Like his supposed predecessor Ray Davies, Andy Partridge has never been at his best when getting misty-eyed about days gone by. Listen to half of The Village Green Preservation Society and you'll find yourself wondering how Davies ever acquired such a reputation, as you're afflicted by odiously twee ditties like Village Green, All Of My Friends Were There and the unspeakable Phenomenal Cat. He redeems himself when he drops the affectations and really takes hold of the relationship we have with our shared past (People Take Pictures Of Each Other) and Partridge is the same. Playground, which opens this year's Wasp Star, ruefully recounts the experiences of schooldays, the unspoken rituals and humiliations, and acknowledges the downs alongside the ups, and is one of the definitive XTC songs. Grass, written by Colin Moulding (who has always tended to be more sentimental and everyday, generally lacking Partridge's sense of mysticism and wonder) is something a little different, and not quite as good. While it defines what a Macmillan-era childhood was like for many people in Britain, would resonate with millions of people who are never likely to hear it, and relates perfectly to a certain scene in John Betjeman's 1962 film of the band's native Swindon, it's still simplified and schmaltzy compared to the song which precedes it on Skylarking - despite its subject matter, in children's literature terms, Grass still sounds to me like Enid Blyton to Summer's Cauldron's Minnow on the Say.
It gets in largely because of the B-side, Dear God, thankfully soon added to the album after its US college radio success. Religious questions in pop are, without fail, embarrassing - even if I was a believer, I don't think I'd want my music interrupted by Great Issues of life and death imposed upon it. What saves Dear God is that it isn't really about God at all, or at least it doesn't go on at length asking profound questions of Him Up There (think of Joan Osborne's One of Us, say absolutely no more for the rest of your life). It's simply wondering how the human race can behave in such a way, and how war is seen as the easiest and most convenient option. Because it ultimately shows simultaneous faith and despair in the behaviour of man, rather than some imaginary figure on high, it should really be called Dear Human Race. But Dear God is more striking, it explodes a myth more effectively, and the concluding kiss-off is, in its way, a renewal of trust in humanity, and distrust for the idea that one distant spirit can save the world in itself.
Essentially it's one man's despair with those who surround him, his entirely individual priorities and concerns, elevated to something higher - and thus astonishingly close to the heart of pop. Irrational and absurd on first listen, but the germ of most of my own emotional responses is there, and I don't think I'll ever tire of it.
Robin Carmody, 14th August / 3rd October 2000
http://www.elidor.freeserve.co.uk/80s.htm