When it comes to The La’s’ ‘Timeless Melody’, I don’t think it was a song I really appreciated until my fourth or fitth run-through of the band’s 1990 self-titled debut album, a record known for being their only album before they broke up, disappointed in the way it sounded upon its release. Knowing the track now, I don’t know what took so long because it’s certainly one of the most immediate and catchy tunes on the record. That fourth (or fifth) listen of the album, if I can recall, happened during a time in 2019 when I was more than unemployed and revisiting albums that were sitting dormant in my iTunes library on my previous laptop. The La’s had been in it since about 2014, and I thought I had my favourites from the album set in stone. ‘Son of a Gun’ rolled into ‘I Can’t Sleep’, they came under that favourite ‘category’. Back then I’d usually find myself cruising through, waiting for ‘There She Goes’ to come along. But something about ‘Timeless Melody’ struck me on that occasion, and it’s ranked as a highlight for me ever since.

Why did it happen that time? Well, I think I simply paid attention to the song, focused in on songwriter Lee Mavers’s vocal and realised that he was singing very nicely, indeed. The melodies he showcases throughout, particularly those in the choruses, aren’t anything complicated, but they’re definitely memorable. I’ll find myself spontaneously blurting the song out when I’m doing some idle activity, like washing the dishes or having a shower. Anyone could sing along to it, which I think was Mavers’s aim calling it ‘Timeless Melody’ and everything. It’s one for the ages. In the track, Mavers relays to you his songwriting process, the joy in it and his inhibitions. The melody always finds him first, breaking that initial lock when thinking of creating a composition, but it’s the words that come to him a little less successfully. As he states, he never says what he wants to say. But if the world’s willing to listen to him, he’ll say everything he’ll need to. He implores you to ‘open your mind’ because there’s probably a song in the recesses of it waiting to be written. But the message could be generally applied to any creative-type person out there. And I really like the song for that reason too.

I’m thinking with its title and the fact that it clocks in at almost three minutes on the dot, maybe just one second over, ‘Timeless Melody’ was written to be that archetypal single meant to raid the airwaves. It was a single, released a month before the album release, but it didn’t hit all that much. Then ‘There She Goes’ was reissued. That ended up being the one. But you can hear ‘Timeless Melody’ and recognise it has everything ‘single’ about it. Again, not that any of the commercial angles need to matter. Musically, the song’s got it all. What draws me into the track is how the drums kind of have this skipping pattern that stays the same all the way throughout, bar a few moments here and there, while the rhythm guitars maintain this sturdy stop-start motion underneath. Makes it sound like the song has a quick tempo while also dragging at the same time, weirdly groovy in a way. Lee Mavers’s voice, well, it doesn’t take long to figure out what’s good about it once you listen to it. But those who know realise that the real power of The La’s is the vocal dynamic between he and bass guitarist John Power, who joins in on harmonies and backing countermelodies from the first chorus onwards. So many layers in this relatively small track. It’s great, you gotta hear it, man.