http://mireflejosonoro.blogspot.com/
A fascinating tracklist - some old ones, some vinyl only tracks, a couple alternate takes, and a song I'm unfamiliar with (This King Business). Sounds like an essential purchase. Just have to learn how to do that now.....
1: Watching Charlie's Angels
There was a period of time when I had no job and no schoolwork. I used to get up every day at noon and watch Charlie's Angels in my green dressing gown. They were repeating the original series on English television, and the song refers to this and not the recent film version with Cameron Diaz in. I am thinking of Farah Fawcett era Charlie's Angels here. Perhaps I would summon up enough energy to prepare myself a bowl of cereal during the advert break. This sounds like a depressive period of my life, but it wasn't. I like having nothing to do and I like doing nothing.
2: Time To Leave Town
This was an extraordinary recording session. The piano was upstairs, in the Duke of Uke ukelele shop in East London, the recording studio was downstairs, underneath the shop. So Franic and Jonny played their drums and bass down there, and I played and sang up above them. Long cables, snaking down the stairs, linked us together. It's a live take, but recorded on two floors. The song was written many years earlier, when I worked as a labourer on a building site. That job gave me plenty of time to think. It was hard on my body but my mind was unoccupied. I wrote this song very quickly in my lunch hour, probably because I had been thinking about it all morning, and then went back to work.
3: Our Perfect Lovers
This song came out of a conversation with Stanley Brinks in which he said 'It's a full time job, to keep a dog happy'. The whole song came from that one sentence that he spoke.
4: Puncture My Pride
One of Franic Rozycki's all time favourite Wave Pictures songs. It sounds bitter, but it isn't.
5: Swimmimg
'I wouldn't suck your dick even if I was drowning and there was oxygen in your balls' - John Waters.
6: If You Leave It Alone
A superior, alternative version of one of my least embarrassing songs to the one we released on our second album.
7: Holding Hands
A very sad song. I always knew it when I was with the wrong person at the wrong time.
8: Hear The Ferries Mooring
Inspired by the film His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant. Now that some time has passed, it is impossible for me to remember what it was about that film that made me write this song. The story in the song is completely different to the one in the film. Sometimes I can't for the life of me remember where these things come from. I would, however, recommend His Girl Friday. Well worth watching.
9: The Worm Inside The Brain
The influence of The Four Brothers, that most magnificent of Zimbabwean guitar bands, shows a little on this one. The lyrics were partially written by a good friend who inexplicably thinks the tune is reminiscent of Jimmy Cliff.
10: I Thought Of You Again
We recorded this again for our 'If You Leave It Alone' album. This is an earlier, more rock and roll version. This song is a rare case; I remain fairly pleased with the lyrics even after singing it several times.
11: I Walked Past Them Sleeping
The image of walking among the sleeping comes directly from Walt Whitman. I think his aspirations were somewhat higher than mine though. He was trying to uncover the commonality of the human experience. I am leaving a girl. I also wanted to allude to the philosophy of The Wave Pictures' approach to making music. I did, but I'm not telling you where, and Jonny and Franic know nothing about it. It's a secret.
12: This King Business
The title of this song comes from a story by Dashiel Hammett. It has the same riff in it as Sister Ray by the Velvets, or Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner, or Breaking In My Heart by Tom Verlaine or.... lots of songs.
13: God Bless The Reverend Gary Davis
Gary Davis is one of my guitar heroes. I love his playing. I love his voice too. This song is for him.
David Tattersall. The Wave Pictures. Hollie Jones