Sandi Thom: What if I'm crap

The moment of truth for Sandi Thom is nigh. On 31 August, her follow-up single to the No. 1 international smash "I wish I was a punk rocker (with flowers in my hair)" will be released, and we will see once and for all whether it was all hype or if she has established a fanbase. She has spent much of the last few months appearing at numerous festivals, a trick employed with some success by Roy Harper in the 60s, so it is still unlcear whether people will actually pay to see her (and in the light of the webcast saga, it is notable that so few of the people who saw her live in 2005 liked it very much).

I did quite like "Punk rocker": it was at least original in arrangment, going for acapella and then full band, when it could easliy have been Katie Melua style acoustic wibbling. I even smiled at the start, although I tended to get bored by the end. But it was catchy and instantly memorable and energetic. I've only heard "What if I'm right" once on the radio, but it seemed to be none of those things.

Lyrically, it is different (Full lyrics here): the nostalgia of Punk rocker led those who are cynical to suggest that the song was largely written by the co-writer rather than Thom. "What if I'm right" sounds more like a young person's view of the possible future. But it's not very good: here's my comments:

It wont be an uphill struggle, on you I can depend
...
you'll cover me in diamonds, there's nothing I want more

"On you I can depend" has to be one of the most awkward lines ever written, and all to achieve a poor rhyme.
Nothing she wants more than being covered with diamonds?
An odd ambition.

...
And you'll always tape the football
And let me watch my soap

Nothing like being a modern woman, is there? He'll 'let you' watch your soap (which nearly rhymes with coat).

And when I give birth to our children
I will feel no pain

Planet Earth calling Sandi: don't be so superficial. And you know, birth might hurt. You'd certainly thinks so from the screams from the delivery suite.

And you'll bring the showers

What? Showers?

You'll say I'm thin and bring the washing in

What a charming domestic vignette: you're thin, and here's the washing.

And when you need to change the light bulb
You won't hand me the chair

I'm not sure is 'handing you the chair' is some obscure euphemism: it certainly isn't a conventional phrase.

You'll sell your vinyl records
And go get us a loan

She obviously knows someone obsessed with vinyl, since it also came up in Punkrocker (unlike, I would add, Bob Dylan and Neil Young who have always been keen to explore what new technology might bring). As I put it in Written in your heart:

ED: Yes, they ought to warn you when you're 18 that you are forming your musical tastes for life. I've just been buying the Dylan remasters. It's not the same, though. There's something about vinyl. You HAD to respect it- no finger nails, keep it clean, put it away. Not like CDs - Is that a CD or a coffee mat? Answer: both. And the little booklets in one-point type. No substitute for a lyric sheet.

CHARLOTTE: Still, all my vinyl records are unplayable: scratched and warped.

ED: Oh, if you want to be practical! Spoil my Nick Hornby moment!

You'll be my sympathetic lover
And won't steal the covers
But I've got my doubts and what if I'm right?
You won't forsake me
Your mother won't hate me
...

Now, there is a strong tradition of near-rhymes in popular songs, but this is usually used to allow the use of informal and idiomatic language, not drivel about stealing covers, forsaking (FFS), and mothers in law.

It looks as if Punkrocker was a fluke and that Sandi's natural role is as a teenage wordsmith, indistinguishable, apart from by PR, from all the millions of MySpace 'friends'.

Update: a sad statistic from the Sandi Thom official website Forum:
Most users ever online was 24 on Sun Jun 04, 2006 7:53 pm

Freeing Nelson Mandela: the inside story

One of the great mysteries of modern times is why the live TV coverage of Mandela's release from Robben Island prison in 1990 showed an hour of him not walking out in triumph, before he eventually did so. What was happening?

I think I know. As he was tidying up his cell (who knew, it might be De Klerk's next), he had a premonition of his future life outside: meeting Tony Blair and Gabrielle, Prince Charles and the Spice Girls, Oprah, Bill Clinton, Alan Titchmarsh and the Ground Force team, St Bob and St Bono.

He thought, 'Well, maybe prison's not so bad', before reluctantly concluding that suffering seemed to be his lot, and he might as well get on with it.

All at sea: review of Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead man's chest

If you only see one film this year, you're lucky. I've seen three already, and one of them was King Kong, and another was Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead man's chest, which was better, and even slightly shorter (a mere 150 minutes). Like King Kong, it could have been a lot shorter still. A swordfight inside a waterwheel careering down a hill is amusing for 30 seconds, and mildly impressive for a further minute, and just boring after that. Also like King Kong, there is an extended sequence featuring cannibalistic savages whose language is not translated. This seems an interesting cultural phenomenon: it has been a hundred years or so since such a portrayal has been acceptable: the last time we saw people with bones through their noses, they were appearing alongside Sting being credited with environmental and spiritual wisdom beyond the ken of modern man. They are, in language and dress, clearly 'other' to both European whites and African blacks: one has to wonder whether this straightforward unapologetic demonisation reflects geopolitical nightmares about the Yellow Economic Peril.

Morally, the Pirates film wriggles, attempting to highlight the evil globalisation of (British) (in) justice and economic exploitation to define one set of real baddies. Nice of that little homespun local outfit the Walt Disney Corporation to highlight this.

There are good sequences in the film, but each is too long, and there are far too many: the proliferation of plot twists is not so much confusing as irritating. There is something of the BB7 effect in seeing the return of every major character from the first film, even the dead ones. Can't we move on? The core plot is potentially interesting, an elaboration of a complex mythology around the themes of Davy Jones' Locker and the Flying Dutchman; it's a shame this wasn't more central.

It was also welcome to have both a relatively complex moral stance (few of the characters are straightforwardly good all the time) and an absence of the emotional bullying that is usually part of a blockbuster, where the music forces you to react in a certain way.

The acting is ok, too, although there are a range of styles, from Johnny Depp, who keeps it turned up to 11 almost all the time, Bill Nighy, whose humanity shows through his faceful of tentacles, and Keira Knightley who holds the film's interest for much of its length. When she's not speaking, she's fine, but unfortunately when she is, she seems out of place. Her quiet delivery might be all right in a period film, but here she sounds bored when talking and petulant when shouting.

All in all, I could forgive the film were it not for the last half hour which is an extended set-up for Pirates 3; I recognised this as soon as it happened, since it effectively destroyed any climax to the narrative, the same fault that crippled Back to the Future 2.

Overall: it's no King Kong, but still.

Change and decay 5

I started to work along the shelves, applying numbered Post-It notes to the piles of papers, when I heard the door open behind me.
‘Ah- you must be the archivist.’
I turned round to see a girl in her twenties, gracefully leaning on the doorpost, a quizzical smile on her face.
‘That’s right,’ I replied, ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘I’m Helen – didn’t Ma and Pa say? Have you started yet?’
‘Just now, actually – it’ll take a while.’
‘Found any treasures?’ Helen asked, with a glint in her eye.
‘Well, they are all important, in their way.’
‘Even the rubbish?’ Helen laughed, ‘Are you sure?’
I laughed too. ‘We prefer the term “ephemera”, but yes, for now.’
She walked into the room, trailing her hand along the shelf. She walked with a flat-footed gait; I noticed she was wearing frayed ballet pumps. She stared at me for a second.
‘I was expecting someone older, when they said you were coming.’
‘Archivists come in all shapes and sizes, I suppose.’
She shrugged. ‘I hope you don’t find any family secrets.’
She turned to leave with an offhand ‘See you’.
I watched her go, and then went back to work.