I knew I was going to see you again. It’s been a long break. Actually finished writing up the previous letter section in April, even the last post was officially out in the middle of May. Just goes to show how much time I give myself to write these things and come back to them if need be. But I’ve been okay. I went to the first weekend of Primavera Sound in the month of June, saw Pavement which is something I would tick of my bucket list if I had one, and generally been working ever since. But a hole in my life needs to be filled, and that’s writing on this blog again. So here it goes. Here come the O’s.

The inaugural song to mark the occasion comes courtesy of The Maccabees, a band I’ve written about a few times before on here. ‘O.A.V.I.P’ is the seventh song on their debut album Colour It In, opening up its second half in a similar manner as the whole record. From what I recall, opener ‘Good Old Bill’ is about the death of one of the bandmember’s grandparents. ‘O.A.V.I.P’, standing for ‘Old Age Very Important Person/Pensioner’, is a dedication to the widow who’s now dealing with that loss.

“She collects medicines in the box where once he had kept his / And holds out hope the year old Werther’s will be gone long before she goes.” Those are the two first lines of the track. They set the scene immediately. Though they read quite bluntly and to the point, it’s singer Orlando Weeks’s delivery of them that add the emotional weight. As The Maccabees’ journey as a band continued, he sort of grew out/got rid of the quivering yelp vocals that were a standard throughout Colour It In. It was that style that made those songs stand out to me compared to lot of the other indie NME-hyped bands that were around at the time. Don’t get me wrong, the band play extremely well too. Brothers Felix and Hugo White play some great guitar lines that weave and create some great countermelodies. But those moments when Weeks pursues those descending-scale “Whoa-oh-oh”s and reaches that high “Farewell old dear” nearing the song’s end… Well, it’s enough to bring a tear to the eye. It’s a very sincere and sweet song. Always been a highlight for me from this album. After it, the albums just never hit me the same way.