One week at number one on 14th March 1987
“My favourite song has to be My Favourite Dress. David has managed to perfectly distil the tortuous agonising feelings of jealousy into three minutes of angst. The guitar hook is pretty great too.” – Sir Keir Starmer.
Well, there you go; not my words, but the words of the Prime Minister (presumably still the case, by the time this goes live). If you ever wondered what it might be like to live in a country governed by an indie nerd, rest assured you are already living that dream, although he isn't the only Labour Party "name" who is interested in The Wedding Present – years ago, the one-time Labour deputy leader hopeful Stella Creasy tweeted me about the band, and we’re not even members of the same party. There’s dedication to Gedge beyond the call of duty.
An oblivious person reading this in another country might assume that this means the group were massive, but that would be a mistake; while the music press briefly touted them as the next Smiths, the peak of the band’s achievements occurred in 1992 when they managed to crash the national charts with twelve different limited edition singles released throughout the year. All went Top 40 and one even managed to nose its way into the top ten, but prior and subsequent chart performances indicated that this was purely due to the rabidity of their fanbase – the Starmers and Creaseys of this world taking a break from their local Labour Party meeting to rush out and buy them on the Monday of release, scared of missing their ship.
For a few years, The Wedding Present felt like the biggest cult band in Britain, mightier even than The Fall, but relatively unheard outside their fanbase. When they appeared on Top of the Pops, which happened frequently, people would write letters of complaint to the mainstream pop press about the din. No new fans were gained; the existing fans simply hardened their lines of defence about the group’s earthy but unique sound.
In 1985 and 1986, however, they were still releasing records on their own label and merely attracting evening radio airplay, thousands of miles from the bright television studio lights. Their performance in the indie chart tells its own story of a group slowly building up steam, from the tentative number 17 shot of “Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy” to the confident number 3 peak of “You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends”. Each release seemed to sweep them closer towards a breakthrough moment, and “My Favourite Dress” is the one that delivered not just a number one in the indie charts, but a refreshed perception of what the group were capable of. By the time the year was up, they would have five entries in John Peel’s Festive Fifty, four of those in the top ten – votes being split in ways Starmer would doubtless cringe at.
For something that’s still lauded as being their finest moment, “My Favourite Dress” is an oddly understated sulk initially. The two chords it opens with are left to clang by themselves for the introduction before the group reluctantly grumble in behind, and Gedge joins to sing in a part angry, part tearful manner about a romantic betrayal. Despite his reputation as an earthy, jocular Leeds everyman, the lyrics are actually pearls, borderline Smokey Robinson in their attempts at understanding: “Sometimes these words just don't have to be said/ I know how you both feel/ The heart can rule the head/ Jealousy is an essential part of love/ The hurting here below/ And the emptiness above”. There’s something almost Northern Soul about those opening lines, were it not for the very C86 scraping and thudding beneath – the wheels of this song belong to a tram, not an aeroplane; it’s sticking to its own simple, dependable rhythm, not soaring off anywhere soon.
We finally move on from the two chord holding pattern when the chorus arrives, which begins to add choppiness and spikiness to the mix, but is still surprisingly slight, and over in an instant with Gedge sighing “never mind”. Then his reasonableness declines and his grievances become more pronounced in the second verse, during which it sounds as if he’s almost choking when singing about his ex-lover’s new sleeping arrangements. Following a second round of the chorus, things really start to go into overdrive and the ranting begins, and this is what makes “My Favourite Dress” several leagues above the average indiepop ditty about romantic disappointment – it starts off controlled and sane, and slowly peels away its rationality, the fury of betrayal taking an increasingly heavy role.
The final verse isn’t so much a lyric as Gedge delivering a shopping list of disappointments to his ex, bullet pointing the key occurrences in one of the worst days of his life so far – “a long walk home”, “the pouring rain”, “uneaten meals”, then, explosively, “a stranger’s hand on my favourite dress”. The key problem, the painful image. The moment the song finds both its title and its purpose. If you’re not listening closely, it almost sounds absurd.
