One Perfect Song is an ongoing series in which I highlight a song that always grabs my attention when I hear it.
Previously on One Perfect Song:
Today’s Song: 1967, I Miss You, I'm Lonely by Martha, from their 2014 album Courting Strong
Ahh, Martha1. Everyone’s favorite band from Pity Me2, Durham.
I went back and forth between writing this post or going the “bootleg greatest hits” route. Ultimately I went with this as it leaves the door open for a greatest hits down the road, which makes more sense for a band that is still a going concern and will release more albums.
Also, this is the absolute stand out hit song from Courting Strong3, and possibly from their entire back catalog, and deserves it’s own deep dive…so hit play and the video link below and grab your scuba gear.
An All-Time Great Lyric
“When I invited Frank and you / back to mine for a mange tout / When I meant ménage à trois / You laughed so hard you cracked your chin against the bar
Here we have a couple of lines that are hilarious and self-deprecating in a very Martha way and just as easily seems like the kind of thing that could have happened or could just be a really good quip?
I have no idea if this is intentional or not, but it also plays into a long tradition in British humour4, which is characters butchering the French language. It’s surprising how much mileage has been gotten from misunderstandings that occur due to a lack of familiarity with a language of a country (France) that is closer to England than most states in the US are to each other.
Perhaps the most infamous butcher of the French language in British pop-culture? Derek “Del Boy” Trotter (David Jason) the romantic lead/loveable buffoon/dodgy dealer that starred in the iconic BBC comedy Only Fools And Horses for 30+ years. His problems with the French language were a running gag for the entire run of the show. As with our Martha lyric here, mange tout was a particular Del Boy favorite and really what made me think of him in the first place.
But wait, there’s more Del Boy within this lyric. The you cracked your chin against the bar line makes me think of a prat-fall for the ages and what is probably the most famous moment in 20th Century British Comedy.
Aside from Del Boy, there’s also Officer Crabtree from Allo, Allo a British sitcom from the 1980s set in WW2-era France, in which the French characters speak in accented English (roughly equivalent to a Francophone speaking in English), as compared to an English spy posing as a French mail carrier (Officer Crabtree) who speaks in incorrectly accented English (roughly equivalent to the typical failure of an Anglophone to correctly use a French accent when speaking French.) His greeting of “good moaning” (good morning) is another cornerstone of British comedy history.
Sidebar: Allo, Allo has to be the horniest tv show to ever be considered family friendly. Rene, the lead, is always on the verge of being caught out by his wife while shagging one of the waitresses that work for him, every other line is reference to some kind of double entendre, the German officers are all very into BDSM (yes, there are Nazis as comedy figures, that’s a whole other essay) and the central plot device of the whole show is a stolen painting of “the Fallen Madonna with the big boobies”.
Every Element of Martha, Perfectly Combined
Well, that was a longer detour into the history of British comedy than I had originally planned. Let’s get back on track and talk about why this is such a killer song and why it may also be the perfect example of a Martha song.
First, the vocals: a typical Martha song is probably going to have multiple vocalists and is definitely going to have multiple part harmonies. Here on 1967…, we have verses sung by 2 members; on top of that we have two-part harmonies, three-part harmonies and the full band four-part harmony.
The seeming ease with which these vocal parts and associated harmonizing can be handed off between members is perhaps more than anything else the ‘secret sauce’ in this band. Everyone’s voice is great and everyone’s voice compliments everyone else’s voice. That’s a fucking superpower - as is being able to arrange and record it all so expertly5. Oh, and this might just be me, but there’s something about these harmonies being sung with the Durham accent that makes it all even better.
If you want to study all of this vocal work and harmony handoffs in detail (as I did to write this) then the live version from this set recorded at Granada Studios is basically the perfect tape to study. You also get to really appreciate the “Phil Collins shit” happening on the drum set, as Nathan is both holding down the whole endeavor with the propulsive drum parts AND singing over it all. You love to see it.
I don’t want to breeze over the rest of the musicianship here, but in many ways there’s the least to talk about with the guitar, bass and drums. Fundamentally this is a very good but particularly showy band, at least in the way the (non-voice) instruments are used and the way those instruments interact. This is not jazz, prog, psych or math-rock, after all. They stick to the “pop-punk” fundamentals, there’s usually a brief but fully shredding guitar solo in there that is somehow both showy/not showy at the same time and the songs don’t overstay their welcome.
