The Lyrical Theatre of Andy Partridge and XTC
Andy Partridge, photographed by Michael Putland, Getty Images.
My alternate title for this post was going to be: ‘Why XTC are your Favourite Band that you Don’t Know Yet’ - but then I drew up the list of songs I’d like to discuss and realised I’d exclusively chosen the songs of one songwriter, Andy Partridge - so sorry Colin, I'll get back to you, maybe in another article.
It seems - at least to me - that nobody really knows who XTC are, despite my own personal opinion that they are one of the best English bands to have existed. The band stopped performing live come 1981/82 due to Partridge’s inability to cope with the overwhelm of touring, consequently leading the band to become a studio-only group - not a bad thing really. These days the band’s legacy seems to exist in the influence of every other one of your favourite bands… notably, Blur, Nirvana, Peter Gabriel. In a way really, it’s the greatest honour to quietly influence the future acts of music, but I still think they need their dues - even now. Ironically, for an English band, addressing English-ness in many songs, and having an album called ‘English Settlement’, their fanbase ended up being most concentrated in the U.S. Something Partridge attributed to their working class Swindon background undermining their credibility to their native fanbase: ‘we thought it was a bade of honour, coming from the comedy town' (Partridge).
I think the wonderfully absurd, strange world of XTC is in fact their greatest gift - and that’s really what I want to write about here. Of all my favourite songwriters, Andy Partridge comes up there - not only for his unwillingness to enter the most unusual and strange of musical territories, but the range of his lyric writing. From absurd, anthropomorphised absurdity, through to delicate melancholy and mystery.
So, without too much order, here’s some of Andy’s songs (amidst many) that I find myself a little obsessed with…
Oh and I’ve discovered you can embed songs - how exciting! Here goes:
‘Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her’ - The Big Express (1984)
This is a love song - sort of? Not really? I think often there’s a tendency for artists to picture romance in epic proportions, either to declare love or to pine for a love unrequited. Instead, Partridge opts for the nauseating anxiety of every boy liking a girl but being too afraid to ask - of course coupled, with the pathetic fallacy of a grey English seascape. The song’s central message: ‘he who hesitates is lost’ is mediated by a wonderful plethora of comedic, yet biting manipulations of the surroundings to reflect the anxious conflict of the boy’s mind.
This is backed up by the song’s rhythmic backdrop, a seasick rhythm comprised of pounding toms (programmed) and a stabbing mellotron, before Partridge’s vocals enter with dramatic purpose:
‘It’s raining on the beach
She inches close but out of reach
The waves look painted on
Seagulls screaming’
‘The sea is warship grey
It whispers, “Fool” then slides away
Black coastline slumbers on
Seagulls screaming kiss her, kiss her’
’And all the flags that flap on the pierSpell why on earth do you wait
The fog hides much but once thing is clear
She’s nearer’
I find great amusement (and pain) in the tension of the song’s dramatic setup. ‘Inches close but out of reach’ really becomes the lyrical motor of the song - a tiny physical distance that reflects back the gaping canyon of decision for the male mind - does he ask the potentially nuclear question?
The genius here is the re-direction to the setting - the English seaside, which - for most, signals memories of grey, windy family holidays as opposed to hot sun and cool breezes. It’s a mundane setting that is elevated into epic proportions as it becomes a psychological landscape for the anxious male’s thoughts. At once the seagulls becoming a mocking call, the white noise of the sea waves scold, and then the latter flags signal criticism. I love Partridge’s use of these set pieces to promote anxiety, I imagine the male looking away to the setting to settle his mind and instead his anxiety gives life to all he sees and hears. It’s a few seconds that feel like eternity no doubt.
In Partridge’s own words:
’I thought of the English seaside, which is so sad and mournful. It is a black coastline, the sea is warship grey. It’s not Mediterranean blue. It’s cup-of-tea brown, or mostly warship grey! [All] while everything else in the scenario is calling you an idiot.’
It’s this prolonged overthinking, perhaps the aforementioned fog, that then prolongs the escalation of that anxiety further: ‘she’s nearer’. Again, it’s a painful yet funny reminder that this boy’s mind is on the brink of meltdown, but only for him.
Before long, the song builds into its bridge - now regulated by a more regular pulse of bass and (newly introduced) snare to lead into the moment of critical decision. Of course it’s necessary that ‘November’ enters the scene here, just to remind us that this is a life and death matter of tragicomic scale - if no decision is made, Winter will fall and this girl will be pulled into the ground. But this is the English seaside, and this is the anxiety of every overthinking male… the payoff of the bridge?
