Milestones # 2: The Blue Aeroplanes – Swagger
Wow. This was a tough one. I didn’t know which songs to leave off.
During my time on the bridge of the Starship Toad, I’ve been pushing my luck a little bit by including three songs in my posts instead of Matthew’s usual two. This is just because I’m an indecisive bugger. Never go to dinner with me if you want to order in a hurry.
So I was utterly at a loss when trying to decide which songs to leave off my post for The Blue Aeroplanes’ 1990 masterpiece; Swagger; the second of my ever so self-indulgent ‘Milestones’ series, and the album that first suggested to me I might be interested in music slightly off the beaten path.
Nevertheless, I eventually whittled the album down to three songs. Although I’ve cheated there too, but more of that later*. Let’s start with the some of the gems that didn’t make the cut.
For some reason I haven’t included the album’s stunning opener Jacket Hangs. It really is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard in the side one, track one position. It’s up there with REM’s Begin The Begin from Lifes Rich Pageant. First to arrive are the heavy, low, overdriven notes of the nagging guitar riff that drives the song along. Then, for the first time, we hear Gerard Langley’s unusual, staccato but rhythmic spoken-word delivery. “Pick a card..” Langley suggests, “Any card”, then the drums explode to life to the singer’s triumphant announcement: “Wrong!” This is a song heavy enough to have been wrought in a foundry, but with a deftness of touch in the guitar work and a shuffling groove to the rhythm. It’s fantastic. And I left it off.
What It Is is another that didn’t make the cut. It’s a dark, brooding number. Guitar riffs glow and glimmer and pass in the darkness. Langley’s vocal performance swings from the louche to the tortured and back. It’s terrifying and wonderful. For fuck’s sake; this song has Michael fucking Stipe on backing vocals and I didn’t include it here! What am I thinking?
I left off one of Rodney Allen’s best efforts; Careful Boy. Allen played guitar in The Blue Aeroplanes, and was about 16 years old when Swagger came out. He was also a fine songwriter in his own right, and regularly throughout the band’s career, Gerard Langley would take a backseat for a song or two here and there, and allow Allen to take the spotlight; Allen’s sweet singing voice juxtaposing with Langley’s spoken incantations. Unfortunately you won’t get to hear Rodney Allen today, and that’s a shame.
I could go on and talk about World View Blue’s engaging stop-start chorus, or the eerie pagan folk sorcery of Cat Scan Hist’ry, or even the cheerful rock n’ roll of Love Come Round. All fine songs and deserving of a place here.
So what did make it? Well, these three. And bloody hell, they’re good.
The Blue Aeroplanes – Anti-Pretty
The Blue Aeroplanes – Your Ages
The Blue Aeroplanes – Weightless …And Stones
*Weightless and …And Stones are actually two songs, but they join up in the middle. So they’re one song really. Kind of. It’s worth giving me a little bit of leeway here so you can get to hear the bit where they join up, and the astonishing guitar work that links the two songs together. The guitarist is a chap called Angelo Bruschini. I think he’s nearly as good as Newton Faulkner.
