So happy new year! It’s three days in now so my first post but I’ve got two tracks you might like? Or maybe might not? They’re both old songs from the late 80’s but both seem pretty right on and perfect for today.
The Triffids are an Aussie band, if you never heard of them before and if you know them you’ll know that hopefully? Their name came from an old sci fi novel called The Day of The Triffids from the 50’s and the main image is the 60’s movie poster. I’ve been fuckin’ about for the last week or even longer trying to pick out just one records of theirs to write one of my Classic Albums tagged posts about, it was and should have be done last week of last year but I’m still totally undecided?
What’s everyone’s fave Triffids albums/songs? Does everyone know them or not? I guess, I should ask that as well? Anyway I’ve got two song today as an intro if not or to remind you about them, if you not listened for a while. They the band The Triffids have pop up in other pages here before but I think this is the first whole post to themselves. So I guess that’s cool before I choose an album to write about just to pick out a couple of songs. Both of these tracks are from the final record The Black Swan which was going to be a double album but in 1989 it didn’t happen because of the then record label. The mid-2000’s reissue changed all that by issuing it as it was intended to be plus also demos as extras too.
David McComb was the main songwriter and almost sung all the songs but with a couple of his bandmates stepping up to the microphone at times. McComb try and did a lot different things at the time in the recording studio and pretty much got all the songs down but then the final cut was chopped back to a normal album length. It was the last time for The Triffids to entry a recording studio but they put out live album as the final release. He did wanted something like 18 or 19 tracks on a double album but it ended up as 13 back then. The band broken up wasn’t the end, McComb did one solo record and worked with a new band called The Red Ponies and also played with The Blackeyed Susans but then he died in early 1999 so pretty much ten years after The Triffids broken-up.
Since those reissues The Triffids have done some reunion shows with different singers singing McCombs’ words, last year was 30 years since their 1986 masterpiece Born Sandy Devotional so they played a few shows in both Australia and Europe. That’s the album everyone knows if you do know them even had a doco made about it too. I was surprised to see it’s the album called Calenture in that 1001 Albums you should listen to before you die book. I think now I know which one of all the albums I’m going to write more about now! I’ll try a get it started soon and hopefully posted it in the next couple of days, OK?
New Year’s Greetings (The Country Widower) was track ten and Too Hot To Move, Too Hot To Think was the opening song so I’ve got them in the wrong order here but they’re pretty much my faves from The Black Swan album. They’re very Aussie songs on this album, both have have very clear references to the January Aussie summer, well it’s the title of the second song. McComb and The Triffids are original from Perth W.A. and right now here it’s been over 40 degrees for the last couple of days and plus his words could not be more well written, he’s such an underrated songwriter!
New Year’s Greetings (The Country Widower) lyrics
I’ve got a little place to myself up on Stony Ridge
I got it made in the shade
I sleep in the afternoon
Leave my bed unmade
No-one breathing down my neck, black coffee and a shave
I whistle a little of whatever AM radio plays
As for letters and provisions…
Well it’s a long walk to the corner shop
In the January heat, it’s a big decision
To either think of you, or not
I send you a New Year’s Kiss
And I hope you will remember me like this
I got two good arms, one bent leg,
One weekly social security cheque
I can make an honest dollar, but to be quite honest
I can’t keep track of where it went
I’ve got a good black dog, so I don’t need a phone
He can smell bad weather coming in his old dog bones
I don’t need no Eyewitness News, no Seven Eleven
No Southern Fried Chicken, no Man from Prudential
To give me good times on easy terms
No Eyewitness News
And in the evening when the skyline is cut in two
By a figure resembling you
Wet matches won’t light, and I double take
Wind shudders to a halt, main roads are washed out
And all around, as far as the night can see
Is just the gaping lack of you and me
I hear you’re riding a new horse in the sun
Sure hope those Sydney shoeshine boys don’t take you for a run
I still want you back, when it’s all said and done
Let the sky roll back, Let the ground give way
The wind has turned around, The seasons upside down
To either think of you or not
To either think of you or not
Too Hot To Move, Too Hot To Think lyrics
I can hear the timer ringing
I can hear the whistle blow
I can hear the customers, they’re saying
“Yes, it’s time to go home”
Everything has been delivered
Everyone has called it a day
There’s the doorman checking in his pocket
for his weekly pay
And from this window, I can see the street below
I can hear the hit parade on the radio
There’s dirty dishes piling up in the sink
But it’s too hot to move, and it’s too hot to think
Outside the dog is growling
In a dark and hollow tone
He’ll be going out tonight, there’s nothing here
to make him stay at home
I can hear the baby crying
Listen… Mama’s crying too
No-one gets much sleeping done
till they’ve been crying through and through
a1000mistakes 