Discovering Sarah, part two

For Kate

This one's all about Brighter. At times, everything was (for an earlier example, see here): anyway, this was all prompted by listening to "Tinsel Heart" again the other day.

Apart from seeing the existence of Brighter tantalisingly trailed on the Sarah inserts, which always listed forthcoming releases (Cloudberry Recordings pays homage to these, and if you look back at them now they give you some intriguing insights, such as the fact that Another Sunny Day's "Horseriding" was originally going to be an A-side but presumably he then sent them "You Should All Be Murdered" and that was the end of that), the first word I had of this new label signing was distinctly unpromising: when my mate P. got hold of their "Around The World in Eighty Days" 7" and said it wasn't too hot, it was just a band who "sounded like they were trying to be a Sarah band". So I wasn't inspired to send off it for then, certainly. After that, well, I always get the chronology of my discovering Brighter a bit mixed up. It was a long time ago.

There were several in fifth year and sixth form who were actively buying Sarah records at the time (at least one of whom, the guy who lent me "Shadow Factory", was soon to be expelled, albeit for unrelated reasons) and lots of cassettes flying back and forth. I remember J. lending me a tape of "Laurel" before I actually bought it, and later getting me a T-shirt screenprint of the sleeve as a birthday present (worn to more than one Sarah gig, this even once got a sort-of-approving nod from Mr Haynes at the merchandise stall in the dingy back of the Jericho Tavern: later on, I would finally acquire the OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE Brighter T-shirt based on the "Disney" sleeve, which I wore at *every* available opportunity, but without anyone in the draughty college corridors EVER responding with the look of recognition that I always prayed for: as always, "are they a band ?" was as close to revelation as it came).

Anyway, getting ahead of myself here. I suspect the first time I *heard* a Brighter song was on a lend from W. of "Temple Cloud", from which the shimmering, beatless "Inside Out" (such gentle delivery of such withering insults: "and she told me / to act my age") gradually emerged as a turntable favourite. Before too long the feistier "I Don't Think It Matters" from follow-up single "Noah's Ark" made it onto a *heavily* Sarah-biased tape (Thrilled Skinny's "Good Doss" aside) I brought with me to go youth-hostelling in the Lakes at the start of the 90s, meaning I associate that song even now with bright north-west sunshine, dandelion & burdock and a ropey mini-golf course.

But I mainly link my ultimately succumbing to Brighter with my university interview, in day. I was very callow, very shy, very quiet, very nervy. (Not just at the interview, but generally). The interview involved staying in Oxford for a couple of nights, and funnily enough was at the college that I'd applied to simply because I'd been to an open day there, and I'd only been to the open day because my mate who was actually properly applying to Oxbridge had double-booked, and I read the alternative freshers' guide of the time, which happened to mention that it was the college where Talulah Gosh formed, and so I took this as a sign and went to the open day posing as my mate, but I was really a tourist at least as much as a prospective student.

Anyway, some months later, having applied there after all (in a kinda "what the hell" way), I was sitting in the common room, knowing no-one and stressed about the interview. Around me were plenty of confident types, acting as if they did this every day, none of my fish-out-of-water fears. But despite their obvious ease with themselves, they wouldn't engage with me (although one guy did ask me if I went to "day school", obviously considering that an exotic thought: I genuinely had *no idea* what he was getting at. Similarly, it also transpired that both his father and grandfather had been to the same college, and he couldn't get his head round the fact mine hadn't, indeed hadn't been to university at all). But to be fair, I probably gave out a pretty standoffish vibe.

Then a girl came in. We'll call her Kate. She was no doubt nervous herself, because like me you could tell this wasn't her usual milieu. But she immediately spotted me and my discomfort and came over and started chatting with me. Double metaphor time: I came out of my shell as she took me under her wing. We wandered out to the Westgate, did a bit of shopping, she introduced me to another lovely, soft-spoken guy she'd met earlier on and we relaxed with a few cans that evening.

By the sound of it Kate's interview the next day had gone better than mine did. I was pretty low afterwards, feeling I'd been a bit exposed as shellshocked and state school, but for solace I wandered down to the Our Price on Cornmarket where I saw (and bought) Brighter's "Around The World In Eighty Days" 7". Incidentally, I also saw (and bought) Bubblegum Splash!'s "Splashdown" EP at the same time, which I'd literally been hunting down for years - as time goes by, the more amazed I am that it had sat happily on a high street store singles rack in Oxford for 3 or 4 years unmolested, but others' loss was my *definite* gain. In fact, if you can name me a better single-day double-7" purchase *ever* than "Around The World" and "Splashdown", I'm gonna be pretty impressed.

Back at home in subsequent weeks, I grew to *truly* love the EP (the title track - even with the skip my copy did *every single time* - smooching up against "Inside Out", "Tinsel Heart" and "Things Will Get Better", which a similarly-rapt friend's band later covered). But it was "Tinsel Heart" that hit me the hardest, and always made me think of this fantastic friend I'd met and who'd helped me survive those few days. Especially when the letter came through saying that somehow they were making me an offer after all, and it turned out that Kate wouldn't be joining me there. We kept in touch with a few phone calls and as often happened in those pre-internet days that friendship soon petered out, but the lyrics always make me think of her: Keris imploring, "Don't you ever let them win", followed by those perfect, jangling, yet half-jarring instrumental bars of gnarled indiepop melodiousness. It was this girl's irrepressible spirit, and her generosity in reaching out to the lonely youthful me, that I *never* wanted to think of as being snuffed out.

Which made "Tinsel Heart" one of the very few songs that had ever made me cry, admittedly mostly because I was a right old fotherington-tomas and weedy weakling, but also because I've always loved those songs that link the personal and political, and it's never been hard to empathise with lines like "in this stinking little country / that's drowning within". It was a deep shame a few years later when Richard Waaah! told me that "Tinsel Heart" was really a sex song, more scatological than political, all the stuff about "touching" meaning "fucking" and "country" just a euphemism for something else. (And it's not too hard to imagine that the swear-happier Harper Lee, for example, might have re-recorded it leaving all the expletives in). But I was way too innocent for that, and even now I'm determined to rise above it, and instead to think of "Tinsel Heart" as a tribute to Kate and all the people like her who simply put being friendly and engaging above being aloof or cool; one of the 'quiet many' who, just like Brighter, make this life feel so great.

(discovering sarah, part one)