck in a continual loop of summer songs, thanks to a Facebook thread -- so I'm primed to see what surprises the Shuffle's gonna throw my way today....

1. "In the Bleak Midwinter" / Cyndi Lauper
From Merry Christmas -- Have a Nice Life! (2004)
Ha -- talk about a change of seasons! The irony is just too perfect. Yes, a traditional English Christmas carol from Cyndi "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" Lauper. I always liked Cyndi -- her Boho flake image seemed as genuine as Madonna's seemed calculated -- and an off-the-wall choice like this seems totally in character for her. Here she tenderly strums her autoharp and unleashes a pure madrigal voice to produce a true olde English sound, plaintive penny whistle and all.

2. "House of the Rising Sun" / Alan Price
From Rising Sun (1980)
No, not the Animals' version -- this is solo Alan Price, nearly 20 years later, reclaiming the song that made him famous (well, he did arrange the Animals' version, and still gets songwriting royalties). Somehow it works just fine, with a jazzy tempo, scolding sax, and a brand-new syncopated organ solo in the middle eight. It won't replace the original in my heart (one of my 100 Favorite Singles), but this rendition is perfectly delightful on its own merits.

3. "Think" / Aretha Franklin
From Aretha Now (1968)
Soul Sister No. 1, setting that man straight. I'll confess, I can't hear this anymore without picturing Aretha in her pink waitress uniform, reading the riot act to Matt "Guitar" Murphy in The Blues Brothers, while Belushi and Ackroyd watch from their diner stools and Lou Marini plays his sax atop the diner counter. (Here's the link: Think.) A great moment in film!

4. "All Day and All of the Night" / The Kinks
From The Kinks (1964)
Those first grating chords, and an idiot grin busts out on my face. That's how I know the Kinks are my favorite band -- the way the world stops for me when this song pops up unexpectedly. Not my fave Kinks track, not by a long shot, but compared to most of the rest of all music? No contest. Dave's churning solo could have been cut yesterday, that's how raw and vital that guitar sounds.

5. "I'll Fight" / Wilco
From Wilco (The Album) (2009)
I'm not a rabid Wilco fan, which is why I was immune to the backlash against this album. "Safe"? "Commercial"? It's like the R.E.M. thing all over again. Who cares? I enjoy Jeff Tweedy's music -- a burnished patina of Americana laid over hooky tunes with ambiguous lyrics. Though there's nothing ambiguous about that first verse: "I'll fight, I'll fight, I'll fight / I'll fight for you, I will." That absolute commitment buoys this upbeat track, a spectacularly non-whiny love song -- what a rare thing!

6. "Pastime Paradise" / Stevie Wonder
From Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
Fact of life: I will accept any political rhetoric if it's delivered in Stevie Wonder's blissfully tuneful package. Maybe I'm hypnotized by that supple Latin percussion, the fluid synthesizers, the lush symphonic texture that Stevie could mastermind at the height of his golden period. When I listen to the words, I think, What idealistic nonsense! But Preacher Stevie makes me believe.

7. "Rivertown" / Hayes Carll
From Little Rock (2005)
Roots, roots, roots. Or is it alt.country? My friend Jim emailed me a few twangy tracks by this guy, and I've enjoyed them without ever getting around to exploring more of his music. It's all in the Townes Van Zandt / Steve Earle / Robert Earl Keen line, but very likeable -- even this lugubrious story, told with a slouchy beat and the lonesome whine of pedal steel. (On other tracks, Carll balances that out with a goofy sense of humor). A bit generic, perhaps, but moody and mesmerizing.

8. "Younger Girl" / Kippington Lodge
Oh, how embarrassing. Yes, I'm such a Nick Lowe sap that I even have this rarity, a live-from-the-BBC recording of a Lovin' Spoonful cover by Kippington Lodge, Nick's first band when he was still a teenager. I don't even think it's Nick singing, more likely his schoolmate Barry Landerman. And that woozy, wheezy organ -- Bob Andrews? Chronology is hazy with obscure tracks like this. Is this version better than the Lovin' Spoonful's? Oh, come on, that question is not even relevant. It's Nick.

9. "Towers of London" / XTC
From Black Sea (1980)
Eccentric architectural musings from Andy Partridge (unless Alex tells me it's Colin Moulding). No wonder Andy and Robyn Hitchcock like to collaborate -- this could be the B-side to "Trams of Old London." A whole song about the navvies who built Tower Bridge for Queen Victoria -- now that's what I call a pop song! But it is, it's so catchy, with that New Wave-y quirky production. I really need to do a full post on this song.

10. "Oh, Gosh" / Donovan
From Troubador (compilation)
What gives this track such an airy texture? Is it the breathy jazz flute, the light brushes on the drums, the plucked upright bass -- or was there really a summer breeze flowing through the studio in 1968 when Donovan cut this track? Nobody could sell that flower child vibe like Donovan. The sincerity is what does it -- "Oh gosh! Life is really too much / (Life is really too much)" (I love how his doubled vocals split, jumping from speaker to speaker, doing a one-man call-and-response). Blissful.