Relationships are often portrayed in songs and films in a very simplistic way, the memories people cling on to frequently being trite in their obviousness. “I liked the way he held me when we danced”. “I adored the way she kissed”. The reality for me (and seemingly Gedge, and Keir Starmer, and probably you too) is that you don’t actually know what memory you’ll hang on to until they’re over. It might be guessed at, but it’s frequently unknowable. It could be that moment you greeted them home at the arrivals section of an airport and realised you truly loved them, the song they loved that you always hated, or something even more inconsequential than that – a haircut, sunkissed skin from a recent holiday, a perfume smell or an item of clothing. I’ve had my day ruined by women with the same hairstyle as an ex of mine, so I know only too well that seemingly trivial visual prompts have a peculiar and extremely potent magical power.
Having said his piece, the song spends around a minute-and-a-half exploring one single guitar riff, which proves that it’s entirely possible to be hopelessly downcast and hooky at the same time. This is frequently held up as the crowning triumph of the single, but I’d actually slightly disagree; finishing songs on a powerful instrumental hook became something of a party trick for the Weddoes, who brilliantly repeated the device on later tracks like “Take Me” and “Kennedy”, but here it almost feels overlong, as if too few interesting strands are being weaved around the simple idea. It ends with the guitar line totally exposed, bereft of other instrumentation, adding to the barren loneliness of the track, but somehow doesn’t feel like enough to justify their faith in the idea. Thousands of people will disagree with me, though, probably wishing that (if anything) it were longer.
Even taking that point into account, “My Favourite Dress” is a single whose approach is more complicated than you initially appreciate. Its strengths lie in its gradual loss of control, and – when you’ve heard it more than once – the anticipation of that outburst and release. David Gedge’s role in it as the man desperately trying to be sane, rational and reasonable before choking into a series of “buts” and “one more things” makes sense to anyone who has had even one relationship in their life collapse. As he warns us very early on, playing the role of the wise one who has seen it all before, “the heart can rule the head”, before falling to his knees like James Brown and demonstrating how.
Is it one of the best singles ever released? On that, I will question Keir Starmer’s judgement, not for the first time in my life. Curiously, even Peel listeners didn’t pick it as their favourite Wedding Present song of 1987 – that bauble was instead offered to the perfectly good but hardly showstopping “Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft”. Obviously, democracy can sometimes produce some surprising results.
“My Favourite Dress” is, however, a very fine record indeed which ranks among the group’s best, and is certainly one of the best indie records in a year that’s filled to the brim with astonishing material.
New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts
5. Erasure - It Doesn't Have To Be (Mute)
Peak position: 2
When groups have huge breakthrough hits, as Erasure recently had with “Sometimes”, they have clear choices for the follow-up – either come up with something very close to that successful formula, hoping the public want second helpings, deviate radically to show their full scope (a risky strategy), or puff their chests out and dig up an unsubtle anthem.
“It Doesn’t Have To Be” is option three, then, huffing its way around your stereo with such gusto that there are moments you might mistake it for a military parade. Kettle drums pound, synths scrape and grind, and Andy Bell punches his fist about the unjustness of apartheid (there’s even a section sung in Swahili). It could have been a huge dog’s dinner, but the bombast of “It Doesn’t Have To Be” is actually infectuous, and Vince Clarke sprinkles enough surprising sparks and thrills into the mix to make it more than just a common-or-garden stomper. By this point, the duo’s chart future – at one point somewhat tentative – had become assured.
21. Loop - 16 Dreams (Head)
Peak position: 21
Debut indie chart entry for psychedelic drone rock specialists Loop, who in time would become hugely lionised in the UK music press, while rarely coming even fractionally close to reaching a mainstream audience.
“16 Dreams” is a humble start and not representative of their best work, but establishes some of their tropes very early on – the ghostly howl of feedback, the determined, dogged locking on to simple riffs, the rugged bare boned nature of it all.
27. McCarthy - Frans Hals (Pink)
Peak position: 14
Menacing, crawling single which could partially be inspired by the Dutch painter of the same name, whose fell on destitution in his later, less successful years, but offers too few guide ropes to truly establish that.
Instead, the song focuses its efforts on sending a pointed warning to the wealthy, whose time would shortly be up. “Make your will out mate,” it ends “They know your names and they know your faces/ They will deal with you/ They'll really deal with you”. In an indie chart which generally swum in heartbreak and decadence, McCarthy were one of the few groups remaining who favoured direct and threatening political messaging. Keir Starmer’s opinions on them are unrecorded.
For the complete charts, please go to the UKMix Forum
Number One In The Official Charts
Boy George - "Everything I Own" (Virgin)
No comments:
Post a Comment