Head Tale

Obviously an impossible question but whenever there’s a “What’s your favourite song of all-time” question, I always pick “Find The River” by R.E.M.

I love how melancholy and poetic and longing that song is.

There’s another song that’s in my Top 10 and which is probably a contender for number one – “Wake Up Boo!” by the Boo Radleys – which covers the same territory – yearning but also loss and death – but in a much more upbeat manner.

In fact, if you played “Find The River” at the start of my funeral (hopefully someday far in the future) and “Wake Up, Boo!” at the end, I’d probably be a happy ghost!

This is a fairly recent performance and it’s always weird to see bands you knew as a young person getting older, just like you are.

In fact, part of the reason I like this song so much is the line “Twenty-five/Don’t recall a time I felt this alive” which resonated because I first heard this song when I was in England in 1995 on a University exchange which also happened to be the height of the “Cool Britannia” movement and just an amazing time in my life – I jokingly say “Apologies to my wife and family but that four months in England was easily the happiest four months of my life.”

I was 22 when I went to England, not 25, but it was close enough to feel that same sense of the whole world being in front of me but also that it could disappear in an instant which is another reason this song resonated – I loved how it mixed a happy, upbeat sound with some dark lyrics about how summer happiness can be tempered by death.

And how the hell did I miss that the Boo Radleys! released a new EP in 2021 that was their first new music in 23 years?!?