93. The Wedding Present - My Favourite Dress (Reception)

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.

88. Soup Dragons - Hang Ten! (Raw TV)

One week at number one on 1st November 1986

The Soup Dragons were one of those peculiar groups who seemed to go through several distinct phases in their career, to the point of feeling like multiple different acts. The period most people reading this will remember is their early nineties indie-dance/baggy phase, which saw them getting a top five national chart hit in the UK with a swaggering cover of the threadbare Rolling Stones B-side “I’m Free”.

If we’re not vaporised in some kind of nuclear war or I don’t get sick of writing this blog in the meantime – two big ifs – I’m sure we’ll get to that single in a few years time, but suffice to say it was written off by many journalists as a cynical attempt to score a hit. It also feels as if it’s disappeared from view in the years since; it dragged 1990’s kids on to the dancefloor, but didn’t necessarily convince the children of the future. Something about that Happy Mondays-aping lurch and groove just hasn’t proved durable.

Following that success, the group managed a minor scuff with the American mainstream with “Divine Thing”, which actually resulted in a number 35 Billboard hit, after which the line-up collapsed and interest was lost both at home and Stateside. Their final album “Hydrophonic”, issued in 1994, was one I had entirely forgotten existed until doing research for this blog entry.

Phase one of their career, though, is the one we’re dealing with here, and the period that gets me most excited. It begins with a broke group from Bellshill, Scotland (home of the hits) hanging around their local scene and pressing demo tapes into the hands of likely compatriots. One such early supporter was Bobby Gillespie, who offered them a gig supporting Primal Scream. Following this, the NME picked up on an early flexidisc the group pulled together, then John Peel threw his hat into the ring and offered them a session, though the band had to borrow £150 from him to make it down to London to record it. All extremely thrifty and earthy beginnings.

If the latter-day Dragons were louche with lots of slow, lazy movement around their hips, the band that emerged in the mid-eighties were taut, spring-wound and hyper, spitting out their pop songs so fast that they were usually all over just after the two minute mark. The Soup Dragons I knew and loved didn’t pout or dreamily sing “yeeeeah” liberally throughout their singles; they gnashed, crashed and raced towards their conclusion, not in a chaotic, ramshackle C86 fashion, but with a tight, orderly and tense drive. The closest point of comparison in 1986 would probably be The Wedding Present, but while Gedge’s group moped and stretched their ideas, The Soup Dragons had a quick, explosive fizz. As a result, they began to command numerous music magazine front covers, seeming young, spotty, naive and a bit ungainly in all of them, but with delicious grins pinned to their faces.

“Hang Ten!” is one of their finest singles, immediately thudding into life with irresistible hooky vocal harmonies, before filling every second of the two minutes on offer with blissful melodies married to a thrashed guitar scramble. The lyrics seem to be about a relationship falling victim to the other party discovering Christianity – “I don’t care whose up there” sneers Sean Dickson – but are far too flippant and clumsy to be deemed a serious protest. What the song appears to be most in love with isn’t any kind of moral or political point, but what it can achieve in its short life; the stomping chant of the chorus, the dorky retro vocal harmonies, the simple but instantly memorable guitar riffs and the ascending climax. All of it remains superb.