Music Review: Skylarking by XTC

         When I first created this blog, this was one of the first things I wanted to do. Not specifically this album, of course, but I have always had a big interest in music. I decided that this would be a good foray into that, even if this is the only time I do this, because this is a phenomenal album.

     

The album cover for Skylarking

        First, I want to give a bit of background on my feelings on XTC themselves. They have been compared to the Beetles, which I guess I could see, but I don't agree with. Drums and Wires as well as English Settlement are also great albums, which are also worth a listen, but I think Skylarking is their best album. 

        Skylarking itself deals with themes of creation of life, life itself, death, and (of course) love. The album itself starts off with two songs which bleed into each other: Summer's Cauldron and Grass. Originally recorded as one continuous song, it was split in two for the purpose of the album. Summer's Cauldron deals with the creation of life aspects I had mentioned earlier, being about the birth of a child. Grass is, from my read, probably about the inception of said child on grass.

        After the strong opener, we move onto The Meeting Place, which is a quite simple song about meeting someone in an area of town where there are many factories and machines. It has a lot of noises that sound like said machines, which along with the melody being quite calming, give it a sound that I find hard to put into words.

        That's Really Super, Supergirl is another song about relationships, though not quite the same type as in Grass. The song deals with the narrator and his presumed girlfriend going through a breakup, as the girl is much more ambitious than the narrator. She can do all these things, which her friends celebrate, including changing the weather and saving the universe, but she couldn't fix the relationship. 

        Ballet for a Rainy Day seems to be about enjoying the rainfall, though some lyrics also give me the idea that this song is about "repainting" what was washed away during the "rain". Of course, this theory gets traction when the song bleeds into 1000 Umbrellas, which is another break-up song. Man, Andy Partridge must have really been going through it when he wrote this album. 

        1000 Umbrellas connects to the prior song, because despite enjoying the rain, 1,000 umbrellas are being opened to spoil everything, which is 100% a metaphor for a relationship ending. In the song, the narrator's friends forecast that the "weather's getting better", but they seemingly never had a girl rain all over them (gross!) This is probably the saddest of the three break-up songs on this album, mostly because of the lyrics: the narrator even proclaims himself as the newly crowned monarch of misery!

        Season Cycle, for a long time, I thought was just a song about the seasons. One day I realized what the lyrics were actually talking about. I don't know how I missed it, as this was the album with Dear God on it. Anyways, this song is about the passing of time, the changing of seasons, and a feeling of dread that will get revisited in Dying and Dear God. 

        The next song is one that probably hits home for a lot of people. Earn Enough for Us is about working a dead end job to support a family that you love, constantly praying that you earn enough money for them. The narrator and his wife are also going to soon have a child, causing the narrator to not complain, but simply say "I'll get another job at night". 

        Big Day is about marriage and the uncertain feelings that presumably come with it (I don't know if that is true, I am not married myself.) The narrator talks about how their marriage could be "heaven or hell in a cell for two" and that statistics say that they might not keep what they have forever. If I had the experiences that Partridge had causing him to write the slew of break-up songs on this album, I would probably have this outlook on marriage as well.

        It seems that Another Satellite is about a married guy trying to tell a woman that he cannot be in a relationship with her, because he is already married. Apparently, according to an interview on XTC's various ancient web pages found here, this is entirely the case, because Partridge was married at the time while someone else was hitting on him.

        Mermaid Smiled doesn't exactly have a clear meaning to me, but I am also a dunce. I think it is most likely about reflecting on relationships when you are young and keeping those experiences dear to yourself, because they still mean a lot to you, and you are reminded by that younger version of yourself and those memories when someone (I guess in this case, a mermaid) reminds you of them. Either way, it is a pleasant song.

        The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul is a sort of folk jazz type of song, which is quite pleasant on the ears. There are so many instruments that I can't name them all, to be honest. The song itself seems to be about a man who did a lot of self-introspection and found that he was a jackass, but also that flesh and blood is everything, which in the end is the treasure of this journey to him. A very interesting song to me and another song that is very pleasant to listen to.

        Dying is probably the most depressing song on this album. It starts with the ticking of a clock and then the bass coming in. The instrumental itself is this haunting layering of piano, guitar, and bass, with the ticking of the clock persisting throughout the entire song. The lyrics describe the narrator watching someone fall dead in the shopping line, from a sudden, fatal ailment. He then reflects on all the things he did, like taking advantage of the person's illness to his own benefit, before finally realizing that he is getting old himself. The final lines of the song repeat that the narrator doesn't want to "die like you". This song, in my opinion, has more existential dread than Dear God, and is one of the best on the album.

        Sacrificial Bonfire is a song about change. It talks about burning up the old, whether that be old people or old ways, and ringing in the new. Later in the song it also talks about banishing the bad and reigning in over the good. This obviously describes some sort of ritual, evident by the name, about change and hope for the future. 

        Finally, we end the album with XTC's most well known song as far as I know: Dear God. Dear God starts out with a child narrator talking about a letter to God, with prayers to actually make life better for those who are starving and dying, instead of meaningless changes like the price of beer. That opening alone probably makes one understand why people were trying to ban the song when it was first released.

        Despite Dear God being one of my all time favorite XTC songs in general, I don't want to beat a dead horse past -5×HP. The meaning of the song and Partridge's beliefs are quite clear by the first verse, which I described above, so I don't think I really need to get into it too much. The cover for the Dear God EP is really cool, though, so here's that.

Album cover for the Dear God EP (also great)

           So, that's the album. I listen to it in full almost every other month, then usually followed by a listen of Drums and Wires, which is more whimsical. Like I said at the start of this post, this isn't something I have really ever done. If this is something people like reading, I can definitely do more, but this was more of a "hey, I have a free afternoon, let me write this up finally" type deal.