drummer on Skylarking

7. The audible vacuum of space that Another Satellite orbits through.

Yeah that one

8. "Your moony moony face..."

9. Todd Rundgren's idea to put The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul in 7/8 (I think)

(Sorry Andy)

10. Ballet for a Rainy Day and 1000 Umbrellas when taken as a piece are XTC's BoRhap

(until The Wheel & the Maypole of course)

3. The moment Summer's Cauldron transitions into Grass

i think this is probably the greatest transition ever put on a record

11. Big Day teaching Damon Albarn everything he knows

—ning here in summer’s caul-DRIIIIIIIIIII [string mob busts in]

is it a british thing to pronounce umbilical to rhyme with cycle? or just a partridge thing

I've heard both but it's not that common.

2. "Please don't pull me out, I'm relaxed in the undertow”

Ah, but it’s “I’m relax in the undertow!” Think there are one or two other songs where Andy adjectifies verbs like that.

I only knew Grass on the Fossil Fuel compilation for several years so was not emotionally prepared for the transition from Summer's Cauldron

Andy’s high note finale before the strings enter there is all time.

I also heard "Grass" first on a compilation and you'd never guess there was a transition from the previous song

Ah, but it’s “I’m relax in the undertow!” Think there are one or two other songs where Andy adjectifies verbs like that.

That's weird. It doesn't even make sense but never mind. I like it when he makes up words like "obheard"

isn’t it “please don’t pull me out / i’m relaxing the undertow” ?

it is indeed odd but "I'm relax in the undertow" is correct

It's some poetic English-massaging behind which the logic seems to be something like "if 'lax' is an adjective, why can't 'relax' be an adjective too?" The other one I'm thinking of is "suffocate seaweed" from "That Wave," where his pronunciation of "suffocate" is to the actual pronunciation of the verb "suffocate" as the pronunciation of "duplicate" (adjective) is to the pronunciation of "duplicate" (verb). I feel like he's done this in at least one other song, but I'm drawing a blank right now.

12. Season Cycle, like the whole of it and how it manages to be Penny Lane without being too similar. oh and also the sheer amount of DETAIL in that one, the backing vocals and how they literally cycle around the lead vocal like that

it's a nifty chord progression too, the chorus cycles through the same melodic idea in three distinct harmonic ways.

Actually maybe it's not Penny Lane, maybe it's Friends-era Beach Boys

i can hear the “penny lane” in there for sure, but it does seem to have a lot of brian wilson dna. the “i really get confused” bridge in particular sounds like it could’ve been on smile

Wish Wheel and the Maypole was on Spotify