Tag Archives: the darkness

#1299: The Darkness – Stuck in a Rut

Leave a reply

And with this track right here, the end of The Darkness appearing on this blog is marked. We had a good run. There’s a small chance you’d have realised that all the songs by the band I’ve given my thoughts about are all from their 2003 debut album Permission to Land. That’s because I, at least, still have an amazing time listening through it. Plus, I’ve had it since I was eight or nine and the sentimental value’s very high. I’ve said in passing that The Darkness got me into rock music, and it’s the truth. That whole Permission to Land era… Songs like ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’, ‘Love Is Only a Feeling’, ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)’. If it weren’t for them, I’d probably be casually listening to the UK Top 40. So thank God for The Darkness, honestly.

‘Stuck in a Rut’ is the seventh song on Permission to Land, starting on-beat straight after the song before it finishes. I have a good memory of listening to this one on my Playstation 2 a long, long time ago. Years later, I returned to it and found that the melody of the chorus had never left my head. The track is about a burning desire to get in a car of any kind and leave your hometown without looking back. Three of the original members of the band are from Lowestoft, a coastal town in the Southeast of England. I’ve never been there myself, but as Justin Hawkins refers to it as a ‘shithole’ and a ‘sty’, the negative reception doesn’t provide an incentive to go and visit. “Oh, kiss my arse, kiss my arse goodbye” is still a hilarious opening line to me, even though it’s meant in all seriousness. Hawkins uses the American pronunciation of “aluminium” in it too, which confused me when I was younger, but I can understand now because of the syllable numbers. And like all the other songs on the LP, he delivers his vocals with that trademark falsetto and high pitch that you could only imitate and never replicate.

Something I’ve noticed about this song is how much rawer in terms of production it sounds in comparison to the rest of the songs on Permission… While tracks like ‘Growing on Me’ or ‘Friday Night’ have these “big”, layered guitar elements to them. ‘…Rut’, on the other hand, sounds like it was a one-take performance captured live in the studio. The mix overall sounds a lot more closed in than usual, almost as if they’re playing in a small room. If that’s the case, I think it makes the track all that more impressive, especially when considering Hawkins’s vocal performance. Of course, there’s the high pitches and everything. But then there’s the insanity he captures in that adlibbed bridge where he begs his master to kill him, and the last “Yeah” in the song that faultlessly breaks into a whistle tone. It’s awesome, awesome stuff. A deep cut that’s always worth a listen. To me. But it could be to you as well.

#775: The Darkness – Love Is Only a Feeling

1 Reply

The Darkness was probably the first rock band I ever got into. I believe this is a statement I’ve said a few times before along this long road I’ve chosen to go down, but I haven’t looked back to see exactly where. As an eight-year-old going on nine, I can still remember the group being one of the most popular in the UK during 2003-04. ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ was massive. Initially, I thought it was a joke song because… just watch the damn music video. But I actually sat down and fully took it in one day and it suddenly clicked. And I still don’t think the tag of a band you shouldn’t take seriously had gone even when they released ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)’ later that year, a song that I wanted to be number 1 in the charts but was beaten by the ‘Mad World’ cover by Gary Jules.

‘Love Is Only a Feeling’ was released as the final single from Permission to Land in March 2004, and I think it was this song and its great video that convinced me to ask my older cousin to get the album for me as a birthday gift. The track is an emotional power ballad. Not so much the chugging rocker of ‘Thing Called Love’, ‘Feeling’ is led by these emphatic guitar downstrokes and dueling/harmonising guitar solos that appear throughout. The track’s meaning is very much clear in the title. Singer Justin Hawkins says it’s about how wonderful love can make you feel, but how it can also be a danger too. It’s a song that’s really from the heart, and I think that’s what really attracted me to it all that time ago. Any reservations I had about the band not being very serious about their stuff was gone. This song was really good. Still is almost 20 years later.

My iPod #477: The Darkness – Growing on Me

1 Reply

A song from Permission to Land and released as the album’s second single in 2003, “Growing on Me” contrary to popular belief is not in any way about genital warts or other sexual infections. It is more about the feeling one gets when coming across an attractive person that you can never truly understand, but you love them that much that after a while it doesn’t matter anymore. That is what Justin Hawkins said in an old interview, anyway.

And so in the track the lead singer with his trademark falsetto and high-pitched wails describes his pains and yearning for this person that he just can’t shake from his mind with a soundscape of dominant guitars and a steady rhythm section, as is the standard for any hard rock group.

I saw the video for this on the TV months after I first heard it on my physical copy of the album. It is a very low-budget production. But honestly at the age of nine or so, that didn’t matter at all. At that point the song had already become one of my favourites from Permission to Land, and to see its hilariously sub-par video didn’t put a dent in my feeling towards it. Sounds great today just as it did then.

My iPod #431: The Darkness – Givin’ Up

1 Reply

“Givin’ Up” is the sixth track from The Darkness’ first album “Permission to Land“. Despite its cheery, upbeat, 70s karaoke night feel to it, the song is about lead singer/guitarist Justin Hawkins’ (former?) heroin addiction. The drug abuse continued until he was forced to quit the band years later in 2006. He makes the effects of the drug clear in the pre-chorus: “Well, I’ve ruined nearly all of my veins/Sticking that fucking shit into my arms” and there is definitely something tragic about the whole thing. Hawkins wants to stop the addiction but when it comes to the stuff entering his stuff he gives up giving a fuck about it and carries on doing it anyway. Quite sad. But you can’t tell just because of how damn happy the track sounds.

When I was sitting on my mum’s bed listening to “Permission to Land” on my Playstation 2 at the young age of eight, none of this came to mind when I was singing along to it. Did I know what ‘shit’ he was referring to when looking through the liner notes? Of course not. All I knew was that the song sounded good. Still does today. Even if age as made me realise how very serious the song actually is.

Another notable thing that I didn’t really realise until listening to the album years later, this track flows perfectly into “Stuck in a Rut”. Both have the same tempo, and the snare drum which starts that song seems the two tracks together very well. Production at its finest right there.

My iPod #415: The Darkness – Get Your Hands off My Woman

Leave a reply

I was eight years old when I received “Permission to Land” as a gift from my cousin. Around the time I thought “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” was one of the best songs to exist, and is probably one of the reasons I started listening to rock music. Some people start with Nirvana; I start with The Darkness.

To this day, I remember my sister asking for the album’s booklet containing the liner notes and lyrics and so on. She then told me that I shouldn’t look in it. Straight up. I asked her, “Why not?” She replied, “Just don’t.” Of course I went on to when she wasn’t looking. I saw the swear words in “Black Shuck” and this song, and saw why she was so suddenly stern about it.

Even though I don’t think as highly of the track/album as I did then, it still brings a laugh whenever I hear it. This track as serious as hell though just like all of the others on “Permission to Land”, I just get the feeling that people wouldn’t have liked them because they were too much of a spoof or a mimic of dramatic heavy metal bands from the 70s or something. But when you have a track like this where the words “motherfucker” and “cunt” are shrieked at a frighteningly high pitch I can’t help but smile at it all. Justin Hawkins is a crazy singer with an astounding vocal range, and “Get Your Hands Off” is just one out of the many where it is shown to its full potential.