Get on, get on, get on, get on ‘the groovy train’
Get on, get on, get on, get on ‘the groovy train’
Repeat
Ah that heady aroma of 1990! Picture a skinnier, even hairier version of your humble author wearing black jeans and a wildly patterned silky purple shirt* with flappy sleeves galumphing around a darkened dancefloor somewhere sweaty in Leeds, beer bottle in hand. I was chasing good times and chicks; the latter frequently proving far more elusive than the former.
As a Dancing Dude** I was damned lucky to have gone to university during a blessed time of plenty as far as great dance tracks were concerned. Okay so I wrote up Deee-Lite far too early in this game and that is still my favourite ever track to dance to^ and there were all the Happy Mondays ones I liked but let’s celebrate a couple of more second division treats which i still can’t sit still to.
The Farm Groovy Train is a great case in point. I was gently mocking a friend at work for going to see them next weekend, which led to me playing it, which ended in a vigorous spot of kitchen dancing, featuring much enthusiastic arm waving tonight.
The band always seemed a little bit like Johnny-come-latelys to me at the time and they sailed against the tide by being defiantly Liverpudlian rather than smugly Mancunian^^ and lets face it the lyrics are pretty darn naff. And yet. And yet. And yet … it is such a wonderfully effective treat of a tune. Nobody ever wrestled with profound thoughts to the sound of this beastie, it’s solely designed to get you to move and it does it perfectly, the bassline just won’t quit, the chorus is just as unsubtle as you need it to be and the ‘you’re so special’ lines are just bespoke for ensnaring prospective dance partners.
This is the US video for ‘Groovy Train’. As one wag in the comments put it ”Groovy Train” filmed on a bus. Genius. I’m now looking for a version of “Living on a Jet Plane” filmed on a ferry’. Ha!
In a similar vein is The Soup Dragons I’m Free, which performs the neat trick of taking a minor fart of Jagger/Richards pedigree and turning it into a beautiful dance soufflé; seriously I think the Stones version is dire – if they had even a half measure of decency they would apologise to the Soup Dragons immediately.
The Soup Dragons were much derided at the time for insisting there had ‘always been a dance element to our music’, when they saw which way the wind was blowing and dumped their guitar-heavy indie rocking for dancefloor heaven … and presumably a skip full of cash. Good on ’em, I say.
The Soupies give us another great rhythm, soaring backing vox, some rather tasty guitaring and one Junior Reid, who appears to have been employed to say ‘Don’t be afraid of your freedom‘ in a particularly cool manner at the beginning of the track and a bit of unity nonsense in the middle. I know it’s a bit knowing and a bit naff (again!), but the track just really bypasses my critical faculties, such as they are, and heads straight for my smile and my feet. I’ll always have a place for songs which can do that.
So there you have it, two 12″s that I carry a shitload of nostalgia for but still deserve their place in the 1537 for sheer dance motivational purposes. They don’t make me think, they don’t make me feel, they don’t challenge or amuse me, they simply make me happy which is, I think, the purest and best reason to collect these spirally scratched lumps of plastic encased in cardboard.
I said I’m free
To be who I choose
To get my booze
Any old time
Here endeth the lesson.
810 Down.
PS: Apart from the title tracks every thing else on either 12″ here is an annoyance.
*purchased from the sort of shop that nobody under the age of 72 had ever shopped at previously. The man behind the counter looked genuinely slightly frightened to have a youth in his emporium.
**that deserved capitalisation.
^it deserves a better write-up for sure. Forgive me Lady Miss Kier.
^^very much in their favour, as far as I’m concerned.
