The Wheel and the MayPOLL: The XTC Poll Results Thread

Who voted Tissue Tigers #1? It was in my top 10, was considering making it my #1 myself. I love that song so much.

frogbs post your ballot!

I decided to just do 20, 50 seemed like way too much but in retrospect I had more than enough songs to put up there.

#1 I felt was an obvious choice. Everything about that song is perfect. That description from Andy as to how the bass parts bounce off the chords makes total sense and likely was the reason I love the song so much. I felt bad about ranking "Senses Working Overtime" so low but I docked it points because I find the chorus gets lodged in my head for so long that I almost dread thinking about it.

1. Mayor of Simpleton
2. Yacht Dance
3. Greenman
4. Another Satellite
5. Generals and Majors
6. No Thugs in our House
7. What in the World?
8. Tissue Tigers
9. Snowman
10. Little Lighthouse
11. Your Gold Dress
12. Life Begins at the Hop
13. Neon Shuffle
14. Senses Working Overtime
15. My Bird Performs
16. River of Orchids
17. English Roundabout
18. Burning With Optimism's Flames
19. Life Begins at the Hop
20. Chalkhills and Children

I played in an XTC tribute band for a short time and Mayor is such a bugger to play, just the last bar of the loop joining onto the first bar, so tricky.

LJ, was I your Ladybird suspect?

Yeah the second time I heard Simpleton yesterday it suddenly leapt into giddy focus. The baseline is genuinely extraordinary

Course you were MN!

baseline? This phone!

Who voted Tissue Tigers #1? It was in my top 10, was considering making it my #1 myself. I love that song so much.

Yeah this, I take my hat off sir/madam.

iirc correctly Partridge wrote the line too.

TB: Back to the song -- let's talk about the bass line.

AP: Yeah! I'm going to be immodest, because this is part of my drive toward immodesty this year...

TB: Well, the line is yours, after all! It's obvious -- it's there on the demo.

AP: *chuckles* People do these survey things, and say, "Let's vote for Colin's best bass line" or something, and they don't realize that the two bass lines they vote for -- "Vanishing Girl" and "Mayor of Simpleton" -- it's me playing bass on "Vanishing Girl"...

TB: Oh, I didn't know that.

AP: Yeah. Or "What in the World?" -- that's me playing bass as well.

TB: Get out of here!

AP: That's me on bass -- Colin's on rhythm guitar.

TB: And you came up with that bass line?

AP: Yeah.

TB: That's funny -- I've always thought that was him channeling McCartney.

AP: No, we had to cut it live. He obviously couldn't play the bass and the rhythm guitar, and I didn't know how the chords went, so instead of him teaching me the chords, I said, "Look, you play the chords, I'll play the bass, and we'll get this thing done before lunchtime!"

But the one they mention is "Mayor," and Colin had to work very hard to get that bass line. It's very precise. It took me a long time to work it out, because I wanted to get into the J.S. Bach mode of each note being the perfect counterpoint to where the chords are and where the melody is. The bass is the third part in the puzzle.

TB: You do that a lot in your songs.

AP: Yeah, it's a compulsion. On many of the songs I don't tell him which exact notes to play, but with this one, I said, "You have to play this bass line, because it's taken me weeks to work this out." I went through and worked it out a note at a time, to go with where the vocal note was at, where the implied guitar chords were, where the actual notes of the guitar being twanged to make that implied chord were. It was built scientifically, it was [laughs] precision-engineered so that every note is in the perfect place. And I think Colin liked the bass line, because we talked about it sounding like a collegiate peal of bells.

TB: Why did you feel you needed that kind of driving bass line in there?

AP: To keep the song moving, moving, moving. I wanted it to have a fleetness of foot, a joyousness to it. I used to love running as a kid -- in fact, I still dream of running. If I ran now, I'd die of a heart attack in about 30 steps [laughs], but I used to love running, and got really high on it as a kid. I wanted this track to have a sense of fleet forward movement, so the bass had to be very propulsive. The guitars are doing that kind of [sings guitar pattern] -- they almost sound sequenced, but they're not. They're played. I wanted the bass to move against that continuous arpeggio. And of course the drums locked into that as well, with the bass drum really hammering along.

