Defend The Indefensible: The Beautiful South

The BS vs Simply Red as a post-socialist, pre-Blairite battle for the suburban car stereo of Mondeo Man is a topic worthy of Robin Carmody, though.

It is good that people who liked the Housemartins for a year or two in the mid-80s should try to remember why, and what things it, or that, or they, fitted in with.

I guess it's all that rootsy socialist folk thing that Steve Redhead used to talk about. I also see an associated (pre-?)geezer aspect: real ale, Hull City, fourth division Britain.

Tom, you are a fule. I kiss you.

It's funny how much your act of guilt parallels the Nipper's act of rage with the Housemartins.

Probably people buy their records because they think they quite like the band, as they probably do with Destiny's Child records.

Perhaps they listen to them in their homes or in their cars, as people probably do with Jennifer Lopez records that they have bought.

AHA! Tom is revealed as an indie-snob of webzines! I'm sure Ryan'd love to have you writing for PFM, Tom... ;o)

'A Little Time' is probably the best Beautiful South song - a marital tiff on record is at least entertaining in theory.

[Black Box Recorder:] The Beautiful South with cred

• Song For Whoever?!?!
  
• Old Red Eyes Is Back?!??!?!
  
• A Little Time!??!?! (Which I think is pretty underrated, you know!!!! Espcially since it inched all the way to the top of the brit hit parade!!!!)
  
• Rotterdam!??!?!
  
• Don't Marry Her?!?!?!
  
• Even 'Perfect 10' is not too bad either!!!!!!
  

Suddenly you realize the whole song has just come off the road and overturned with its wheels spinning, after travelling a few feet.

Q's point about subversion is marvellous as usual.

This is probably due to only hearing a few BBR records, though.

Just as well tha South don't make dance music or Pinefox would really have problems with them!!!!! :)

"Holding Back The Years" and their version of "If You Don't Know Me By Now" are fantastic.

The first two Beautiful South albums are really great. I also like "We Are Each Other". After that, they are kind of boring.

Perhaps I have forgotten it.

(i quite like it actually)

I suppose I quite like "A Little Time". the South's later stuff is horrendous.

I used to ADORE the Beautiful South . . . funny and witty and tunes. Good songs sung well . . . what more could you want?

Their pinnicle is the Blue is the Colour album. It is, without doubt, one of THE darkest albums ever made. But it's not dark in a dead-of-night kinda way . . . it's dark in a grey-day kinda way. You know . . . when the day is so boring, so bad, and so terrible, life looks like its viewed through a monochrome TV set with the contrast turned right down. The songs are great individually, but brilliant together, creating a kind of middle-class darkness thats far more convincing than your usual feel-my-pain Pink Floyd derived proclamations.

It least, that's what I thought at the time.

I listened to this album about a fortnight ago . . . it's still not bad. The full impact has been lost over time, but it's still good rousing stuff, especially Have Fun and Mirror, and Blackbird on a Wire is a lovely, lovely song.

Even if everything else they've done is a dud (which it isn't - Red Eyes is Back and Song for Whoever, despite the tweeness, are great songs) this album redeems them. Indefensible? Hardly.

"And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay" . . . that bit.

As far as I can see it contains no bridge - ie. no third element that departs from the see-saw of verse and chorus.

Admittedly, though, I cannot instantly hear a tune when I look at all of these lines. Some of them are a touch ungainly.

I do not care for the obscenities, either.

DON'T MARRY HER

Think of you with pipe and slippers
Think of her in bed
Laying there just watching telly
Then think of me instead

I'll never grow so old and flabby
That could never be
Don't marry her, fuck me

And your love light shines like cardboard
But your work shoes are glistening
She's a PhD in "I told you so"
You've a knighthood in "I'm not listening"

She'll grab your sweaty bollocks
Then slowly raise her knee
Don't marry her, fuck me

And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay
And you realise you can't make it anyway
You have to wash the car
Take the kiddies to the park
Don't marry her, fuck me

Those lovely Sunday mornings
With breakfast brought in bed
Those blackbirds look like knitting needles
Trying to peck your head

Those birds will peck your soul out
And throw away the key
Don't marry her, fuck me

And the kitchen's always tidy
And the bathroom's always clean
She's a diploma in "just hiding things"
You've a first in "low esteem"

When your socks smell of angels
But your life smells of Brie
Don't marry her, fuck me

And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay
And you realise you can't make it anyway
You have to wash the car
Take the kiddies to the park
Don't marry her, fuck me

And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay
And you realise you can't make it anyway
You have to wash the car
Take the kiddies to the park
Don't marry her, fuck me

I thought it was lots of verses punctuated by an occasional middle 8.

