I’ve been buying recently a fair amount of second-hand stuff on Discogs and I’ll often add a few things in if the seller is one of those who offers a deal on postage for multiple items, and as such I recently picked up a 12″ copy of These Early Days for the first time. I’ll call you Jimmy, they call you James. I’ll call you Jimmy, they call you James So pay no mind to those who say the world is unkind – You’re only two and I’ve no wish to worry you, Though you may weary of this vale of tears – It doesn’t stay that way, if I could I’d make stay that way.

You’re only two and the whole wild world revolves around you,Īnd nothing happened yet that you might ever wish to forget. The infant James will now, all being well, be in his mid-30s and I wonder if he looks back on the song with a sense of awe that he could be immortalised in such a way It’s a wonderfully emotive and hopeful lyric, written (I assume) to celebrate a nephew coming into the extended family. Mp3: Everything But The Girl – These Early Days As is often the case, the record label issued one of the album’s best songs as the lead-off single, and it’s one which encapsulates that easy-listening vibe I referred to at the start of this post:. Idlewild, as I said earlier, was the fourth studio album and like its predecessors, would sell enough copies (500,000) to qualify for a gold disc from the British Phonographic Industry. It was EBTG’s first, long overdue Top 20 single and it seemed as it would be a one-off until seven years later with the move into the dance/club sounds and the Todd Terry remix of Missing, provided a second visit to the heights of the singles charts.ĭespite the lack of success on the 45s front, EBTG were popular with the record-buying public. Worth mentioning in passing that this is a song that is famous/infamous in the UK when Rod Stewart‘s version was #1 in the summer of 1977 but sales figures are strongly rumoured to have been rigged to prevent God Save The Queen by The Sex Pistols being top of the charts. It was the duo’s fourth LP and one of its songs, a cover of I Don’t Want To Talk About It went Top 3. I’ve always loved Tracey Thorn‘s voice and Ben Watt‘s very accomplished acoustic guitar work, and they have never sounded better in that regard on this often quiet and very reflective album. One of my go-to albums on such days is Idlewild by Everything But The Girl, released in 1988. It doesn’t happen too often, but there are occasions when I just want everything around me to slow down and I find that putting on some low-key music can be a huge help. There are some days when a bit of easy-listening bordering on AOR is just what is needed.

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