extracted from my book "Totally Shuffled- A Year of Lisening to Music on a Broken iPod!
I wrote about Prefab Sprout more than once in Totally Shuffled but this is the extract re them in particular:
August 18th
Prefab Sprout-Oh Joshua-McGurk Demo
I’ve
already mentioned Prefab Sprout more than once during this year. Apart from The
Fall and Bob Dylan, Prefab Sprout are probably one of the bands/artists who’ve
meant more to me than anyone else over the years. It was inevitable that a
track by them would come up on the iPod somewhere during this year, and at the
back of my mind I’ve been wondering (since January 1st actually),
what I could possible say about them.
It would be all too easy to fall into
what may appear as over-the-top raptures about them. It could simply be seen
as over-enthusiastic ramblings of an obsessed fan, eagerly wishing everything
was post-punk 80’s once more. It would certainly seem like an exercise in
nostalgia and a desperate attempt to convince the sceptical that Prefab Sprout/Paddy
McAloon are the epitome of musical genius, unmatched by hardly anyone else in
the past thirty years or so. The thing is, if you’ve never heard Prefab Sprout
then, however much I go on about them, how much I try to convince you of their
greatness is only likely to end up in disappointment. I am not such a skilled
writer that my words could explain what they are capable of and what they mean
to me.
On the other hand, if you have heard them, I suppose you may be like me
and therefore my words would be redundant or, bearing in mind that they haven’t
been more than moderately commercially successful, you may just think that I’m
completely wrong and misguided. So, there’s not much point I think, in trying
to explain anything about what they mean. I don’t intend to leave it at that
though. I can’t really just end it now by saying “there’s no point” and
limiting Prefab Sprout to a couple of hundred words. Irrespective of all the
above, they’ve meant so much to me since I first heard “Swoon”, their first
album, on a quiet weekday afternoon sometime in 1984, that I can’t honestly
leave it hanging here. Although not being an exhaustive list nor in any
particular chronological order, here’s just a few things about myself and
Prefab Sprout that may give an indication what it’s all about.
Hearing
“Swoon” for the first time, having had it heavily recommended to me by my best
friend and musical guru. I just didn’t get it on first, second or third
hearing. I must have played it through at least a dozen times straight before
something finally clicked and I realised exactly what he’d been going on about.
To this day, this is still my favourite Prefab Sprout record, though
ironically, it’s the one Paddy McAloon likes the least. No accounting for
taste.
Walking
down the street to see them live for the first of three times. This was sometime
in 1985 and they played at Liverpool University. I remember wearing a pair of
Levi 501’s, a white t-shirt and cardigan from Marks and Spencer and a pair of
Doc Martens. (Back then I was intensely fashionable. Or tried to be. Nowadays,
I don’t bother). A clear memory of the gig was that they played a number of
songs from the then yet, unreleased Protest Songs album. As if it was only last
night, I can picture Paddy McAloon, wearing a fedora and denim jacket, singing
a song I now know to be “Horsechimes” and being totally blown away. This was
possibly one of the best performances of a song at one of the best gigs I’ve
ever been to-it was truly magical.
Going to
buy the “Andromeda Heights” album on the day of release and getting drenched to
the skin.
Being
shocked at seeing a photograph of Paddy McAloon, in 1999, with long grey hair
and an almost Gandalf-style beard. There had been no news of them for so long
and it was like seeing one of those shots of Syd Barrett.
On finding
out, with eternal thankfulness, that the internet was really designed to be a
repository of all the music you never managed to get hold of, making it a
mission to collect every single recorded Prefab Sprout track possible-b-sides,
re-mixes, live shows, snippets off the radio, Swedish television interviews. By
the time I’d progressed from dial-up to broadband my mission was almost
complete. Although I already had every album and a fair few singles, I ended up
with a 3CDr collection of all b-sides and demos in chronological order. I
wouldn’t have normally been so arsey as to do anything with CDrs except
scribble details on the disc and stick them in a jewel case or plastic sleeve,
but for these I made an exception; I spent ages creating sleeve art and using
software to make them look like a proper CD set. They’re still on the shelf,
filed next to the official releases.
The sleeve
notes to “Swoon” written by Emma Welles.
Waiting
ages and ages for anything new to be released by them, surviving on scraps and
hints from the internet and being staggered in 2000 to hear they were touring
again. Getting tickets front row, dead centre, for their 2000 show at Liverpool
Philharmonic. A massive sense of disbelief when they came on stage; I never
thought they play live again.
At that
same gig, when Paddy McAloon asked the audience if there were any songs that
they wanted to hear, some wag, associating McAloon’s long grey beard with music
from the 1970’s, shouting for Wizzard’s “See My Baby Jive”.
Reading
Nick Hornby’s novel, “Juliet, Naked” about a middle-aged music fan’s obsession
with an obscure rock star and seeing the parallels re myself and Prefab Sprout,
as well as being a bit pissed off that Hornby had nicked an idea I’d been
harbouring for a good while.
Thinking
that “From Langley Park to Memphis” wasn’t their strongest album, hearing “Hey
Manhattan” once again, and understanding that it beats most other songs by most
other artists out of the park.
Paddy
McAloon coming out with the (then) unfashionable line that Paul McCartney is
one of the greatest songwriters of all time and knowing he was so right.
Finding
this track-never subsequently recorded elsewhere- and three others that Paddy
McAloon recorded when he was sixteen or so.
The
overall intelligence, humour and humanity that you can see shining so clearly through
Prefab Sprout, every step of the way.
what "Totally Shuffled" is all about:
One track per
day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553. From the
obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). From the
sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse). From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music
to The Monkees. From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz,
classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between. This is what I
listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to
hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some
artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of
critical kicking. There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops,
prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that
I’d completely forgotten about. But with 40 years of listening to music, I
realised that I’ll never get sick of it.
I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but
I’ll never fall out of love with music.
Get/read Totally Shuffled here
Kindle:
