Better Things

31st December 2020

Music matters. This I learned a long time ago.

I received my first forceful lesson in 1983, with the mysterious disappearance of Africa. My Toto record, that is, rather than the continent. I was 13 years old, and I had bought it with my pocket money some time earlier. I had a modest singles collection, and an instinctive understanding from a very early age of the need to keep my records in strict alphabetical order. I took great pleasure in regularly inspecting them and making sure that I had everything in its right place, so the Toto discrepancy showed up very quickly.

I had strong suspicions as to where responsibility lay for the missing record, but I had nothing to pin them on. My brother Tim was most helpful. Just 11 years old, but already a more committed music fan than me, he made a great show of going through his own record collection to prove that he didn’t have it, while making it clear that as a matter of good taste, I didn’t have to worry about him nicking my (and I quote) “AOR shite”.

And that would have been the end of the matter. Case not proven. But a few weeks later I stumbled upon some vinyl fragments in a corner of our garden. I gathered them together, and gave them a closer look. Sure enough, it was my Toto single, smashed to smithereens. My young brother’s aptitude for bare-faced lying was not matched by his waste disposal expertise. It emerged that my possession of Toto’s Africa so offended Tim’s musical sensibilities, he removed it from my collection and destroyed it in disgust.

20 years later, I was living in East Finchley with a friend, and got home one evening to discover that our flat had been broken into. The robbers cleaned me out — clothes, cash, my stereo, and my entire CD collection. Except one CD. The musically discerning thieves had gone to the trouble of opening the CD player, removing the Kula Shaker CD that was in it, and leaving it on the floor to stare at me in judgement.

My brother loves that second story.

I have certainly found through the years that people have strong views on music. It’s powerful stuff, the right tune can transform a mood, demand that we get up and dance or evoke a memory in a truly visceral fashion.

I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve, as I reflect on the most extraordinary, messed up, awful year that most of us have ever experienced. All the rotten things about 2020 — dominated by the terrible death toll, the economic carnage, and the unnatural but necessary long-term social distancing which prevents us from seeing or touching those we love. But amongst all that awfulness there have been good things. The limited options of 2020 have forced us to behave differently, and allowed us plenty of time to pursue our passions. In my case, I have spent an extraordinary number of hours in 2020 selecting my song of the day.

This has come about through my membership of the Resurrection Music Club, a small Whatsapp group set up by my friend Stevie, and named in tribute to his beloved Stone Roses. Eight of us had been chatting intermittently about music for several years, but the group really took off this year with the introduction of the 30 day song challenge, in which we each have to select a song which fits that day’s category. And so, for most of the past year, I have literally spent hours daily sweating over the perfect choice for that day’s category. The song you think everyone should listen to? Hannah Hunt by Vampire Weekend. A song that’s witty? One Crowded Hour by Augie March. And so on.

I have measured locked down 2020 in units of 30 Day Challenge (round 7 ends today) and in that time I’ve been exposed to a vast range of new music. I have chatted more to these seven other people than to my own family, over the important issues of the day — where’s the fine line between hard rock and metal? What makes a track truly “baggy”? We’ve revealed the songs that remind us of being a small child (Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks) and the song that would soundtrack the film of our lives (mine was Mary’s Prayer by Danny Wilson, which played while I proposed to Lois).

At the end of each round of the 30 Day Challenge, we take a little break to recharge out song selection skills, and I put together a spreadsheet analysing the trends in our music choices. Of course I do. That one’s a bit niche, but if you would like to see the big data, don’t hesitate to ask.

It’s been a strange, obsessive, beautiful experience. I have not met half the RMC group in real life, but they, alongside the good folk of Schitt’s Creek, are the old friends who have eased me through lockdown.

For a recent song of the day category, we were each asked to nominate a song for 2021. Unusually, I knew immediately what my choice would be. Lets go back a bit…

I love the Kinks. There’s another equally self-indulgent piece about why I love Ray Davies above all other musicians, but for now, all you need to know is that in 1981 the Kinks recorded a wonderfully optimistic song called Better Things. 20 years later, in the aftermath of 9/11, another great band, the Fountains of Wayne, covered Better Things as a message of hope to America.

The Fountains of Wayne’s main songwriter was a brilliantly gifted musician, Adam Schlesinger (he wrote Stacey’s Mom, the theme to “That Thing You Do”, and any number of power pop classics which you should all listen to right now). In April, Adam Schlesinger died from coronavirus, an early American casualty of this awful disease. He was 52.

And so, Better Things, the Fountains of Wayne version, has taken on this hopelessly hopeful, tragically optimistic poignancy. I can’t stop listening to it. It is truly my song for 2021.

Of course this piece being an exercise in musical geekery, it would not be complete without a list. For your pleasure, I present you with my playlist of 20 songs for ’21. And to my musically opinionated brother, to my RMC’ers, to my family and friends, to anyone who’s made it to the end of the year and to the end of this article, happy new year.

I hope tomorrow you find better things.