Miracle on the High Street, (and other songs) have double-tracked vocals so that Astor subtly harmonises with himself like a cloned one man Everly Brothers. (I suggested Pete and Luke discuss song-writing on camera for a future LTW feature… if their busy schedules allow) Meanings best left open to interpretation for now. Stay Lonely, Grey Garden and Soft Switch are three more mellow and sad/beautiful sounding songs with lyrics that are intriguing. Maybe Undertaker will add to the many bereavement songs by bringing to light feelings about someone’s death that maybe aren’t that easy to admit to or articulate. What it does, I hope, is talk about the death of someone close in a way that hopefully avoids the Hallmark greeting card feelings that so often accompany bereavement. Undertaker was very much one of these first it appears, then I sing it and write it down, then it’s time to see what I’ve got. While I’m always doing song work – making, revising, developing (and dumping) – often songs arrive whether I want them or not. Sung gently like a lullaby, the lyrical content jars with a cold, dark nonchalance. One song I was particularly enamoured with, and shocked by, is The Undertaker.Īnd put what’s left of you in the incinerator And a few still searching for fulfilment of the heart. Time on Earth has songs which were written in direct response to loss and bereavement (Undertaker, Fine and Dandy) songs striving for different kinds of belief (New Religion, Time on Earth, Miracle on the High Street) stories from either end of the cycles of life (Sixth Form Rock Boys, English Weather). Haines and Astor appear together performing Fine and Dandy on Youtube with Luke singing. Or maybe it’s just pure coincidence?Īnd then…. Sixth Form Rock Boys is a sibling of Haines Art School Bop and the dark humour and surrealism of English Weather could nest cuckoo-like and unnoticed in the Auteurs ‘Bootboys’ album. (I go thru phases of getting obsessed by Haines, Perrett and Devoto – the three kings and wise men of song to my mind.) Fine and Dandy completes my idealised vision of heaven: there are cats and guitars and you can chat with your heroes.Īstor says: Time on Earth is an attempt to make sense of life by making work about it.Ĭontemporaries of his have done similar and I was struck after first complete listen to the album how it had a distinct kinship with some of Luke Haines work. I always wanted a ghost friend like Marty Hopkirk and A Matter of Life and Death remains my favourite film. I’ve had an afterlife obsession since childhood. I never dug Pat’s work myself, but the song brings tears to my eyes because I can imagine friends of mine who have passed and I desperately miss, sending me very similar psychic postcards from the hereafter.Įverything is fine up here now / … / And Syd says hello / I’ve got so many new friends up here / I’m going to have to go… The last song on the album it’s an almost accidental masterpiece.ĭedicated to Pat Fish (The Jazz Butcher) Pete says of the song: I thought of him looking down on us from his version of heaven, and typically, telling us that all was well. More recently I noticed his big feet bringing the Fine and Dandyvideo to your attention. I reviewed his One For The Ghost album back in 2018 and it was only half as good as this one. A nurse and a barmaid crop up so that it’s not a total boys club.) (Doctors, priests and undertakers all appear in the lyrics multiple times, as do Jesus, Johnny Thunders, Kevin Ayers and Buddha. It’s sad, maudlin, introspective yet funny, warm and uplifting – a collection of songs centred around death, ghosts and memory. Plus, he has made this beautiful album, Time On Earth, probably my favourite of 2022 so far. He’s a brilliant songwriter, has a lovely, relaxed voice and I like his new black-framed Two Ronnies glasses far more than those awful clear-framed Warhol ones he wore a few years back. I have a bit of a man-crush on Pete Astor, after being only a casual admirer for many years. When your best friend can’t remember your name And THIS is the best thing he has ever done, says Ged Babey, but I would have called it Happy Death Songs Vol 1. He is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Westminster. His solo career since then has seen him releasing music on labels including Matador, Heavenly, Warp, EMI and Fortuna Pop. He led Creation Records’ groups The Loft and The Weather Prophets and helped define the sound of the label and the emerging Indie genre. Pete Astor is a musician, writer and educator.
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