Bad Manners: The Love Songs. That would be a short album, wouldn't it?
When their long-forgotten hit Lorraine turned up on my ipod today, I was reminded that when they're being serious - or at least semi-serious - they're on a par with any of the great bands, those songs comfortably sitting among the pantheon of classics. All memories of their novelty past that has come to overshadow how they're thought of today are soon banished.
I have a major thing for Special Brew, a song that never fails to move me. Why it's so moving I couldn't say. Perhaps it's the key it's in, but it gets me in this video at about the 1.10 mark, and it doesn't let me go. But look, even here Buster Bloodvessel's in a grass skirt in a rocking chair. If you didn't know about the band you'd only heard this song you'd not think they'd be doing the Can-Can throughout the summer of the following year, would you, or silly covers of My Girl Lollipop, a song I dislike with every fibre of my being.
That said, I'm a huge Can-Can fan, and I've time for many of their other hits like Lip Up Fatty all the way through to Samson & Delilah and those songs that got sillier and siller and which barely troubled the charts. Nice to see they're still going strong though. I'd have put money on Buster Bloodvessl not making it into the Noughties.
This song does take me back to the depths of autumn of 1980, and to me it's always a dark evenings/cold weather song. It gives me a chill, in a nice way. It's quite beautiful. Shame about that fast bit at the end which slightly takes the shine off it, but you can't have everything.
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