Jamie T’s Panic Prevention was released in 2007. At the time, I was already accustomed to ‘Salvador’, ‘If You Got the Money’, ‘Sheila’ and ‘Calm Down Dearest’. Those were the singles that were released in advance. I didn’t buy the album. But I think a friend of my sister’s did and allowed her to borrow it for a bit, so she could rip the songs onto the computer and return it. She turned into a bit of fan of his. I think she went to see him play in an HMV somewhere, and I recall her singing deeper cuts like ‘Back in the Game’ around the house. I think ‘Operation’ was a favourite of hers as well. One time, she definitely said the “Filler, no thriller” lyric just out of the blue for no particular reason. This is all a haze and not very fun to read, but this was my sister’s life and whatever she did was her business. She would have been 15, and I – 11, so didn’t want to get involved too much.

At some point, I came to really like ‘Operation’ though. Coming in at almost six minutes in length, it’s the second longest song on Panic Prevention. What it’s about is anyone’s guess. There’s a lot of words put together, and they sound good, but they’re not meant to make any logical sense going from one line to the next. Except for maybe in the choruses where Jamie T throws a shout-out to ‘all the dead people’, especially ‘Diego’. He sings and delivers his words in a thick British accent. It’s very English. Wouldn’t be surprised if people from the UK were confused as to what exactly he’s saying and be left even more dumbfounded once coming across the lyrics online. Going for a more sound than sense approach with lyrics can always work out well, especially if there’s some good music behind it. The track is one of those where it’s almost two separate songs blended together, fluidly switching from one movement to another about three minutes in via an instrumental break.

Despite the lyrical verbosity, the vocal delivery, and the length that might put some hesitant new listeners off, there are hooks abound throughout the whole thing. I’m very sure there are vocal passages that have been cut and paste, they sound exactly the same when comparing the initial point they’re sung and once they’re repeated again. And in that way, they seem to lodge themselves into your head just that bit more. Maybe, it’s in its own way, it’s meant to be some deep critique of artists regurgitating the same stuff over and over again to get their stuff on the radio in some very hidden, subtle way. But it’s almost a 100% that that’s a massive reach on my part.