I remember an episode of Myx’s classic videos programme. This would have been sometime during the turn of the millennium when Pro Tools was no longer a secret weapon and music sounded “perfect.” One man strummed his guitar; the sound unadulterated, pure. He sang of electric guitars.
With the clarity that hindsight brings, I realized the 15 minutes on that late afternoon all those years ago from when the VJ announced Prefab Sprout up until the radio exploding as the final notes faded was a dharma payout, a flitting perfect moment.
Life Of Surprises was my car stereo’s CD player mainstay. I had heard “So if you take, then put back good. If you steal, be Robin Hood.” and “Hotdog, jumping frog, Albuquerque” and “She sings Paddy Joe, say Paddy Joe, don’t you remember me?” an estimated 100 times per year from mid to late ’90s, but I never listened to the songs beyond the hooks. I felt found out, exposed. “Electric Guitars” reached out to welcome me back. From that moment, I jumped and have stayed on the bandwagon for good.
As rediscoveries are sometimes, this one in particular, stories were missed; not surprising for a band that, except for their loyal audience (including their 25,100++ YouTube subscribers), has remained one of the Durham’s best kept secret since 1978. Touring does not much appeal to Patrick Joseph “Paddy” McAloon, very understandable nowadays but he once said he’d “rather be at home, trying to write the big one.” Without an outlet and a few years of inactivity, an exodus was inevitable. These days only on my 38 Carat Collection CD will I hear Neil Conti’s backbeats and Martin McAloon’s basslines keeping the rhythms tight. There, too, was Wendy Smith. Paddy McAloon still drives his musical vehicle that is Prefab Sprout. This does not seem to faze him. He still writes a song a day, when possible, like he’s done since 1984.
Maybe in a moment of clarity I’ll figure out why Paddy McAloon sang Electric Guitars’ verses while strumming an acoustic guitar. Clocking in at just over 3 minutes 30 seconds, the song recounts the heady trip that was Beatlemania. Seemingly as straightforward a recollection as any writer could describe. Personally, there’s a comfort imagining George and Ringo conversing one early evening years after the breakup. These are friends, close as brothers, sitting on garden chairs, one with a leg on the seat, the other sitting sideways; one of them recounts a dream he had a few days ago. Surely it’s fiction; no harm in growing their legend. Paddy McAloon though, he just knew how to make songs interesting. Flip the narrative; be the “I” in the song.
They had range, Giles Smith said in his liner notes for 38 Carat Collection.
By 1992, the band reached that place where they had songs enough to fill a compilation album. Prefab Sprout: A Life Of Surprises was their first. “The Sound of Crying” was one of two new songs on the album. Intentional or otherwise, its video premiered on YouTube a year after the 2016 US election results legitimized populism again. Unfortunately, with the system being what it is everywhere in the world, each time I hear or remember the last lines of the second verse, I’ll always wonder if change is possible given that leaders of men change but the spin will keep turning. For now, this serves as my reminder to progress, never to regress. Mr. McAloon doubled down and uploaded “America” in 2017.
They sang of truths about people falling in and in love in songs with two verses (a couple with three and four) and a chorus. My 5 pesos worth, “Girl, I’m Here” and “Cowboy Dreams” contain lyrics passionate and comforting yet with sincere chest-beating bravado. Smart lyrics coupled with the always ornate Prefab Sprout arrangements characterize “All The World Loves Lovers” all while providing the odd pearl for burgeoning relationships. “The Mystery of Love” contains one of the better insights, some would say the answer, to the question “why do you love me?”
There is the kind of ennui that sets in from staying in any relationship long enough. “Appetite” and “Desire As” indict the wants that follow.
At the crossroad of a troubled relationship, listen to either “I Remember That” or “The End of The Affair,” then make a decision.
Being of that generation whose digital bread crumbs are not as widespread as the Millennials and my Gen Z offsprings, I only trawl YouTube for my short-term attention span fix. Unfortunately, its “Big Brother” algorithm pretends to know my click-bait triggers and runs a six degrees of separation program presenting videos supposedly tailored to my searches. I assumed it was YouTube’s AI mixing disparate selections from the Boston Celtics, New England Patriots, Thoughty2, Rick Beato, and Wisecrack with a handful of Prefab Sprout selections I’ve contributed 50 views to already. So, with the videos appearing always at the upper half of my screen I clicked on a familiar video thumbnail two months ago. Going through the comments, I read Netflix viewers mention I Am Not Okay With This led them to Prefab Sprout. The show is Gen Z, I’m quite certain. Interesting, I thought, and a nice surprise. There is in its minutiae a commentary for its John Hughes pastiches, but that’s another topic. The montage appears in season one’s episode “Stan By Me” (I could be wrong). In the time the stylus was dropping on to the vinyl, I’d already heard the two snare-drum hits and the synth-heavy intro every Sprouthead is very familiar with, and, of course, Wendy; she who could sing one syllable twelve times and make one of the more recognizable intros a lovely hook. I’d heard the song more than a hundred times; that moment felt different. I was just happy it was a fun scene and that Prefab Sprout has, sort of, a more stable foothold in the 21st century.
Cher and Kylie Minogue have covered their songs; this thrust into mainstream’s fringes counts less as an incentive to write songs (reports are there are three albums worth of songs still unrecorded, and may remain unrecorded). Well documented is his assertion Prefab Sprout’s songs are borne from his satisfaction, “to do whatever is humanly possible to make it work” he said in an interview with The Guardian.
Patrick McAloon could stop writing songs now and there’ll still be songs enough to fill a greatest hits album, but where’s the fun in that for him? There was news of an eleventh studio album, “Femmes Mythologiques,” that should have been released September 2019; even presumptive masterpieces do succumb to the virus. Whether he finally puts to music his big one or will remain what he calls his “grail quest” does not matter much to me. Prefab Sprout and Paddy McAloon always enchant.
—alike.com.ph
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