Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the first time I’m talking about The Automatic on here? That just doesn’t seem right. It’s very much the truth, though. Anyone who doesn’t know who The Automatic are, they’re one of the countless, many, multitude of indie bands from the UK that appeared really from out of nowhere during the mid-2000s. They released three albums, one would follow with a little less success after the other, and what was meant to be a temporary break starting in 2010 became clear that the band was never going to get back together any time soon after a few years had passed. Today’s track, ‘Raoul’, is taken from their 2006 debut Not Accepted Anywhere, which also included their signature tune ‘Monster’ and ‘Recover’, which will get its own post on here very soon from what I can tell.

‘Raoul’ is the second track on that album, was released as the band’s second single ever and was also the second song of the group’s that I got to know. After hearing/seeing another song of theirs before on MTV2, which I took note of immediately ’cause I liked it so much, maybe some months or so had gone and there appeared a new music video for this new single. So many times on here, I’ve been able to recall to the best of my ability how I felt when hearing a particular song for the first time. Whether I was impressed or had my doubts. When it comes to this one though… I’m sure I thought it was good, and that was about it. It did the job. I don’t think I liked it as much as the single that came before it, but I liked it enough that I was intrigued by what the band would come up with next. Or at least whatever the equivalent of “intrigued” is to the 10/11-year-old that I would have been at the time.

The song is an ode to the owner of the sandwich shop where the band would go to get away from periods of heaviness and tension in the studio. But ‘Raoul’ is also meant to symbolise that centre of freedom that people may go to and find solace in when their day-to-day routine is starting to get to them a little bit. The band go see Raoul, and after doing so make the decision to ‘go back to work’, which is repeated until the song’s end. After the band’s success with ‘Monster’ making the top five in the UK singles chart, the decision was made by their record label to re-release the song in 2007 to capitalise on the momentum. Either the song was remixed or re-recorded. In the end, to me, it didn’t sound as good as the original. Got a fancy new music video for it, though.