So yeah, it was tough for Colin to get, but he did get it, because we played it live during the radio tour we did, where he would play that line on the acoustic guitar.

*something about synaesthesia* ;)

Great snippet. He seems quite generous with his self-insight; I should read more of his sayings

Yeah, this is a great rabbit-hole (incase you didn't know already)

http://chalkhills.org/articles/XTCFans.html

Is Mayor of Simpleton supposed to be a tribute to Wonderful World?

Whoa ty MN! Awesome

Great poll, thanks for organizing Οὖτις! Also great art!

1. 1000 Umbrellas
2. Chalkhills and Children
3. Harvest Festival
4. No Language In Our Lungs
5. Ballet for A Rainy Day
6. Easter Theatre
7. Snowman
8. Humble Daisy
9. Wonder Annual
10. Ladybird
11. Grass
12. I'd Like That
13. Love On A Farmboy's Wages
14. That's Really Super, Supergirl
15. I Bought Myself a Liarbird
16. Respectable Street
17. Summer's Cauldron
18. Wake Up
19. That Wave
20. The Wheel and the Maypole
21. Minature Sun
22. You're the Wish You Are I Had
23. Ship Trapped in Ice
24. This Is Pop
25. Towers of London
26. Me & the Wind
27. Brainiac's Daughter
28. I'm Unbecome
29. Pale and Precious
30. I Remember the Sun

Great poll, Οὖτις! And great images, Hideous Lump! Thanks for doing this!

my ballot:

1. Earn Enough For Us
2. Respectable Street
3. Senses Working Overtime
4. Making Plans For Nigel
5. Grass
6. Are You Receiving Me?
7. The Meeting Place
8. Summer's Cauldron
9. Ball and Chain
10. The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul
11. Travels in Nihilon
12. What In The World??...
13. Life Begins At The Hop
14. My Love Explodes
15. Wake Up
16. Bike Ride To The Moon
17. When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty
18. (The Everyday Story of) Smalltown
19. Snowman
20. Complicated Game

"Earn" was the first XTC I heard, on the radio. They had me at "[first snare hit]."

But 25 O'Clock was actually the first XTC I heard, only I didn't know it was XTC until maybe a year after I'd heard it. I'd heard about this psychedelic parody record, saw it in a record store, and thought the liner notes were hilarious.

Is Mayor of Simpleton supposed to be a tribute to Wonderful World?

― Shepard Toney Album (dog latin)

baseline? This phone!

― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago)

frogbs: little lighthouse REPRESENT!

1 Earn Enough for Us
2 Wonderland
3 The Wheel & The Maypole
4 Easter Theatre
5 Grass
6 All You Pretty Girls
7 The Meeting Place
8 Another Satellite
9 Pink Thing
10 Mayor of Simpleton
11 The Disappointed
12 Dear Madam Barnum
13 Summer's Cauldron
14 Making Plans for Nigel
15 King for a Day
16 Generals and Majors
17 Great Fire
18 Vanishing Girl
19 When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty
20 The Everyday Story of Smalltown
21 Rocket From a Bottle
22 Jason and the Argonauts
23 I Bought Myself a Liarbird
24 Respectable Street
25 This World Over

thanks again all involved :)