‘I say, I like your coat
Her thank-you tugs my heart afloat’
It’s the simplest, and only exchange of the song amidst the whirlwind of drama and mental anguish, one which brings the song back to the simplicity of two people liking one another. Again in Partridge’s words: ‘Your heart just explodes with joy at something stupid like that’. It’s a hilarious way to burst the song’s bubble, but it reminds of the innocence of situations like these - and helps disperse the universal pain of ‘building the idea’ rather than just asking outright.
The song then ends on ‘He who hesitates is lost’. I suppose it’s Partridge’s message to both himself and others. There is in fact Partridge’s own account of accidentally enacting the song:
‘[…] there was a grand piano there, in the little side room, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a new song, and it goes like this.’ I actually sat at the piano and played it to her and tried my best to sing it at the same time. And she must have thought, ‘Well, hell - if he’s not going to take the opportunity, I sure am!’
The song was never allowed to become a single but there exist plans for a music video:
‘I was designing a video for it, where there were masked people, who had these big flat semi-Picasso-like masks. They were stood in a big desolate landscape near the sea, and a sort of proscenium across the top was constantly scrolling, changing the different images there were either telling the story with you, or contradicting what was going on. And then there was also the opposite of that, a band across the bottom that was scrolling the other way, which was either completing the imagery or contradicting what was going on.’
‘Bought Myself a Liarbird’ - The Big Express (1984)
On the topic of birds, here’s another song. According to Partridge (funny coincidence), the prevalence of bird imagery across his writing is partly due to the abundance of birdsong infiltrating his shed whilst recording demos, bringing various meanings across his songs. In this case, there is the obvious pun of ‘lyrebird’ being reappropriated into a deceitful figure, all while playing on the mimicking abilities of the actual bird. In this instance the song poses as a thinly veiled attack on the band’s former manager who carved the band out of their touring royalties.
I’ve always been in awe of Partridge’s ability to communicate his anguish in such a comedic yet acerbic manner. The song itself functions as an account of the perils of buying a liar bird, playing upon ideas of transformation as the song progresses much like a traditional nursery rhyme - and I mean that in a complimentary sense. Musically, it functions around a sweet surf style guitar riff, with a descending chord sequence that punctuates Partridge’s account, becoming more and more sweetly rich before seeming sarcastic as it closes the song. Supposedly the XTC biography, Song Stories, lacks an entry for this song: ‘Due to a legal arrangement with their former management, XTC is unable to discuss the lyrical content of this song!’.
That is to say, little lyrical analysis is necessary here.
‘Rook’ - Nonsuch (1992)
For me this song is probably in my top five favourite XTC songs, maybe top three… not that these sort of lists matter (nor add value to music). I hope nonetheless it attests to my love for this song. Partridge reports writing it quite suddenly, and almost accidentally, following a period of writing block:
‘Not only did it fall out unexpectedly, like rain from heaven when you’re in the desert, but it also scared the living daylights out of me! There’s something about the chords and the melody - that rather doomy folksong melody, over these bell-like summoning chords. It really gives me the shivers now, even talking about it.’
For a song that is built around the word ‘rook’, and its rhymes, it’s (to me at least) a beautifully introspective address to mortality. There is a dreamlike quality to the song, as the chords evenly descend over whole tones - from my primitive knowledge, I’m told the song outlines a Maj7th #11 chord during the verses. Speaking of those - the song comes across as a sort of folklore inspired dream, meeting a crow, and questioning whether your time is up - it’s solemn, quite haunting, and strangely life affirming. I think part of that is down to the switch between the verse and the chorus - from a grounded, steady progression, to an energetic fluttering set of piano lines:
‘Soar up high, see the semaphore from the washing lines
Break the code of the whispering chimneys and traffic signs
What’s the message that’s written under the base of clouds?
Plans eternal, I know you know so don’t blurt out loud’
Again, dreamlike, I love the way in which the song ‘takes off’, or is lifted to see things ‘from above’ so to speak. The idea of semaphore being derived from washing lines makes me think of the function of memory - perhaps something everyday, or familiar with childhood homes, yet that once viewed in retrospect gives a deeper meaning from the function of nostalgia. Maybe then, a symbol of domestic household routine, the everyday care of being in a family? The same exists in chimneys and traffic signs, all everyday yet that seem to imply that existence of other lives that are happening around you.
Then comes the second chorus:
‘On the wings of night, I fly too, above field and stream
My head bursting with knowledge ‘til I wake from the dream
If I die and I find that I had a soul inside
Promise me that you’ll take it up on its final ride’
I love the second line - it captures that feeling of being omnipotent in a dream, and then waking when something beyond you occurs - when you hit that excess of knowledge or experience. It’s always such a strange experience and sometimes you’re glad to have woken, and other times you want to go back to that space you were in. Then from that - the song’s climactic mortal appeal, for the voice’s soul to be saved by the Rook.
