You might not be able to believe that this will be the first time I’ve covered a song from Arctic Monkeys’ debut album. I’ve written about ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’ and ‘From the Ritz to the Rubble’ in the past, but those were both concerning the versions on the Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys EP. Not saying that I’m an OG fan who was downloading songs from MySpace back in the day, but I did hear those Beneath the Boardwalk demos before Whatever People… was released in January 2006. And when the album arrived, a lot of the songs, to me, were just sanitised versions of them. The edge that was once there had now been taken out. A roundabout way of saying I liked the demos more. I’ve always liked the live take they did for the ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ music video more than how the studio take came out too. It somehow felt too produced, which is funny ’cause the album’s obviously the least produced out of all the work they’ve done.

‘The View from the Afternoon’ wasn’t on that collection of demos, though. I heard the song first via its music video, which was on repeat on MTV2 in 2006 because it was the new one by the Arctic Monkeys. The track was originally going to be the third single from Whatever People…, but the band had announced the Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? EP just two months after the album’s release. ‘The View…’ was to be included as the leading track on that EP, so the video was made to prepare the people for that rather than what would be an A-side and maybe a couple B-sides. In the video, a young man plays the drums to the song in the middle of a council estate from what looks like morning to night, his hands bleeding in the process, until he’s eventually knocked out by a guy with a baseball bat. We don’t see the impact, but you can see that’s what’s about to happen. This video made me really want to get into playing the drums. Because I also saw the visual first, I didn’t know how the song properly ended until my sister borrowed a copy of Whatever People… from a school friend of hers, ’cause the song cuts out just as the baseball bat’s about to hit the kid’s head. It’s a very nice chord the song ends on, gotta say.

The whole theme of the album is a night out in Sheffield, from perspectives of the people involved to the outsiders looking in at all the chaos. ‘The View from the Afternoon’ is exactly what it’s about in the title. It’s about the people looking forward to the night out, thinking about the endless possibilities a few hours before everything kicks off. The track opens with the line “Anticipation has a habit to set you up for disappointment,” which everyone comments on how clever it is that Alex Turner’s also referencing the hype around the ban. That isn’t the entire lyric, though, so is he really? He probably is. I sometimes thought people were reading too much into it. But yeah, Turner writes from the point of view of someone listing the things they want to see while out on the town. Girls in fancy dress, gambling in the fruit machine, the works. A particular action that’s focused upon in the lyrics is drunk texting a girl you’re interested in, which the band urge the narrator to bear in mind. We have a strong album opener on our hands. The four bandmembers are firing on all cylinders. Maybe there’s a reason why the music video places a focus on the drumming, because Matt Helders is going crazy on ’em. Lot of sixteenths on the hi-hats and frenetic drum fills. Turner and Jamie Cook play very quickly on their guitars, their highlight probably being the part where the song dies down and the two of them play alternating chords that switch from left to right and back again in the headphones. Former bass guitarist Andy Nicholson follows the chord progression of the rhythm guitar, but he does it very well, rounds off that low end. So maybe Whatever People… isn’t my favourite Arctic Monkeys album, but I can’t say it doesn’t get off to a good start.