1. Summer's cauldron/grass
2. Garden of earthly delights
3. Senses working overtime
4. Mayor of simpleton
5. Respectable street
6. Easter theatre
7. Earn enough for us
8. No thugs in our house
9. Life begins at the hop
10. Merely a man
11. Scarecrow people
12. River of orchids
13. Complicated game
14. Towers of London
15. Harvest festival
16. Travels in Nihilion
17. Generals & majors
18. Beating of hearts
19. Roads girdle the globe
20. Season cycle
21. Peter pumpkinhead
22. Living through another Cuba
23. Melt the guns
24. Smalltown
25. Poor skeleton steps out
26. Scissor man
27. Dear madam Barnum
28. Ball & chain
29. When you're near me I have difficulty
30. Radios in motion
31. Meccanik dancing
32. Burning with optimism's flames
33. Greenman
34. Helicopter
35. Wheel & maypole
36. Reel by real
37. Rocket from a bottle
38. Pink thing
39. Another satellite
40. This is pop
41. Holly up on poppy
42. Science friction
43. Then she appeared
44. Hold me my daddy
45. All you pretty girls
46. The rhythm
47. Ballet for a rainy day
48. Day in day out
49. Into the atom age
50. Sacrificial bonfire
51. Playground
52. Are you receiving me
53. Wake up
54. Fly on the wall
55. The meeting place
56. Mermaid smiled
57. Deliver us from the elements
58. Ten feet tall
59. Church of Women
60. Making plans for Nigel
61. Chalkhills & children
62. Supergirl
63. I'd like that
64. Reign of blows
65. Man who sailed
66. Statue of liberty
67. The loving
68. 1000 umbrellas
69. Love on a farmboy's wages
70. Dear god
71. King for a day
72. Runaways
73. Chain of command
74. Punch & Judy
75. Across this antheap
76. My bird performs
77. Outside world
78. Crocodile
79. Extravert
80. The last balloon
81. Seagulls screaming
82. All of a sudden
83. Newtown animal
84. We're all light
85. I set myself on fire
86. This world over
86. English roundabout
87. One of the millions
88. Shake you donkey up
89. You & the clouds
90. No language in our lungs
91. Your dictionary
92. Red brick dream
93. Love at first sight
94. I remember the sun
95. Cynical days
96. The man who murdered love
97. Big day
98. President kill

A few regrets I have about my list: I ran out of time relistening to all the albums in sequence, ending with O&L, so Nonsuch and the 2 after I ranked from memory; I suspect there would have been 5 or 10 songs out of those records that I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed (just as happened with all the others) and would have made the list somewhere. I forgot about the Dukes ("Vanishing Girl" would have been high on my list, and "Mole" and "Brainiac" would have both been top 50). And I've never spent enough time with any Fuzzy Warbles to rate anything from them. I'd have liked to pick, say, the top 150 and make a playlist to obsess over the order - after the top 2 or 3, the order was pretty arbitrary in that any group of 10 or 15 songs could be reranked more accurately.

And I should have plumped hard for "Garden of Earthly Delights" in the discussion thread. I guess I just imagined that its glory was obvious to anyone with ears.

My list.

1. Dear God
2. Chalkhills & Children
3. Easter Theatre
4. Wrapped In Grey
5. No Language in Our Lungs
6. Making Plans For Nigel
7. Generals & Majors
8. I Bought Myself a Liarbird
9. Mermaid Smiled
10. Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her
11. Summer's Cauldron
12. Helicopter
13. Grass
14. The Everyday Story of Smalltown
15. Life Begins at the Hop
16. My Bird Performs
17. Ten Feet Tall
18. Dying
19. Season Cycle
20. You're the Wish You Are I Had
21. Books Are Burning
22. Knuckle Down
23. Burning With Optimism's Flames
24. Radios in Motion
25. Roads Girdle the Globe
26. The Mole From the Ministry
27. Humble Daisy
28. Earn Enough For Us
29. Sgt Rock
30. Outside World
31. Vanishing Girl
32. Bungalow
33. Cynical Days
34. That's Really Super, Supergirl
35. Paper & Iron
36. When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty
37. The Meeting Place
38. Runaways
39. That Wave
40. Brainiac's Daughter
41. Towers of London
42. This World Over
43. Respectable Street
44. You're My Drug
45. Are You Receiving Me?
46. Wake Up
47. Bike Ride to the Moon
48. The Ugly Underneath
49. Mayor of Simpleton
50. Hold Me My Daddy
51. Rook
52. Then She Appeared
53. Pale & Precious
54. 25 O'Clock
55. Red
56. The Last Balloon
57. Ball & Chain
58. The Rhythm
59. Garden of Earthly Delights
60. Train Running Low on Soul Coal
61. Living Through Another Cuba
62. Have You Seen Jackie?
63. I Remember the Sun

The Graphics Bear “Most Valuable Player Award” goes to Albrecht Dürer for being the image source for Dear God, The Disappointed, Grass and Easter Theatre.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Saint_Jerome_in_his_Study.jpg/373px-Saint_Jerome_in_his_Study.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Melencolia_I_-_Google_Art_Project_%28_AGDdr3EHmNGyA%29.jpg/380px-Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Melencolia_I_-_Google_Art_Project_%28_AGDdr3EHmNGyA%29.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_The_Large_Piece_of_Turf%2C_1503_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/374px-Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_The_Large_Piece_of_Turf%2C_1503_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Hare%2C_1502_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/217px-Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Hare%2C_1502_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

[/The More You Know…]

Actually, I could have done the entire poll with Dürer.