And you know what? There’s more to say about the lyrics, not just for this song, but across their discography. I think I might have finally proved false my much asserted position that “lyrics are the least important part of a song”. Maybe that’s a spectrum and it applies more to some bands than others; I think its just that in this case, that when the vocals and harmonies are the star of the show, that maybe the lyrics are elevated in a way they aren’t for other bands where some other element (say riffs, drum parts, or hypnotic jams) are the star of the show?
More than that, this band just really knows how to use their lyrics to tell a story. The North East of England (one of the few parts of England that I like!) is traditional working class territory, and hence (in my experience) likely to be part of a strong tradition of storytelling, oral tradition and folk music. Is Martha folk music in a genre sense? No, but do they make me think about many of the colliding elements of the folk and culture that I experienced in the North West of England? They certainly do.
More than that Martha juxtapose the mundane everyday elements of life with humour and an intellectual curiosity in a way that almost no one else I’ve ever heard does. Ultimately, this combination of elements, helps me - a person historically turned off by lyrics that are overly vulnerable, sadsack-y and/or earnest - not feel turned off by the earnestness and vulnerability being expressed throughout their discography6.
Case in point, 1967… is a song that I assume to be about a long distance romance7. On it’s own merits, I miss you/I’m lonely could be the exact kind of sad sack message that I’m not looking for in a “rock song”; but presented as it is, surrounded by talk of famous football8 games, art museums, poetry references and that all time great ménage a trois/mange tout line, it’s no longer really all that sad. It’s fun, it’s propulsive, it makes you want to sing along with them and it’s basically a perfect pop song.
Martha, you wizards, you made me re-evaluate my entire relationship with lyrics in rock music.
PS - Martha has two new 7” singles out this month. Check out their Bandcamp page or either label to listen/buy them. The first one rules and is shared below for ease of access.
PPS - True story: I flew to Chicago in 2018, primarily to see friends but it was timed so we could go and watch Martha play live at the Logan Square Auditorium. I had never seen them play live. I got sick with food poisoning almost as soon as we got off the train from O’Hare and I spent the next 48 hours throwing up. The original Dirtnap Fest that was cancelled in 2020 in Madison was supposed to be my Martha make good. (They were unable to make the rescheduled 2022 version.) Suffice to say, I’ve still never seen them play live.
PPS - June is Dirtnap Records month over here at Negative Progression. We’ve got this Martha piece today, I’ll be in Madison, WI next week celebrating the 22nd anniversary party/festival and have made a special Marked Men themed ‘zine for the occasion. I’m thinking the next post will probably be a Dirtnap 22nd Anniversary Party Scene Report. Until then, here’s a different kind of Scene Report.
Not to be confused with another beloved Martha, the most tragic figure we encounter in my favorite TV show, The Americans.
One of those places that exist in the UK where you can’t quite believe its really called that but also if you were making up a fake town name you’d throw it out for being too on the nose.
As an aside, the cover photo for Courting Strong is perfect and I’m pretty sure a photo of me at the same age would look basically the same, including the background as well as the haircut and clothes.
Worth noting here, this is British comedy circa 1980/90s, so it is very much like the country from which comes: at “best” xenophobic without active malice, at worst fully racist, misogynistic and malicious. I don’t want to imply that the member of Martha, whose politics are pretty clearly stated, endorse any of that archaic humor. It just made me think of it all, given that I was exposed to it as a child (as I assume they also were.)
A shout out to the production of all the Martha records too, for nailing the vocal parts so well. I’m sure the band had a large part in that, but while the statement Produced by MJ at Suburban Home, will forever remain mired in the controversy surrounding MJ, it will also likely forever stand the test of time as a guarantee of sonic quality.
An example of earnestness that is a turnoff? How about the Saddle Creek records discography.
If I’m right about the long distance thing, then this statement might sound phoney is also a fun joke about talking on the phone? (phone-y?)
Soccer, not gridiron, for the Americans readers.