Home demo.
Recorded in the front bedroom, No. 2 Dolphin Cottages, Wanborough, in January 1985.
Engineered by Colin Moulding.
Mixed by XTC.
Released on 25 March 2002 on Coat of Many Cupboards in the U.K.
Colin Moulding – All instruments and Vocals
Colin: “Everyone knows that odd time of day that we call lunchbreak. Odd because of the feeling one gets at about half past one, when one teeters on the brink of deciding whether to go back to work or not. Maybe you’re enjoying the company you’re with, perhaps a girl you’re fond of. Or is it the sheer devilment of being out of bounds after hours? You first come across this feeling when you’re a schoolboy and the bell has gone for afternoon lessons. It was such a feeling that prompted this song. The sauciness came later when the song needed to build, but it has a basis in reality. I used to meet a girl for lunch once upon a time, who was mad on The Stones and funnily enough the track she used to play quite often was called ‘Factory Girl’, a song which I believe contains the same feeling I’ve been describing. I think I’d better stop there.”
Andy: “I must say I’m quietly stunned. In listening to this odds and ends, kitchen drawer of a collection, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s so much Swindon in so many of these songs, it’s scary. The cosseting ‘Listen with Mother’ cadence of the guitar fondly doffs its broken old hat just enough at Syd Barrett’s ‘Scarecrow’ to evoke both, but copy neither. The epicentre of this illicit teenage love bomb is still the Penhill council estate. Marooned atop a gentle mound at the north of Swindon, but washed on all sides by lush farmland, throwing its pebbledash and abandoned car greyness into even sharper relief.”