Song number seven of 52 will without doubt one of those which dates back the furthest…
I first wrote ‘Earth Utopia’ in 1998 as a teenager, In early 2001 I rewrote some of the words to include references to George W Bush, even taking the time to type them out like they had some kind of literary significance.
I actually remember the afternoon I did this. I bought the typewriter at some sec0nd-hand store, then set up a desk outdoors so not to annoy my flatmates (who kicked me out not long afterwards, thankfully – they sucked) and typed out all the words to pretty much every song I’d written to that point. Here they are, with the original from 1998.
Being so long ago, I don’t recall how the song was written. The opening riff on the organ was a guitar in the demo, owing to the fact back then I couldn’t play keyboards, and had no way to programme them in. The main verse chords are basically 3/4 of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’.
The psychedelic pop feel (complete with hard left/right panning) came from my massive love for the Beatles/Kinks/early-mid Who. When it came to recording it properly – 23 fucking years after I wrote it – I decided to keep some of the hilariously dated lyrics (G-dub has fallen!) and add some contemporary ones (Karen is now calling, now ‘sexy’ or ‘X-Y’, depending on which old lyrical draft you’re looking at). Chuck in some fat distorted guitars, an Odyssey synth, vocals that are in tune, a few subtle flourishes and there you have it.
I was a 50/50 on whether to release this one – it straddles that line of embarrassing and cool. But this far in I have zero confidence in my ability to tell which of my songs are good and which aren’t, so whatever.
Listen on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, YouTube, Tidal, Deezer and Amazon. Check out other songs in the ‘A Year in the Life’ project here.
