BUNGALOW TOWN

So I think enough time has gone by now and the dust has finally settled to finish the last few posts about the songs we released. Grieving period over….I think (sniff sniff…). We had our final gig at Southsea Fest and my word it was emotional. I’ll probably write a little bit more about that at the very end of these posts…

ANYWAY – WHERE WERE WE?

Bungalow Town. Yes. A duet. Myself and Rox sharing vocal duties entirely. I always wanted to do more of this as I think it sounds rather nice in general. Her vox and piano make this song for me, really.

This was the ballady one on the album. A guilty pleasure of mine (actually I don’t feel guilty whatsoever) is The Connells. Those of mid 90’s pop-rock one-hit wonder-smash ’74/75′. ‘Bungalow Town’ is me basically ripping it off. Yes, yes yes you can listen to all the Ben Frost/Nils Frahm/These New Puritans you want and pretend how hipster you are but at the end of the day….THE CONNELLS. Crikey, what a song.

The lyrics stemmed from something I was reading at the time regarding a sort of little English version of Hollywood that sprung up sometime at the start of the 20th century on the beaches of Shoreham-By-Sea. As unlikely as that sounds. I think it was a film star who first moved there and had a house built. Lots of others followed suit and it lead to this bacchanalian little set of Primrose Hill-esque trendsters having a bit of a party in all these new bungalows they’d had built. A lot of the buildings burned down though quite soon after being made of wood which all seemed like an appealing metaphor so…there you go. I guess personally growing up in a small town and wanting to leave as soon as possible is something universal to lots of folks in similar positions too which also informed the lyrics. However, when you get to this new exciting place, you still have that same ‘grass-is-greener’ feeling inside. That’s what ‘Bungalow Town’ is about in a nutshell.

I’d also read an article on the recording of an REM song (I forget which one) but it was pertaining to the fact that, although the song was just piano, guitar and vocals, there were tons and tons of tracks recorded and layers of instruments to give it a thick, lush sound. I tried the same for this so there were quite a few acoustic guitar and mic combos even though it sounds like one guitar playing. To be honest, Jake the Snake who mixed it probably got rid of them all anyway so I may be talking balls. No change there.