Purest AOR - the lyrics are about rejecting a divorce petition. Pretty moving though - no jokes in this one ("darling you may do your worst/ because you'll have to kill me first"). This whole album is extremely good if you are interested.

Ah - yet another classic about killing women. Cave is excelling himself here - it opens with the immortal line 'there is woman-pie in here.' This one breaks from the standard Birthday Party template - first drums, then bass, then nick, then guitars - by doing all the above, but with the mental leap of playing it at a quarter of the normal speed. The highlight is the inevitable moment when Nick says 'And all the girls across the world.....
.........
...........
are........
hit. '
MAGNIFICENT. Why didn't the sugarhill gang sing it that way?
�
As far as I know, this the only song bassist Tracy Pew is credited with writing. His part is pretty obvious. It's the bass line.

I went to see Malkmus the other day - essentially, his new band sound just like Pavement, but the songs are in general not as good. It's as if he sacked them because he didn't like them criticising his songs, and now his new lot have no quality control. This one however is really, really, really good - really nice hawaiian guitar, with Malkmus considering 'how small we humans are' in a song - really - about Greek Gods.

I became able to vote about a week after the UK Conservative party had just won a fourth straight election victory. For me, this song just captures those feelings of utter frustration and anger which I was feeling at the time:
 
'3rd week with the jar you find
everything dies
we won't vote conservative
because we never have
everyone lies, everyone lies!'
 
It ends with Morrissey basically giving up on the country, singing 'We look to Los Angeles/ For the language we use/ London is dead, London is dead.' Even listening to it now, it takes me straight back to what was a pretty grim time for me, and - frankly - Britain.

I've tried quite a lot to get into African music and have only got into bits and bobs so far. However, what I have very successfully got into is a white frenchman, with an all french choir, based in Paris, singing songs in an african style. Any amount of race-focussed amateur psychoanalysis can be done on the above I know, but I also know that this song is absolutely fantastic. As far as I can tell, Serge's african work seems to be inspired by a genuine love of african music and singing, but it also has a very pop edge - maybe it is this crossover aspect that makes it so accessible. Anyway, in this one the lyrics are pretty seedy ("ce soir la nuit sera blanche"), but the singing and drumming are just so beautiful - it's a brilliant song.