Wednesday Shuffle

I did get a new iPod Shuffle this week -- an absurdly tiny device, in neon green metal, that only holds about 500 songs. Half of the thing consists of a steel clip (engraved with my name!) on the back, a definite clue that it was developed mainly to carry gym music. So yeah, I loaded all my uptempo tracks on there -- but don't worry, today I'm spinning tunes from the full library, just like always...

1. "I've Got to See You Again" / Norah Jones
From Come Away With Me (2002)
Steamy slow samba about an affair, probably illicit, and definitely with an older man. (Older than Norah, that is.) The main thing is the refrain, "I can't help myself / I've got to see you again." I love how she groans, just a little, on that line -- it's simply dripping with desire.

2. "Laurel Canyon" / Jackie DeShannon
From Laurel Canyon (1968)
Was Jackie DeShannon America's answer to Dusty Springfield? No way, but I do enjoy her California soul take on the late 60s, with hippieism just beginning to creep in. ("I'm sewing flowers on my blouse...") The laidback boogie of this ode to her hip L.A. neighborhood paints a pretty inviting portrait -- almost enough to make me want to move there. Almost.

3. "Grass" / XTC
From Skylarking (1986)
Ah, the sublime Andy Partridge. I sure do dig this slidey melody (and how the guitars and synths slide around too). Even though he sings, "Over and over let us flatten the clover," I suspect I know which kind of grass this song is about. Bird effects at the end, too -- how springlike!

4. "White Blank Page" / Mumford & Sons
From Sigh No More (2010)
Though these guys are from London, they sure remind me of the Wood Brothers or Fleet Foxes or the Avett Brothers -- must be the banjo, the fiddles, and the saturated harmonies. Their homespun folky sound sure works for me, though this album is kinda heavy on downer songs. There' s plenty of passion to rescue this tune about an affair gone sour -- it simply aches with love denied.

5. "Oh Me Oh My (I'm Fool For You Baby)" / Lulu
From New Routes (1969)
This was probably the only other Lulu song we ever heard in States, after "To Sir With Love," and its R&B sound was so authentic, I always thought it was a cover. (Maybe because Aretha sang it a couple years later.) Turns out it was written for Lulu by a songwriter from her native Glasgow -- go figure. At least they recorded it at Muscle Shoals. "I'll stage a ballet on a tabletop" is a great line, but even better is the next verse, "We'll blow a genie from a cigarette / And then we'll take a magic carpet ride." Why, Lulu!

6. "Love Song" / Brinsley Schwarz
From Despite It All (1970)
Vintage Brinsley tune, a quite serviceable imitation of forgettable country-rock (Brewer & Shipley, anyone?). But hey, it's written by Nick Lowe, so you know it's loveable. "This here is a love song / I got to get back to my baby's heart again / This here is a love song / I got to sing it till I get back home." By the last verse, we find out she's broken up with him, but this does not seem to dim his conviction one bit. Hang in there, Nick!

7. "Back to the War" / John Hiatt
From Two-Bit Monsters (1980)
We just had early Nick Lowe, now we've got early John Hiatt -- from the days when he was being promoted as "the American Elvis Costello." Trying to live up to that comparison, John let no metaphor go unexplored, and all relationships were by definition nasty and contentious. "I've got this dynamite / I know you're sitting tight / Waiting for news / Well, I'm lighting the fuse." I didn't discover Hiatt until much later, when he'd settled into his own groove, but as a sophomore effort this still ain't bad.

8. "Keep It Simple" / Keb' Mo'
From Keep It Simple (2004)
"Two cars, three kids, six loans / A whole lot of confusion in my home / Six hundred channels on my TV screen / Six hundred versions of the same damn thing." Oh, sure, Keb's music sounds like the most ancient dirt-caked Delta blues -- but do not be misled. It's sly, funny, and totally perceptive social commentary, just topped off with a little pedal steel. "Decaff latte cappucino, said the cashier / Gimme a small cup of coffee, I said, and get me outta here!"

9. "Everything But a Heartbeat" / The Searchers
From Play For Today (1980)
Though it's late Searchers, the sound is solid British Invasion gold, in the jangly-guitar vein of their classic "Needles and Pins," thanks to songwriter Will Birch (of Kursaal Flyers and the Records), who also penned "Hearts In Her Eyes" for them. It's a skewering Bad Girlfriend song, from a guy who's fully prepared to twist the knife (a Will Birch specialty). She's got a great smile, a great way of walking, all the pop cliches -- "But I want to tell you what she's all about / She'll wind you up and then she'll spit you out." Ouch.

10. "Ashes to Ashes" / Steve Earle
From Jerusalem (2002)
No, not the Bowie hit -- a pity, because that's the one I really like. Instead, this is a twangy sort of talking blues, as Steve Earle slouches towards Bethlehem, spewing political aspersions and dark apocalyptic visions. I know Steve Earle is supposed to be a great songwriter. Hell, he probably is, I just haven't heard the right tracks. Why is this one even on my iTunes?

