Elbow - Great Expectations

Elbow released a new single, One Day Like This, last week, off their Seldom Seen Kid album.




Elbow are the kind of band worth celebrating. Beautiful music with clever, powerful lyrics. Unlike most of the stuff I post on here, I actually find them quite difficult to share or talk about, and I think it's partly because all of their stuff seems incredibly intimate. Take "Great Expectations" off Leaders of the Free World...

And if it rains all day
Call on you I'll call on you
Like I used to
Slide down beside and wrap you in stories
Tailored entirely for you
I'll remind you
We exchanged a vow
I love you I always will

A call girl with yesterday eyes
Was our witness and priest
Stockport supporters club kindly supplied us a choir
Your veil was your smile
As we move down the aisle
Of the last bus home
And this is where I go
Just when it rains

Blinking and stoned
Rain in your hair
You only smoke ‘cause it's something to share
Singing bring on the night
To have and to hold
The sodium light turning silver to gold

Spitfire thin and strung like a violin
I was
Yours was the face with a grace
From a different age
You were the sun in my Sunday morning
You were the sun in my Sunday morning
Telling me never to go
So I'll live on the smile
And move down the isle
Of the last bus home
And if you're running late
This is where I'll go
Know I'll always wait

It's not addressed to me in any way shape or form but somehow it feels like it's mine, ridiculous as that is. In my mind I am that the guy singing the song. The music aches with what the guy feels. And the "Stockport supporters club" line - so so soooooo inexpressibly good.

I'm trying to fight this silliness, so here it is - my favourite ever Elbow track, laid bare for your criticism. Having said that, I won't hear a bad word, even if you shout them at me, I just won't. This is the kind of music that can change your life.

Elbow - Great Expectations

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Now playing: Elbow - Mexican Standoff