Greetings The Shambles (I’m trying to actually use that now – we agreed on it like a year ago and then forgot. We are all The Shambles. Like a mass of disorganised, beautiful mess).
Now this is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I know we sporadically release episodes, blog posts and even wildly off-topic content in a manner that can only really be described as ‘havocly’ (spellchecker says this is not a word – it has now been added to my dictionary so in a way I’ve rewritten…history?) but I really want to do something regular and reliable for you guys. Some day this will be episodes and a youtube channel, I hope, but until such a time comes this will have to do. Think of this as a trial period of us adhering to some kind of schedule.
So WHAT IT IS is this – a song. Every day (every day? Yeah sure why not). And it’s not going to be something we’ve written (it might sometimes but that isn’t really the point – plus my job is writing songs and it takes ages, I spent a month co-writing a song-a-day two years ago and it almost ended me).
We’ve hinted at our music taste before on the podcast, and we sometimes tweet about it or whatever it is you kids are doing these days with your iPads and casual sex, but this is about our actual tastes and why.
Every day one of us will post a song (most likely a youtube link) that is either excellent or awful or weird or exciting or hugely depressing or enormously invigorating or…well basically anything. It will be a song that we have listened to that day and feels right to post about and share it with you guys. Maybe you’ll find a new band you love, or a new artist you hate, but either way it’s something we can all do together – and that’s going to be fucking lovely. I even want you guys to get involved and suggest things, or perhaps more importantly decide on a name for whatever this is. I have suggested Songshambles or Shambletracks, but that is primarily because I’m a rare combination of stubborn, lazy and impressionable.
So here we go.
It only seems right to start with one of my favourite songs of all time. It’s called ‘If You’d Seen A Battlefield‘ and it’s by Youthmovies. Expect to hear a fair bit of Youthmovies, as they are one of those bands that totally changed me. The album IYSAB is from is called Good Nature, and it is genuinely exceptional. I went to the final ever Youthmovies show on March 27th 2010 in Oxford and I cried. I cried like a wuss at an onion farm. I really hope you like it.
‘It’s not going well and it’s not going badly – It’s just going‘. Absolutely perfect.
Until next time,
Paddy XX
Thanks for these kind words Paddy. It’s really nice to hear that that our band meant so much to you!
It’s such a pleasure dude – you guys to this day stand as one of my all time favourites. It’s lovely to hear from you! Are you still Oxford based? Hopefully see you next time I’m back with Wally at the Star or something? X