Tag Archives: the wombats proudly present: a guide to love loss and desperation

#872: The Wombats – Moving to New York

Leave a reply

The music video for this song isn’t that great. I thought that in 2007/8, and I still hold that opinion today. A lot of awkward staring and just a very low-budget tone to it. Song’s good though, always enjoy hearing it whenever it comes up on shuffle or something. ‘Moving to New York’ was a single from The Wombats’ first album, and its various appearances on MTV2 was how I came to know of its existence. It was also another reason for me to request that album as a present, birthday or Christmas, either/or, I can’t remember that well.

The track carries on a theme of self-deprecation and doubt that goes on throughout Love, Loss and Desperation. On here, the narrator generally seems to be down on their luck. They’ve had a bad week, they don’t know whether they’re coming or going, so they decide to move to New York in order to get some good sleep. Ah, but you see the joke here is that New York is known as the city that never sleeps, so it’s safe to assume that this person won’t have the greatest success with the decision they’ve made. It’s all a very sarcastic, ironic affair going on lyrically.

Despite the dismissive tone in its lyrics, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable track. Matthew Murphy sings it really well, and the thing to look out for the most is the bass guitar which really carries the melodic backbone. My favourite part is probably the outro, not because it means that the song is ending, but the chord progression during that part seems to come out of nowhere. Overall, the track’s pretty harmless. I think it’s one that reminds a lot people of the mid-00s where there were so many bands in the UK making music like this. Some of them were terrible, but I’ll always have a bit of a soft spot for the Wombats. Especially that first record.

#770: The Wombats – Lost in the Post

1 Reply

I may not have listened to a Wombats song since about 2011 but I still enjoy a lot of songs from their first album quite a bit. ‘Lost in the Post’ is one of them. There’s nothing too deep about it. The lyrics concern the end of a relationship where the two involved just aren’t very compatible, and the narrator admits that it’s his own doing that has probably closed the affair a lot sooner. Once it’s over the lady seemingly vanishes into thin air, disappears, and is compared to those Christmas letters that children write for Santa which get sent to some unknown area.

It’s a great sing-along, I can’t really say much more. I don’t know who writes the melodies as all of their songs are credited to all three bandmembers, but lead vocalist and guitarist Matthew Murphy sings them well. There’s a weariness in the vocal delivery, I think, that appropriately matches the lyrical subject matter. And the rhythm section of Tord Øverland Knudsen (bass) and Dan Haggis (drums) support Murphy up with the ‘ooh-ooh’ backing vocals that are a constant throughout the whole album. Possibly the only thing about the track that I’ve fallen out of favour with is the ‘Go to Santa’ bridge which seems to last forever. It’s a bit repetitive. Has some great interplaying backing vocals during that section too though, which perks things up quite a bit.

The band made an actual video for this track though it doesn’t feature the song as it appears on the album. It seems to be a much older version recorded way before the group were signed to a label. The recording sounds a bit rougher; Murphy sounds considerably younger. It’s the same song, but I much prefer the final version.

#695: The Wombats – Kill the Director

1 Reply

Haven’t written about The Wombats in a while. Last time I did was in 2014. ‘Backfire at the Disco’ was a track I did a blog on here too, talking about how much I like it, why that is and so on and so forth. Some time between then and now I grew tired of it and it is now off the phone. That was The Wombats’ first single, I believe, and I remember seeing its video on MTV2 most of the time. It was all right. But it was the next single that got me thinking ‘This band might be onto something here’. Or something to that equivalent when I was 12 years old.

‘Kill the Director’ is the first ‘proper’ song from the band’s debut album, apparently inspired by the rom-com film The Holiday from 2006. It’s basically about the feeling of futility that one can feel when it comes to dating, trying to put on an act to try and impress a girl and failing in the process. The message is all in the song’s main refrain – “If this is a rom-com, kill the director”, roughly bows down to – if this is what love is meant to be like then end it now because it’s not worth it.

It works great as the opener, coming through with these alternating bass and guitar chords alongside Dan Haggis’ busy drumming. It’s fast, fast, fast stuff, exploding into the song’s chorus each time with the ‘ooh-ooh’ backing vocals that are a staple throughout the album. The ‘This is no/Bridget Jones’ coda gets a bit stale after a while for me, it doesn’t have to be repeated that many times or the line could have started just a few measures later, but as a whole the track doesn’t disappoint in delivering a hook upon hook in just under three minutes.

My iPod #300: The Wombats – Dr Suzanne Mattox PhD

2 Replies

I’m not really into The Wombats anymore. I was never a huge fan of the band but I thought their singles from the first album were catchy. I think I got it for a birthday or something eventually. I think it was those “aaaahh-ooh-wah-wah” vocals that made the first album that bit more enjoyable. I’m sure the band decided to focus more on the singing than on the scatting, and that didn’t work out so well. They’re a bit boring now. Sorry.

“Dr Suzanne Mattox PhD” wasn’t released as a single from “The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation“. I think it could have been, in my eyes. There’s a whole bunch of scat singing occurring in this one. But also it’s got a memorable chorus, a fuzzy guitar line which plays before that chorus begins, and a vocal melody, particularly during the verses, that reminds me of a song from a children’s school play for some reason. I do like that final D7 chord which ends the track too. Just like the way it sounds.

It’s about a guy falling for his GP, and gets upset whenever he sees her because she thinks he’s lying about his injuries/illness just to see her more. If you have been in that situation before, this is the song for you.

My iPod #64: The Wombats – Backfire at the Disco

2 Replies

Evening again.

“Backfire at the Disco” was released as a single from The Wombats’ first album “A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation” in 2007. It reached #67 in the charts.

At that time no one really knew who the band were, and so they re-released it in 2008. It reached #40 in the charts.

The band was another that played on MTV2 when they first came about on the scene, and so there wasn’t a day when this song wasn’t playing on the channel.

I didn’t really like the song back then. The song that really got me into them was “Kill the Director”, which will be coming up later many years from now.

The song includes a trademark vocal that the band used throughout their first album and then abandoned in their second. You know how on “Employment” by Kaiser Chiefs, almost every song (or single, I haven’t listened to all of that album) included a part where a build up in tension was signified by an “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh *breath* oooooohhhhhhhhh woooooooahhhh ooooooooooooooh”?

Well, on “A Guide to Love” almost every song (I can say that this time as I own the album, and have listened to it) includes a “woo” or an “ooh” section, either as back up vocals or as a break between a verse and a chorus or something.

Both bands are similar in that when they both abandoned those vocals, their second albums didn’t do as well. I haven’t listened to “This Modern Glitch”, and probably won’t. I would stick to their first if I was you.

The song is about a person who goes out on a date, and it almost goes well until they go to the disco and everything goes wrong. I’m sure many people have been through this before. I guess.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.