‘Rook’ is such an elegant song, from the vulnerability of Partridge’s vocals, to the foreboding piano chords, and the folklore/dreamscape elements that surround the experience of the song’s central voice.
‘River of Orchids’ - Apple Venus, Vol. 1 (1999)
Less existentially, ‘River of Orchids’ is a sort of Steve Reich style masterpiece of rhythmic counterpoint, with pizzicato strings and bass underpinning lyrical ideas of nature reclaiming the roads of London. I’m enthused by the opening line’s implication that a dandelion can roar - it’s a fantastic oxymoron to set up the song. From there the vocals are mantric, waxing lyrical repeating phrases like pooling water, all while the strings land in a synchrony of raindrops over the syncopated bassline. On that note, the undercurrent of bass plucks often lands outside of the ‘one’ (or the dominant beat of a bar), concocting a push and pull throughout the song. It’s only when the chorus (if you’d like to call it that) signals the uninterrupted vocal that the underlying 4:4 rhythm becomes more obvious - that is the line: ‘River of orchids winding our way’ - around 2:48. For me it’s a wonderfully strange, and joyous spring-time song. The imagery is less reliant on Partridge’s usual ironic tricks and instead reliant on a stream of absurd images to build and grow over the song’s underlying rhythm section. Flowers blooming from concrete if you like…
‘Complicated Game’ - Drums and Wires, (1979)
Back to early, punk, XTC. This is one of those songs that scratches the cathartic itch for me - a disconcerting, tense, punk rumination on futility and its chaotic effect over life. Pretty intense stuff right?
I forget this song was recorded in 1979 sometimes, it still feels so present in its production - like an Idles song arranged with unusual major intervals, similar to those that you might find in a Nirvana song. I mean really, the way the song slides (again to my ignorant ear) slightly past where the ‘perfect’ resolution might lie. Beyond that, the transition from psychotic whispering through to yelled babbles firmly places the song as one of my favourite vocal performances by Partridge - he plays with so many methods of delivery and conflict with his voice across the song. Of course, coupled with very tight frenetic guitar patterns.
In short - the song reads like one long mental breakdown. Lyrically the song follows a repeating pattern but with escalation of its subject matter, a sort of growing butterfly effect if you like - ranging from the self, to society, to God:
‘I ask myself should I put my finger to the left, no
I ask myself should I put my finger to the right, no
It doesn’t really matter where I put it
Someone else will come along and move it
And it’s always been the same
It’s just a complicated game’
For Partridge, the song stemmed mainly from touring and starting to feel as though there was little manoeuvrability for his career (at that moment). I suppose then, that was distilled into this song. I’m trying to think of what else borders on being so intense - maybe Elvis Costello’s ‘I Want You’. It’s a marmite song but worth a listen - I love any music that slowly explodes. But that’s me.
I should also note that it’s a one off for the XTC discography. There’s not really a song quite as heavy, but it doesn’t feel out of place either - serving as a wonderful climax towards the ends of Drums and Wires. A great guitar solo too - very deconstructed, being built mainly out of feedback - which of course serves the song’s atmosphere perfectly.
‘This World Over’ - The Big Express, 1984
‘Oh well, that’s this world over, oh well, next one begins’ - I think this is the only other XTC song that seems to really feed on the idea of futility, and poignantly at that. Full of sarcastic retorts and imagery.
I first heard this one as a child and found it chilling even then - written as a retaliation to nuclear weapons, at the same time Partridge’s first child was due. It doesn’t need any analysis as it’s all there, but seemed an important mention.
‘Dear God’ - Skylarking, 1986
Easily the most controversial song in XTC’s discography, Dear God was the first ‘non-album single’ released by XTC. Partridge expressed dissatisfaction with the song’s lyrics, failing to capture his frustration with religion as an agnostic. It was left off from Skylarking due to label concerns but eventually became popular in the U.S, prompting the album to be re-pressed with the track added to the end. I believe, this single had the widest impact on XTC’s fame - at least in the U.S. The irony of course, is that for a song that fights paradoxes, it caused its own.
Controversy aside, it’s an excellent song - posed as a direct address to God, in letter format, and questioning the existence of evil. Partridge lends himself to some of his most intense and emotive vocal performances. I think, whether agnostic, atheist, or theist, the song stands alone as its own attempt by one man to grapple with a crisis of faith.
The notable: ‘did you make mankind are we made you? - ‘And the devil too?’ before the bridge sums that up for me. It’s not a song to directly prompt anger at God, but instead to question why heaven and hell do not already exist metaphorically.
Partridge: ‘I just wanted the thing to come back with an angelic stamp on it, saying “Return to Sender”. Written in fiery letters!’
‘The Man Who Sailed Around his Soul’ - Skylarking, 1986
Do you like bond themes? This song is like one. It enacts its own narrative of a man circumnavigating his own soul to find a deeper wisdom, only to actually find ‘empty skin, a bag to keep life’s souvenirs in’. What a lyric! It cracks me up every time.
