Won’t You Wait and Twee What I Could Say?

Heavenly – Shallow

A few kids at Oxford decided to start a band called Talulah Gosh, after hearing a compilation that came with NME magazine, called C86. They got good, and then broke up for whatever reasons, only to reform, after all getting first-class degrees, as more or less the same band, but now called Heavenly. Later, they would be called Marine Research, with a slightly different lineup. All three bands, though, and the members’ other projects, played twee pop – jankly guitars and sweet melodies, with desexed lyrics and haircuts. Heavenly was the best of the three, and the whole album that this song comes from, Heavenly vs. Satan, is great all the way through. Some of the songs are fast and happy on the surface, but they all have the same sadness as “Shallow,” somewhere. I especially like this song, partly because of the Beatles quote in the guitar solo, but mostly because of its peppy loneliness. It’s like Amelia Fletcher, the band leader and lyricist, is saying, “You hurt me and I miss you, and it makes me want to sing, sing, sing!“