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Rating: On your copy of "The Week Never Starts Round Here" there was a decent layer of dust, and somehow that made you quite happy, it was a good sign. But for a few days now it's been wiped off completely, the CD has been back in the player after a long time, and you have come to the realization that it is truly over. So it's just as well to write a few lines to sublimate the frustration and guilt.
A sort of concept album about the transitory and inherently failing nature of every romantic relationship, upon reflection "The Week Never Starts Round Here" is an irredeemably "ugly" record, in the aesthetic sense of the term: improvised, inconsistent, and cacophonous, filled with an indolence that would have depressed even Bukowski. A shocking debut record.
Love, as we have become accustomed to calling it, is stripped of any romantic embellishment, and everything is reduced to relationships between men and women made of irrational outbursts, affections, grudges, silences, and misunderstandings. And sex: that "dirty", sudden, and passionate one, and the much more frequent, mechanical, and habitual one.
Perhaps before then, no one had set this whirlpool of situations to music in such a raw and immediate way; Arab Strap would do it from then on for ten years to come, breaking conventions and taboos. And if in subsequent albums the musical structures became more solid and complete, making the listening much more accessible, here even that aspect is missing, and everything appears terribly bare and disjointed.
"Coming Down" sounds like Mogwai before Mogwai (the two bands collaborated closely during that period, and their respective debuts are almost contemporaneous) and opens an album that is heavily influenced by post-rock atmospheres that were already in vogue in those years.
Songs that lay down the seminal structures of Arab Strap's music between pseudo-acoustic ballads ("Wasting") and the early crossovers of folk-rock, electronic tones, and noise ("The Clearing"), which would later become one of the constants of the band's work.
All conceived as a soundtrack for stories of ordinary existential squalor of a generation that has flushed down the drain myths and ideologies and lives its everyday life disenchanted in front of a wet and sticky beer counter; a rigidly male universe for which the other half of the sky represents a battlefield, sometimes rather hypothetical, for new and old conquests, which almost always turn out to be not very glorious, especially after achieving them. A lucid awareness of how improbable feelings are, among the sensations crowding in as you bury your face between a woman's legs or in the bittersweet discomfort of premature ejaculation. The apology of a life philosophy that seems to find a moment of serenity only in the practice of idle fooling around for its own sake ("The First Big Weekend"), made of stray wanderings and collective alcoholic devastations; that deliberately shuns any assumption of responsibility, whether it be an accidental pregnancy ("Kate Moss") or preparing a drink that is too exotic ("I Work in a Saloon"). That sordid side in each of us that we fool ourselves into thinking we have tamed forever, but which then takes over again when we are left alone with the shards of an ego to piece back together.
"I'll walk through this world making little girls happy. But not you, no, not you". Perhaps just silly poses from improbable ladies' men: but we all know how, in certain moments, they do good to the soul and one's wounded pride.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Coming Down (03:34)
Make me reflective, introspective
Make me the violence, and explain my silence.
Cause it's never too late to fill me with hate...
So pull away, go, make me look cool.
And she looks best, sunday mornings, coming down.
So what will I achieve, and who should I believe.
I lick her slit, as it tightens it's grip.
My drugged up kiss. so hey, have something else.
Its hard to conceal the way I feel.
And she looks best, sunday mornings, coming down.
It seems that some wanker makes her darker
Sights her hair.
02 The Clearing (05:52)
Oh, she always used to be the same.
She'd be loose with a straight dark facial frame.
And now the things that used to turn me off, I find endearing.
And they laugh behind the trees and she lays naked in the clearing.
I adore, but I ignore her.
See, I know it won't last as I reflect upon my past.
But on severance she makes no difference.
There's things I won't let her know, as we're perfecting our show..
I won't ignore her - I think I'll phone her.
I can't explore her if I ignore her.
And now the things that used to turn me off I find endearing.
And they laugh behind the trees as she lies naked in the clearing.
But she won't beckon - is what I reckon.
She might adore me, but she'll ignore me.
Tell them to show there, and we get nowhere.
She loves my snoring, so it never get's boring.
She always used to be the same.
She'd be loose with with a straight dark facial frame.
And now the things that use to turn me off, I find endearing.
And they laugh behind the trees and she lays naked in the clearing.
03 Driving (02:10)
I was awake I overheard your speech.
My ego dried and sank.
Talked with your ex and we agreed
Thought of your sister helped us wank.
I'm sure you know that I have fancied her since she began high school.
But back in then, and I will promise I will let your engine cool.
I have matured, I've come of age, my visions clear.
But there's still some things that I don't want to hear.
And I know that it was probably just those e's, but be a bit more thoughtful next time, please.
While I'm alive, well, I just drive.
Each time I scored I just got bored.
And that's no bollocks ... I am just a slut.
08 The First Big Weekend (04:52)
So that was the first big weekend of the summer...
Starts Thursday as usual with the canteen quiz and again no-one wins the big cash prize.
Later I do my sound Bloke routine by approaching Gina's new boyfriend to say that he shouldn't feel that there's any animosity between us and then I even go and make peace with her Shouldn't have bothered.
