Prozac and Whimsy

Drunk late last weekend I skeeted (remember the rule here)
Am I drunk? yes
Is my marriage over? Also yes
Is Telegraph Road the best song ever written even though it’s FOURTEEN minutes long?
Maybe, possibly, I dunnon(sic)

In the gloom of another drab February morning as I write this with the same song on again, the only thing that has changed is I am sober. Me and my wife are separating. I am trying to find somewhere to live that is close, available quickly, within my budget (please buy mugs, buy lots and lots of mugs) Feels safe and Telegraph Road is still a great song.

There was a very generous outpouring of support and condolences, none of which I feel like I deserve because of the mess I have made and am continuing to make. But two replies that really caught my eye and I have thought about a lot since said “Some of my favourite songs are ridiculous lengths. Songs last as long as they have to!” and “14 minutes is a small price to pay for the right song.”
With thanks to @colinwmd & @robonabike respectively (go follow them!)

So let’s talk length! My favourite short song is Short Attention Span by The Fizzy Bangers (as found on Short Music For Short People, a 1999 Fat Wreck Chords compilation of 101 bands doing 30 second songs) This comes in at 7 seconds. Anyone who tells you they enjoy You Suffer by Napalm Death is lying to you. It’s not a song it’s a gimmick, it’s a gag. Napalm Death are The Sugarbabes of metal… or are The Sugarbabes the Napalm Death of pop?

Sorry I got distracted there for a moment. It happens a lot, especially of late and that is the beauty of a short song. They rattle by, the squirrel that lives in my head goes YAY! And then something new happens for me to look at briefly before something new happens again.

But a long song lets you live in it. It takes you by the hand and leads you places. They may not always be places you want to go, but laying and letting it all wash over you is one of the many, many things that I love about music. Drunkenly laying and letting it all wash over you is one of the many many things that I love about life.

My favourite long song is… I typed that out with such confidence and then sat here for a good long while debating it with myself. Is it the technical loop hole of Tao Of The Dead Part One by And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead? It is 11 tracks coming in at 35:50 BUT the limited edition release (that I obviously bought) has it as one take and a continuous piece of music. Is it the equally sketchy cheat of Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-9 done all in one go from off of the 50 year anniversary of Wish You Were Here? Is it the 20 minutes of building tension and pressure of My Father My King?

And the answer, boringly, is it depends. While writing the above paragraph I listened to the first two of those and Mogwai are currently going through the gears five minutes in. It depends on what you need at the time. I needed Telegraph Road last weekend. I found comfort in it from the memory of my dad playing it when I was a kid. Looking back he was clearly struggling and not knowing how to deal with any of it because it was the 80s and 90s. On NYE I needed Shine On You Crazy Diamond, I was drunk and the future was coming at me fast and I found comfort in it.

Today I need Mogwai. The wordless calmness breaking and then the tension building and building. The same riff repeated over and over and over and over until it is almost unrecognisable. Today I need noise and I need a noise I don’t really have to think about. I need something to drown out the chaos and panic in my head that isn’t slowing but I can occasionally grasp at now. So today. Today the greatest long song is My Father My King by Mogwai.