When I get home tonight, I'll post a few of the images I gathered for songs that didn't make it.

That will be a treat, the images were amazing!

And the poll results make me realize, even the tunes I'd never consider voting for have obvious virtues.

And and and... My ballot. If I'd gone beyond 25 (or if my mood had shifted slightly), I could have given a boost to Liarbird and Ladybird and cast a lone vote for Omnibus (those key changes! that bassline!)

Snowman
Senses Working Overtime
Love On A Farmboy's Wages
Complicated Game
This is Pop?
Ballet For A Rainy Day
All Of A Sudden (It's Too Late)
Beating Of Hearts
All You Pretty Girls
Another Satellite
The Somnambulist <--------------- surprised by its low placement
Burning With Optimism's Flames
Towers Of London
Wake Up
No Language In Our Lungs
Battery Brides
Funk Pop A Roll
Shake You Donkey Up
Respectable Street
River Of Orchids
The Dukes Of Stratosphear - Vanishing Girl
Mayor Of Simpleton
Paper And Iron (Notes And Coins)
Season Cycle
Chalkhills And Children

at the risk of being repetitive, I am going to stan for some unjustly overlooked Fuzzy Warbles tracks (I thought I had voted for Young Cleopatra too but maybe I forgot? idk). There's more than a solid album's worth of fully realized, high quality tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eleqWoi-Ro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HETCRDY3fI4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV9xSbNimn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3Cc7aef68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnbZzk6Be9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qbnye6Bno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w5-k6pQJKk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBOoMFWgnXU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIF8ZkKx_JE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOLeojjBeKs

I didn't vote, and I'm belatedly catching up with all the results. These polls often get me listening to stuff I hadn't put on in years, so today at work: all of English Settlement (with the deleted-in-US tracks) and Apple Venus Vol. 1, which I had never heard more than the singles from. Loved "River of Orchids."

(with the deleted-in-US tracks)

fwiw, Geffen reissued XTC's entire catalog in the US in 198...4? 1985? Anyway, whenever they signed to Geffen. And Settlement was finally issued here in full.

Yeah, I should have clarified, I've heard most of them as single tracks, but don't own the reissue and have never actually listened to the album start to finish as it was intended. I think it's a bit overlong that way, and I don't really hear any of the 5 tracks as being top-flight XTC.

#teamLeisure

Yeah, Settlement has some of my all-time least fave XTC. "Melt the Guns" might be the duddest dud they ever dudded (thought largely due to the 20 minutes of Andy's croaking at the end).

haha, see I love "Melt The Guns." This where all the different XTC fans have differing opinions on classicness/dudness. But I also discovered today I like "Frivolus Tonight," though, so I'm suspect.

I also like spelling. Frivolous.

I also like Melt the Guns! Though I've noticed it's often hated. Personally, I just think it's a fun song with cool chords, and a great bass line. Is it the lyrics that cause hate? AP's vocal?

yeah Melt The Guns is cool and I *like* the silly inverse freakout at the end

Also, the production on all of English Settlement really jumps out, so tracks like "Melt the Guns" and "It's Nearly Africa" are foreplay for my ears.

It was "Knuckle Down" that I thought was a bit under, really.

"Melt the Guns" might be the duddest dud they ever duded

See, if we're talking just English Settlement, that would be "Knuckle Down" as far as I'm concerned. But I fully understand why someone would hate "Melt the Guns."

x-post!

Is it the lyrics that cause hate? AP's vocal?

Mostly the vocal; I think "Melt the Guns" was the moment I realized I liked XTC in spite of, and not because of, Partridge's voice.

ha.

xpost

Of the 5 that weren't on the US single LP, "Yacht Dance" is the one that doesn't do much for me, the other 4 just don't make much of an impression. But I've listened to the US LP hundreds of times, which may make those songs I'm much less familiar with seem superficial, or oddly placed on the record.