Then on Friday night we went through to the Arches...
There was only one car going so some of us had to get the train. We got through quite late. Then we went to a pub to take the gear.
There was no problems getting in - we saw some others waiting down the front of the queue so we skipped in.
It was a good night - everyone was nutted and I ended up dancing with some blonde girl.
I thought she had been quite pretty until last night when Matthew informed me that she had, in fact, been a pig.
When the club finished we wandered the streets for a while until we got to this 24-hour cafe.
I didn't like the look of it so we left and got a taxi back to Morag's flat.
I couldn't sleep so I sat about drinking someone else's strawberry tonic wine and tried to keep everyone else up.
Then at ten o'clock in the morning we went downstairs to buy some drink. We had intended to watch the football in the afternoon but we'd passed out by then and slept right through it, awaking to find that England had won two-nil.
Then we went to get the train home and had a few in the Station bar.
We had some stuff left from the previous night's supplies so when we got home we decided to go down to John's indie disco.
Same story as Friday - lots of hugging, lots of dancing etc. etc.
I couldn't sleep again so went to the park to look at the toon, taking a detour through the playpark.
To get in we had to climb over a ten foot steel fence, which resulted in severe bruising of our hands, legs and groins, but we had a good laugh on the stuff, especially the tube-slide, which probably doubles up as a urinal for drunk teens.
Then we walked through the woods to have a look at the toon. Big disappointment, but the mist on the lake was cool.
Sunday afternoon we go up to John's with a lot of beer in time to watch the Simpsons - it was a really good episode about love always ending in tragedy except, of course, for Marge and Homer. It was quite moving at the end and to tell you the truth my eyes were a bit damp.
Then we watched these young girls in swimsuits have a water fight in the street.
We went up to the pub about ten.
It was busy for a Sunday night, lots of people we know, including my first ever girlfriend who I still find very attractive, quite frankly, but I didn't really speak to her
She's probably still a bitch, anyway.
Her friend Gillian was there, I had a chat with her, she was still quite pleasant.
At the same time I watched Malcolm make some terrible attempt to try and chat up a girl we know called Jo. He made some remark about her skirt that was barely there the previous night or something.
I couldn't sleep again that night, thanks to some seriously disturbing nightmares...Matthew says I should cut down on the cheese.
"Went out for the weekend, it lasted for ever, high with our friends it's officially summer".
I got some sleep eventually on Monday afternoon.
It was a beautiful day, and later that evening Malcolm introduced me to the power of Merrydown - ⌦㔲㬰1.79 a litre, 8.2% - mmmm.....
Judith and Laura came round later and we sat in my back garden and drank.
Then Matthew came round and we went up the town.
It's officially summer.
09 Kate Moss (04:49)
Don't try and tell me kate moss ain't pretty.
Don't try and make me believe.
Don't try to force me to let you boss me when I'm pretending to leave.
I knew that you could ruin my good mood.
That's exactly what you've done.
We sat there silent ,you got violent.
Going out with you used to be fun.
You're getting colder, no doubt you've told her
I've just come past.
Does she know maybe, you're having a baby?
I think it's about time you did that test.
You know I'll miss you when I can't kiss you.
You know I don't want us to split.
Now I must say it's going that way.
You're always bored and full of shit.
12 Blood (02:53)
I wish it was someone elses blood on the jonnie.
It's in my mouth and under my nails.
I wish I'd woken up in someone elses bed.
Wish I was the wind in someone elses sails.
I've no-one in particular in mind right now.
It was inevitable we'd end up in the sack.
I should have known you'd want to try again.
But I'm looking forward now
I'm not stepping back.
My last lover's playing with a new man now.
It's only three weeks we've been apart.
They sat together and he sent her flowers.
Well he can f**king keep that fickle disco tart.
'cause I've had it up to here with little girls.
She looked ugly today day, smoking her fag.
Just like a schoolgirl trying to look grown-up.
Now I'm looking for a woman but I'll settle for a shag.
13 Deeper (07:35)
I'd been at my friend's house for dinner. My mum wanted me home early so I said I'd better go home. His sister said she was going anyway so she could walk me some of the way. And she knew a shortcut through the woods. She had long black hair, green eyes. I wish my friends could have seen me. We seemed to get on well on the way, considering the age gap. She was nineteen and I was almost fifteen.
She stopped by the river, And asked me to go swimming. I was a bit embarrased. I said no. But she said she would anyway, stepped back, and stripped. The sun was beginning to set, as she slipped into the water. And when she was in she kept teasing me, so I gave in. But I kept my pants on. The water was warmer than I'd expected. We swam around and played. She would push me under the water. I could feel her legs against mine underneath. She'd hold my arm. We must've been in about an hour.
I got out first. I leaned against a tree and put my trousers back on And then she got out of the river and walked towards me. She put her hands on the tree above my head and Pushed herself against me, and leaned down and kissed me. I don't know how long it lasted. Then she stepped back and bundled up her clothes and said "I'm sure you can find your own way from here". I ran back along the path. I was late home and I gave my mum some excuse. She believed it. Then the next day at school whenMy friend invited me round for dinner again I said 'No'.
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