Song of the Week - 'Gathering Dust'

This track is lifted from the second Eisenhowers album. Musically, it is heavily influenced by great British pop, specifically the Kinks and XTC. The rhythm section – Ross Morgan and Fraser Sneddon- is solid throughout, with Ross also providing some nifty percussion work. Emma Jane’s chirpy backing vocals contrast nicely with the rather caustic tone of the lyric.   

The song dwells on cynicism and self-regard, inspired by an ugly conversation held at a party in the wee small hours of the morning. The central character is a person who has become so cynical and jaded that he has all but ceased to engage with the world. He’s the kind of guy who creeps around Facebook hoping to find that his former friends and acquaintances are now divorced, bankrupt and selling the Big Issue.   

You might well conclude that the moral of the story is that you shouldn’t get involved in late-night conversations with miserable singer-songwriters. Not unless, that is, you have no problem with your drunken remarks being woven into songs that literally quite a few people might hear.  

Gathering Dust

  

 

Song of the Week - 'South of Love'

As we approach the festive season, this might qualify as rather a topical song.  It's a jaunty little acoustic number that pokes fun at the guy who leaves the office party with a swagger in his step, believing his aftershave aroma to be rather more impressive than it actually is.  

We’d probably want to avoid this guy, perhaps because –in the wrong circumstances- we might well be this guy.  Listen out for a modest little Beatles homage at the end. Let’s hope Yoko and her lawyers aren’t listening.

South of Love 

Song of the week - 25 o'clock

This week’s song is ’25 o’clock’, taken from the first Eisenhowers album. 

It represents something of a brief assault on the senses, crammed as it is with retro synths, a disco bassline, crashing powerchords and harmonies straight out of the Beatles songbook. The original demo started off sounding a bit like Squeeze impersonating the Rutles, but once we started to kick the song around in rehearsals, wiser council prevailed. We eventually settled on this slightly retro (but hopefully not cheesy) arrangement, with Ronan Breslin contributing the synth (complete with mad solo), while Paul Gray and Billy Devine cook up a storm in the rhythm section.      

The lyric is about two people trying to inhabit a private space away from all notions of personal responsibility. The line “You learn from experience that you don’t learn much from experience” is key to illustrating the folly of dwelling in the kind of fantasy world conjured up by the self-deluding losers in this song. Incidentally, there is no thematic link between this piece and the rather fine Dukes of Stratosphear song of the same name.

The image is provided by Adrian Swancar at Unsplash.com.

25 o'clock