Crawl

I hope like me you're enjoying the weekly chronological trawl through through the complete singles back catalogue of The Wedding Present over at The Vinyl Villain, an indie goldmine each Sunday courtesy of JC. A couple of Sundays ago JC reached the 1990s, the group's move to a major label and the beginning of their recording relationship with Steve Albini. JC wrote about The Wedding Present's twelfth single, a three song 12" single titled 3 Songs, led by the A-side Corduroy and coupled with a pair of B-sides, Crawl and a cover of Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile). 

Last weekend I found myself in a second record shop and while rifling through the 12" section, nestled among a very random selection of records, I found the 3 Songs 12". I didn't buy it back in 1990, having drifted out of Gedge world after Bizarro (I loved George Best and Tommy, the Nobody's Twisting Your Arm and Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now singles and then followed them to RCA with Kennedy and Brassneck but there were a lot of records competing for my student grant in 1990 and something had to give). I have done some catching up since but my Wedding Present collection is by no means complete. 

Until I read JC's post the weekend before I'd never heard Crawl, a song that had been floating around for the intervening thirty four years unheard. I was familiar with the Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel cover but not Crawl. At his post JC said that many Wedding Present fans have Crawl high up on their lists of all time favourite songs and the comment section confirmed this. 

Crawl

Crawl is wonderful, acoustic and electric guitars crashing in, Gedge in growly form and the band building as the song goes on, Keith's bass grinding and pushing, drums thumping and the guitars piling up before everything breaks apart at the end. Having heard and loved the song via JC's post, picking up the 12" for £4.00 was not a difficult decision to make, so thirty four years after first seeing the 12" in the racks it now resides in my record collection.