Does that make sense?

Cracknell - mint

It won't have escaped your notice that Saint Etienne have a new long player out at the moment: I've Been Trying to Tell You is as diverse as you'd expect it to be yet, at the same time, as familiar as you want it to be. Does that make sense? That's a rhetorical question btw; if I get asked one more time, after somebody has told me the most basic of information, 'does that make sense?,' I think I'll swing for them. Does that make sense?

I fell in love with Sarah Cracknell's pipes a long, long time ago; and still her voice makes me giddy. Even though she never sang on their first single Only Love Can Break Your Heart, I still, in my head, think it's her. Does that make sense?

Anyway, enough of this rhetoric nonsense. This is Sarah Cracknell - taken from, surely, a contender for Album of the Year. I hope you like it.

Saint Etienne - Pond House (2021)

C-Bop Friday

I can't tell you how pleased I am to announce that today's guest on Be-Bop Friday (my irregular featurette written by people I like about their favourite artist) is C - head honcho at Sun Dried Sparrows. C's musings have been a regular fixture on my sidebar for as long as I can remember. Reading her blog is an antidote to all the ills currently befalling civilisation. Thank you for taking the time, C. And I look forward to a time when we can hold our Bloggers' Summit (in real life and without masks!) Let's all meet up in the year 2021, to paraphrase that well known polymath from Sheffield.   

***

"It’s a dreary, damp Saturday afternoon as I write, the kind of Saturday afternoon that anyone who grew up in Britain knows well.  The kind that taps into our memories and effortlessly transports us to the most unremarkable yet evocative days of our youth. Afternoons when we dragged ourselves into town, sheltered from the rain in the jeans shops, fluffed up our hair in the reflection of the Freeman, Hardy & Willis window before diving into the record shop, eager to exchange the pound notes we’d been saving up for the most exciting thing in the world: a piece of 12" vinyl. The Clash, their first album, or Pink Flag by Wire, perhaps – in my case, anyway; whatever it was we favoured at the time.

But our love for those bands might be fleeting. It’s hard to have a favourite which lasts a lifetime; so much changes, both us and them.  So instead my focus turns to a band who somehow encapsulate that very idea – the way we change as we wend our way through life, the influences, the everyday.  The unremarkable yet evocative. Saint Etienne are the band I choose to hear on dreary, damp Saturday afternoons. But they are equally well received against the backdrop of Summer skies, crisp Autumnal Sundays, or street-lit city nights. I think a lot has to do with the fact that Bob, Sarah and Pete are my contemporaries - we share an English '70s past and thus also our middle-aged reflections.  I wrote once before about how, lyrically, they soothe my unease at getting older by reminding me that, actually, it’s alright to be where we are now in our lives because of all the great markers along the way which made us who we are. So, that all seems a bit deep and philosophical, but somehow Saint Etienne convey it with natural ease and no pretension.

It would be hard to pick just one song, there are so many to choose from, but with lyrics which perfectly describe the youthful joys of buying our first records, 'Over the Border' from the album 'Words and Music', seems the most appropriate right now." 

Saint Etienne - Over the Border (2012)

Boffins

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs - often referred to as 'the boffins from Saint Etienne' - have, in their time, curated and presided over some of the finest conceptual compilation albums you're ever likely to come across; drawing heavily on material from the very foothills of the 1970s is their stock in trade, and none the worse for that.

English Weather, from 2017, is no exception: when all things psychedelic gradually gave way to the prog movement at the arse end of the 60s a new sound was evoked, creating a rich seam that Stanley and Wiggs have mined for much of this collection. Stretched over four sides of vinyl it's very Autumnal, and, yes, very English. And I particularly like the accompanying artwork. Go on, treat yourself. 

Alan Parker & Alan Hawkshaw - Evening Shade (1971)