Forty Five Minutes Of Teenage Fanclub

A few weeks ago I was suddenly struck by the urge to hear a load of Teenage Fanclub and I binged on them for a couple of days. They wrote some of the best guitar songs of the 90s and their sound the guitars and triple songwriters and lead vocalists- set them apart from most of their peers. I got on board with Bandwagonesque (but was already familiar with A Catholic Education via housemates) and then followed them through the 90s before drifting away from them some time in the 00s but from A Catholic Education, Bandwagonesque, Grand Prix and Songs From Northern Britain they rarely put a foot wrong. They really nailed that Glasgow indie via 60s and 70s America thing and a lot of their songs carry an emotional heft too. Big Star were often referenced by the music press in the early 90s but I think the Fannies have taken as much influence from Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Love and The Byrds as Big Star. Anyway, the Sunday mix series came calling for them and here it is, forty minutes of Teenage Fanclub songs, sequenced together, one running into another like a dream TFC gig but with no gaps between the songs.

Forty Five Minutes Of Teenage Fanclub

• Don't Look Back (Have Lost It Version)
• Star Sign
• Everything Flows
• It's A Bad World
• Ain't That Enough
• Alcoholiday
• I Don't Know
• Sparky's Dream
• Planets
• The Concept
• Don't Look Back

In 1995 Teenage Fanclub released a 7" single titled Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It with acoustic versions of four songs, one from each of their then four albums. As well as acoustic guitars there are organs, recorders, sampled sounds, melodica and banjo- much more than just the songs done on acoustic guitars. Gerald Love's Don't Look Back, a genuine TFC and 90s guitar band peak, opened the EP. The singing and playing are glorious and the lyrics beautifully romantic, 'I'd steal a car to drive you home/ But don't look back on an empty feeling'.

Star Sign is from Bandwagonesque, released in November 1991 (on the same day as Screamadelica and Loveless- Creation really cleaned up). Star Sign fades in with guitar amp feedback, Neil Young style, and then explodes, drummer Brendan O'Hare thumping away, Gerald (again) singing and shrugging, 'big deal... seen it all before'. Alcoholiday is from the same record, a gloriously fucked, end of a love affair song.  I Don't Know is Raymond McGinley's sole Bandwagonesque song. The Concept opened Bandwagonesque, a Norman Blake masterpiece about being in a band and a girl. The freak out coda is pure Neil Young. 

Everything Flows is from 1990's A Catholic Education, the band's sound ragged, looser and darker, borrowing more from US 80s indie punk (Sonic Youth, Pixies et al), proto- grunge than their later 60s sound. Norman sings and writes, admitting to a very turn of the 90s aimlessness.

It's A Bad World is from 1997's Songs From Northern Britain, pound for pound and song for song their best album. Every song could be a single. There was a time in the late 90s when we were waiting for Isaac to have a bone marrow transplant to treat the rare genetic condition he was born with, a wait to find a matching donor that seemed to go on for months. I would drive home listening to either Songs For Northern Britain or Primal Scream's XLRTR and certain songs really, really struck me, they were almost too much. Raymond McGinley's It's A Bad World was one of them- the triple harmonies, crunchy guitars, Neil Young lead line and love lorn lyrics hit me hard and it really did feel like it was a bad world. A beautifully sung bad world. Ain't That Enough is from the same album, its first single and a wide eyed look at the world and its wonders. Planets saw them look up and add strings to the mix- it seems very at odds with 1995's hedonism- 'we're going over the country/ Into the highlands/ To look for a home'. 

Sparky's Dream is from 1995's Grand Prix, released at the height of Britpop, a sugar coated pure pop rush. Don't Look Back was also in its original form on Grand Prix and takes us back where we started, those chugging Big Star guitar chords and harmonies and the driving into the sunset lyrics that marry euphoria and loss- don't look on an empty feeling.