Tag Archives: the maccabees

#1386: The Maccabees – Tissue Shoulders

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I mentioned The Maccabees’ Colour It In just a couple days ago. Only by sheer coincidence, I swear. Like I said in the previous post, the album was something I asked to get as a Christmas gift in 2007. There weren’t any other search results under ‘Colour It In’ apart from that Christmas list email, so it must have been under the tree. Videos for The Maccabees’ singles were appearing on MTV2 in that prime UK-indie-rock-everywhere phase of 2006-07. ‘Latchmere’ was the first Maccabees song I heard, followed by ‘First Love’, ‘About Your Dress’ and then ‘Precious Time’, the latter being the proper lead-up single before the album was released maybe a couple weeks later. I liked ’em all. Then NME made it available to listen to on their website on the media player they had back in the day as an exclusive. In low-quality, but obviously the company weren’t going to share a high-quality version for everyone to hear. And that was enough for me, really, hence the gift request later in the year.

Going into listening through the actual CD, now that I had it in my possession, I think I had my favourites sussed out already from that initial NME.com listen. The singles were a given, but then there were the deeper cuts like ‘Good Old Bill’, ‘O.A.V.I.P.’ and ‘Happy Faces’ that I got into right away. ‘Tissue Shoulders’, placed between the last two listed songs in the previous sentence, was not one of them. I never thought it was bad. But with the placement it had in the track list, sandwiched between two tracks I thought were great, it didn’t leave the biggest impression on me for a long time. This changed maybe only a few years ago too. Now, I was certain that I heard a small, small section of the song – the layered guitars during the ending – in an episode of The Inbetweeners I was re-watching, and just that part made me want to revisit the whole track. I searched ’tissue shoulders the inbetweeners’ on Google before writing this just to be sure, and I got no results. Could any Inbetweeners fan out there who knows each episode by heart, potentially reading this, confirm that I’m not going crazy?

A few songs on Colour It In touch upon the universal subject of relationships. Everyone’s favourite subject. ‘Tissue Shoulders’ is one of them. In it, singer Orlando Weeks aims to give some guidance on what to do if you’re looking to get into a relationship. Find someone who knows what they want out of it. If they can give a shoulder to cry on, hence the ’tissue shoulders’ turn of phrase, that would be preferable too. But by the repetitions of “Don’t want to lie alone” and a view of looking to find “another with a shoestring love heart thong” near the song’s end, he’s probably giving this advice to himself. That’s a tragic element to the track that I never picked up on. But the energetic performance supplied by the rest of the band alongside the words does well to hide it. The song always goes back to the bass hook provided by Rupert Jarvis at the song’s start, with the band’s old drummer Robert Dylan Thomas breaking out some hectic rhythms. What I usually most enjoy about ‘Tissue…’ though, like a lot of songs on Colour It In is the guitar interplay between the White brothers, Hugo and Felix. The way they lock in with those stops and starts at the song’s final moments is probably my favourite part. Many layers to ‘Tissue Shoulders’. One of a number of reasons the album remains my Maccabees release of choice.

#961: The Maccabees – O.A.V.I.P.

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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.

#726: The Maccabees – Lego

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‘Lego’ is the penultimate track on The Maccabees’ debut album Colour It In. From what I remember, I don’t think this song was very immediate to me upon first hearing the whole album. Around that time I mostly got albums just to listen to the singles, and ‘Colour It In’ had plenty of them that were shown on MTV2 back in those days. Funnily enough, I don’t listen to those singles that much anymore.

So when did ‘Lego’ really hit? I wish I could say. But I’ve been listening to it for a long time now so it’s safe to say I think it’s still good. There’s a frantic vibe I get from it straight from the beginning with its sudden fade-in and descending guitar riffs by brothers Hugo and Felix White. I’ve always liked that Colour It In is a proper band album. There aren’t many production tricks that are incorporated into a track’s mix; it’s always about the group’s performance – two guitars, bass, drums and Orlando Weeks’ vocals (with occasional guitar from him too). It’s about as raw as the band would get before exploring different avenues in their later releases, and I’m sure it wasn’t by chance that they chose ‘Lego’ as the final ‘band’ track on their debut. (Of course ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ really closes out the album but it doesn’t rock as much).

Until now, I’ve never thought too much about what the song could mean. Someone on Genius thinks it’s about suicide. I think it’s more of a goodbye to those little moments in childhood that one can stick out when one gets a bit sentimental, like remembering to look left and right before crossing the road and screaming ‘are we there yet?’ in the car when driving to a destination. Weeks’ then trademark wailing vocals provide a tone of vulnerability to the song, keeping to a lower register during the verses before raising it in the chorus and then reaching a climactic point during the outro. That and the two guitars are my highlights of the track. It has a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-finish structure to it; it feels like the track goes quite quickly. Still well worth a listen to me.

#713: The Maccabees – Latchmere

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I liked The Maccabees for a while. Physical copies of Colour It In and Walls of Arms sit on my shelf in my bedroom. Still prefer their debut album to anything else they made. Kind of lost me on the third album. It was sad when they split up a few years back. Just another band from my first year of secondary school days that were gone and reminding me that time was moving on.

Looking back I think ‘Latchmere’ may have been the first song I’d ever heard by The Maccabees. Very sure it would have happened during the times when I would be watching MTV2 in the mornings where there would be a program dedicated to the newest music out there. Think it was called ‘Brand Spanking New’? Something along those lines. The version used in its music video (below) was recorded earlier than the one that eventually ended up on the band’s debut album; it’s just a bit different and there are a few lyric changes here and there but nothing too drastic.

The track is dedicated to the leisure centre in Battersea, the place in south London where the band originated from. I feel the lyrics are just made up of phrases that were taken by signs and phrases said by the lifeguards at the place, plus Orlando Weeks’ excitement about the wave machine that’s also there. Also listen to the rapid fire drumming throughout. I would air drum to this thing and there is no let up, especially during the verses.

My iPod #483: The Maccabees – Happy Faces

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Orlando Weeks implores you to ‘run, boy, run’ throughout the ninth song on The Maccabees’ debut Colour It In, and it is hard to not follow his demands due to the sheer positivity and good vibes the track exudes. You ever have one of those times when you feel so happy that you have to show it by running through a field and embracing the vast space ahead, behind, and around you? This is very much the song that plays whilst that situation is happening.

Whilst the final notes of the previous track are in the midst of fading out to silence, the guitars of “Happy Faces” quietly start playing and slowly make themselves heard until the rhythm section begin and really give the track its momentum that is maintained for its duration. Lyrically, there’s not much to say. It’s about being happy for no particular reason at all. Just one of those days when that feeling comes to you. Well the first verse is. The second ones concerns the days when things aren’t going so well, the ones on which you reflect on what could have been different in the past. The serious tone is gone by the last line and from then on it’s back to the all-out excitement that was playing beforehand, climaxing in an almighty yelp of the song’s title by Weeks before the closing moments.

It’s cute. Very enjoyable.