To muddy the waters further, my copy of ES (the first XTC i owned) was some kind of European import cassette which had everything except leisure, cockpit, africa, knuckle and fly.

So those are the outlanders for me. And of those I only really like fly

Young Cleopatra highest ranking song with only 1 vote. Voter come out & explain yourself please.

That was me. I like a lot of the Warbles - I especially like the original Jules Verne's Sketchbook cassette as being a high water mark for Partridge demos - but this came in first for me. I actually prefer this even earlier demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzkSLzsVbKI

It's a catchy, enthuastic Andy song with a great hook and lyrics ("You'll never be the Queen unless you do as your told"), sung with a lot of affection and regard for the subject. A pretty enthusiastic piece of young girl worship, which is of course the main problem with it and probably what kept it off any of their albums, but I first heard the song when I was trying to start a family myself, and so I kind of appropriated it and heard it the way I wanted to, as a proud father song that gave me something to look forward to.

So yeah, probably as much of a personal favorite as anything.

I love "Melt the Guns", and the freakout is the best bit (aside from Colin's fantastic bassline). For ES duds, I'm on the side of "Knuckle Down" and "Leisure", with "Down in the Cockpit" not far behind.

leisure is so gooooood, it's the sound of the british working class being despised and mocked by the media & hung out to dry by failing industry & thatcherism, the sound of enforced not-giving-a-toss hiding genuine rage & disenfranchisement, one of their truly great protest songs

My ballot. For a time in my early-mid 20s, XTC were my favorite band, period. I cannot begin to describe the anticipation I felt before the release of Apple Venus. Still a big fan, although my top five albums have shifted since then (currently, in order: English Settlement, Skylarking, Black Sea, Nonsuch, Oranges and Lemons).

1 Towers of London
2 Wrapped In Grey
3 Life Begins At The Hop
4 Love At First Sight
5 Earn Enough For Us
6 No Thugs In Our House
7 Easter Theatre
8 One Of The Millions
9 The Wheel And The Maypole
10 The Mayor Of Simpleton
11 Senses Working Overtime
12 My Bird Performs
13 King For A Day
14 Stupidly Happy
15 Rook
16 Making Plans For Nigel
17 Vanishing Girl
18 English Roundabout
19 Then She Appeared
20 Jason And The Argonauts
21 Snowman
22 Harvest Festival
23 Playground
24 No Language In Our Lungs
25 You're A Good Man Albert Brown
26 Runaways
27 Beating Of Hearts
28 I Can't Own Her
29 Generals and Majors
30 Complicated Game
31 Rocket From A Bottle
32 The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
33 Great Fire
34 The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul
35 Sacrificial Bonfire
36 Brainiac's Daughter
37 That Wave
38 Dear God
39 Real By Reel
40 Little Lighthouse
41 All Of A Sudden (It's Too Late)
42 Love On A Farmboy's Wages
43 Across This Antheap
44 Grass
45 Are You Receiving Me?
46 Scarecrow People
47 Dear Madam Barnum
48 She's So Square
49 You're The Wish You Are I Had
50 The World Is Full Of Angry Young Men

I gathered a ton of images before the final tallies were done--here's some of the runners up.

(Complete runners up gallery here, Top 60 gallery here.)

Alternate image for Sacrificial Bonfire:

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/XTC%20ILM%20Top%2060%20Runners%20Up/47alternateSACRIFICIALBONFIRE.jpg

Alternate Peter Pumpkinhead from last week's news:

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/XTC%20ILM%20Top%2060%20Runners%20Up/52alternateBALLADOFPETERPUMPKINHEAD-Alternate.jpg

I Bought Myself a Liarbird:

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/XTC%20ILM%20Top%2060%20Runners%20Up/61IBOUGHTMYSELFALIARBIRD.jpg

The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul:

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/XTC%20ILM%20Top%2060%20Runners%20Up/62MANWHOSAILEDAROUNDHISSOUL.jpg

Paper and Iron:

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/XTC%20ILM%20Top%2060%20Runners%20Up/65PAPERANDIRON.jpg

This World Over:

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/XTC%20ILM%20Top%2060%20Runners%20Up/72THISWORLDOVER.jpg