Anyways, the song itself is composed something like a 60s spy thriller with influences of Captain Beefheart, Sinatra, and maybe a little of the Beatles? Then a whole bunch of bluesy/jazz lines sprinkled on top?
Just the first verse alone is great:
‘The man who sailed around his soul
From East to West, from pole to pole
With ego as his drunken captain
Greed, the mutineer, had trapped all reason in the hold’
It’s a fantastic exposition - the epic tale of a man who searched for his soul and yet was doomed from the start by his vices. Again, a little like ‘Seagulls Screaming’, Partridge creates an introspective theatre by decomposing the man into his parts - Ego and Greed become their own characters that play their parts in this futile (oh no that word is back) quest for the titular man to find a deeper meaning, within himself. Of course, the wider response of the song is that in relaying the tale of a man who finds nothing, you do indeed find ‘something’ via the means of realising what it is to be led by your vices.
Again, Partridge: ‘It’s my kitchen existentialism - which has just been completed with a nice sunroof! […] The treasure you’re seeking is yourself, and your own experiences and knowledge. And what you do with that — that’s the treasure.’
Cheery!
‘Across this Antheap’ - Oranges and Lemons, 1989
Little words can express how mental this song is - it’s a real unrelenting experience of upbeat, energised rhythms, percussion (cowbell!), and indefatigable lyrics … oh, just like ants marching!
There is a definite argument that Oranges and Lemons is an album that suffers slightly from the overproduction of the 1980s, but I love it nonetheless. Partridge himself has referred to the trumpets on this track as ‘bright splashes of yellow crayon’, make of that what you will…
I derive a lot of joy from Partridge’s strained exclamations in this song - notably, ‘And the screaming sky won’t let me sleep’, and the fantastic howl of ‘And let me rest my bones’!
The lyrics to the song are really rhythmic in this one, issuing a sprawl of contradicting images, take verse 3 for example:
‘And all the world’s babies are crying still
While all the police cars harmonise with power drills
As jets and kettles form a chord with screeching gulls
Accompanied by truncheons keeping time on human skulls’
It’s a clear depiction of the world’s chaos, an auditory cacophony that finds its own discordant harmony (if that can exist). I guess the world sounds a little like Penderecki - I say that as a joke, I do appreciate Penderecki, a bit.
The first verse too, maybe even more absurd:
‘A billion feet sound just like a billion drums
A bed is creaking as the new messiah comes
The cars are crashing and the bacon is hacked
The coffin’s lowered and the lunches get packed
Still segregating ‘cause we insects are too proud
Doesn’t matter what colour of cat you are, there’s no dogs allowed’
The point then I suppose, is a sort of darkly comedic misanthropy. I’m enthused by the middle of this verse - the grotesque image of a cow being turned into someone’s lunch, just as human meat is packed into its own coffin at the behest of a car crash… grim.
I’ll end on this one - I’ve rambled about a fair few songs now, and there’s many more I could cover. But I’ll leave it here - with a sort of, sweet folk love fairytale.
I love this song for its choice of the everyman, the farm boy, as he vies to marry the one he loves against all odds of his work - ‘how can we feed love on a farm boy’s wages?’
There’s a wonderful - latin style feel to the entire song, but especially so in the bridge? Maybe blended in with a strident folk style of guitar, but then again flamenco? It’s a weird amalgamation. Eventually there’s a quick perforation of darkness with ‘and its breaking my back’, switching into a predominantly minor feel, before once again the song erupts into its strident major chorus.
Should I mention the bass on the chorus? It moos… ‘Shilling for the fellow who milks the herd’ [VAROOOOOOM].
Back to serious writer tone - again, I love the triumph of this song - of the man who cannot afford the lavish ceremony to marry his love and yet tries anyway, through compromise. It’s a love of the work, a love of what he does and feeling as though that can come above what everyone else thinks:
‘People think that I’m no good
I’m painting pictures and carving wood
Be a rich man if I could
But the only job I do well is here on the farm’
I wonder then if it’s Partridge’s own allegory for loving art and songwriting yet being challenged by it. Or maybe it’s just an ode to loving someone for everything they are, and what they do, regardless of financial or objective success.
Other recommendations - sans commentary…
So, this is just a handful of songs that I love - really picked out at random, but that are fun to gloss over, or overanalyse, as you wish…
XTC really are a band with a diverse, yet consistently wonderful discography and I implore anyone who loves music to try their best to listen to most, if not all of it.
Here’s some others, maybe a bit more ‘goey’, to use that wonderfully trite term:
(Andy Partridge quotations taken from ‘Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC - Andy Partridge / Todd Bernhardt)