If you aren't that bothered by the lyrics, you'd find it a bit tedious, I guess. But why does the absence of a middle 8 necessarily make it boring? Lots of cool songs don't have a middle 8 (or a chorus, depending on your point of view)

But this song needs more musical variation than it has. As it stands I find it unbelievably pedestrian. That's leaving aside the lyrical problems.

I think it's better on the album than as a stand-alone track. As a gentle introduction into the fug, it's great, but as a stand alone track, it can be a little dull.

"Don't marry her, fuck me" isn't half as good as "Don't marry her, have me", either. The latter is too shocking, too callous - the former is vague and subversive. It would underpin the albums "Where have all the morals gone?" theme better than the version taht eventually ended up on there.

You get what I mean though. I'm a fighter, not a writer!

Also, I'm in America - where you have to turn over a lot of stones to find anyone even remotely familiar with The Beautiful South.

-Eric

The first Housemartins album was great, but after that: Nothing much.

Some of their stuff is crap. CRAP.

It's like a lucky dip without the cellophane.

-The Hideous North

Actually if you read your original post I'm sure you'd be be ashamed at its presumptuous, exuberant, bolloxicity.

I'd like to withdraw the vehemence of last night's statement but retain the sentiment.

The Beautiful South invented indie.

But of course picking on song lyrics for not being poetry is unfair. I started listening to them because Xgau told us to, before I knew they were uncool. Still like them, although always kind of hated the cover art. Went to see them once, they came out on stage and Paul said "Jacqui's gone missing" - she had just quit- and our hearts sank. The show was alright, but it was kind of like listening to the stereo with only one of the channels working.

they probly went on too long but the first 3 or 4 albums are uniformly great. am i biased? probably but fuck it.

covers album near the end is also great.

Jacqui finally returned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60s47twOm2I&feature=related

I just listened to "Rotterdam" and I have absolutely no need to break something.

If I need to break something, should I listen to some Captain Beefheart or James Brown instead then?

I think back on my days when I started buying Beautiful South albums. I did so for two reasons: 1) I kind of liked the Housemartins second album and figured it would be a more fleshed out idea of that record and 2) They were absurdly cheap used. Think I had the first three or four albums at one point. I actually listened to them a lot. This was about a decade ago, maybe?

Anyway, I remember nothing about them except for two things (both presumably from the first album, if I recall): 1) Their surprisingly convincing cover of Pebbles' 'Girlfriend' and 2) That one song about, "6am and even Big Ben is trying to put his head down"; that one was decent.

Other than that, the only thing I really remember is how aggressively middle of the road the actual music sounded. It's like he was trying to do the music boring, overproduced pop music he could, in order to get away with some occasionally "controversial" lyrics. I honestly have no clue what I was doing by forcing the band on myself the way I did for nearly a year.

Just dreadfully vapid music.

I like "Song for Whoever" a lot.

The first album is great IMO

It's like he was trying to do the music boring, overproduced pop music he could, in order to get away with some occasionally "controversial" lyrics.

I think it's basically this, except that the two of them really seriously liked a) pleasing-sounding MOR pop music, and b) other pleasing-sounding MOR pop music that also had dark or vicious lyrics

Wasn't the point of the band to create pleasant-sounding pop songs with evil lyrics? I think the joke was on the record-buying public.

You mean like Microdisney but actually popular?

loved Microdisney + Fatima Mansions

saw BS a number of times, incl when they had a big horn section doing "You Should Be Dancing"

We had the Roundhouse booked for two nights for the Q Awards next week. We didn’t have talent sorted when we had to Covid cancel in April, but Nadine Shah was presenting and the two gigs were Liam Gallagher one night, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott the other.

— Ted Kessler (@TedKessler1) October 9, 2020

^ You have to follow the thread but this was really decent of Heaton.

Yeah sorry - follow the thread.

I don't think "my jam" is really appropriate in terms of the musicial elements, but I have feelings and fondness for "I'll Sail This Ship Alone" and "I've Come for My Award"

I think a Beautiful South jukebox musical could kill

Saw both Paul Heaton and Jaffa Cakes were both trending earlier and thought perhaps he'd finally overdosed