Pity it had to end on that note -- the next track would have been Wanda Jackson's "I Forgot to Remember to Forget Him", a much more appropriate sign-off for this chick-lit cluster of songs. Oh, well, the Shuffle genie apparently had other plans...

"Wrapped in Grey" / XTC

From what I've read and heard, XTC was even more dysfunctional than the Kinks. Continual personnel changes, internal snits, on-stage breakdowns, disastrous record deals -- they did it all. Some of their music is just plain genius, but they blew their own chances at every turn, pretty much guaranteeing they'd wind up as art-rock cult favorites. Still, there's something to be said for having a devoted cult (and I mean devoted -- just check out www.xtcidearecords.co.uk). I'm not sure I've got enough time to join it -- my fangirl soul is pretty deeply mortgaged at the moment -- but every once in awhile one of their deliciously quirky tracks pops up on my shuffle, and I ponder an alternate universe where I could easily be obsessed with Andy Partridge.

In that alternate universe, this might be my favorite song today. (I know myself; even if I were an XTC devotee, I wouldn't prefer the obvious big hits like "Making Plans for Nigel" or "Senses Working Overtime.") First of all, I dig that it's in 3/4 time, tripping along briskly with flamboyant surges of volume that almost sound distorted, even psychedelic. Then there's the lush strings and double-tracked vocals, with California-esque falsetto counterpoints twining around -- it's pretty darn romantic sounding. Not lovey-dovey romantic -- XTC never seems to go for simple love songs -- but romantic as in passionate about nature and the imagination and Big Ideas.

The central conceit has to do with painting: "Some folks see the world as a stone /Concrete daubed in dull monotone /Your heart is the big box of paints /And others, the canvas we're dealt." I swear, with all this flower child imagery, this song sounds more like it was written in 1972 than 1992. He claims that the flowers are talking to him -- and why not? -- bursting into the rhapsodic chorus, "Awaken you dreamers /Adrift in your beds /Balloons and streamers /Decorate the inside of your heads." The flowers advise him, "Please let some out /Do it today /But don't let the loveless ones sell you /A world wrapped in grey." It's classic Us Vs. Them thinking, the nonconformist vs. those People in Grey that Ray Davies is always warning us against.

You have to love the lyrics Partridge comes up with for the second chorus: "Awaken you dreamers /Asleep at your desks /Parrots and lemurs /Populate your unconscious grotesques." LEMURS? Name me another pop song that's got lemurs in it. That line thrills me right to the bone. And then there's the ending, where the tempo completely changes so that Partridge can tack on this mischievous coda: "And in the very least you can /Stand up naked and /Grin."

It's hard to believe this song was released in 1992 -- it's got this sort of gauzy innocence that's really amazing for the era. All those layers of sound remind me of late Beach Boys, or early Association, or some bits of the Moody Blues. Meanwhile, here in the States we were already listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by this time. It just boggles the mind.

Wrapped in Grey sample

"Senses Working Overtime" / XTC

I suppose I should be upset that I never heard anything by XTC when it was first released. Let me see, 1982 -- New Wave had distanced itself from punk, and the Talking Heads' Remain in Light, Blondie's Eat to the Beat, and the B-52s' Wild Planet were still getting heavy rotation on my turntable. Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom and Joe Jackson's Night and Day had crossed the ocean for me, so why not this album, English Settlement? Even the Jam and The Specials and Squeeze and The English Beat got enough airplay over here for me to find out about them, but XTC? Nada. Niente.

I'm not complaining, though; it's a kick to find out about this band now and have a dozen albums stockpiled to discover all at once. This is bright, dense pop music, the arrangements complex and witty, the lyrics cryptic and allusive -- I like having it swirl around in my brain, taking it in on several levels at once. That's why I especially like this tune, "Senses Working Overtime" -- a song about sensory overload should have a sort of fragmented Cubist logic, don't you think? That plus a good bashing drumbeat, windmill guitar strums, and slightly off-kilter vocals.

Here are just a few of the images that flicker through this song: "the clouds are whey," "sun is pie," "night fights day," "the sky will cry jewels for the thirsty." The world is described as "football shaped" when the singer wants to kick it out into space, but it's "biscuit shaped" when he wants to "feed my face." (An English football, of course, and an English biscuit.) Sometimes words are yoked together for no other reason than alliteration, scansion, or vowel play -- like in this verse: "Birds might fall from black skies / And bullies might give you black eyes / And buses might skid on black ice." Don't get hung up on making sense of it; it's all about those line endings. Hey, if Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot could get away with it, why not Andy Partridge?

In those cryptic verses, chords and keys shift constantly, uneasily; it's satisfying, then, to finally land in the chorus, as voices and drums come together to whack out an irresistible singalong countdown: "I've got one, two, three, four, five! /Senses working overtime / Trying to take this all in, I've got / One, two, three, four, five! / Senses working overtime, /Trying to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and a lime / Pain and pleasure and the church bells softly chime...." And yes, there's a little bell on the word "chime." The more you listen to this stuff, the more you pick up those obsessive details, the weird sound effects thrown in here and there. All right, so it's a bit arty -- but it's also got a good beat and you can dance to it. Ecstatically.