Gene was never “my” band; they were the favorite of my best friend, who understood what they were trying to say more easily than I did. But this song was one of two that I loved, both from whenever he’d play the (second) album Drawn To The Deep End, and whenever I’d hear it on Radio 1’s “Evening Session” show or whatever. It’s the indie boy lullaby of the opening, and its contrast to the guitar wrangling that follows; it gets me everytime, and I’m not entirely sure why. The line about “a hunger to feel welcome/Out in the bedrooms of the world” helps; it’s a wonderfully poetic way of expressing what is, ultimately, sexual frustration and outsider angst, and the subtle brass band pamping away in the background as singer Martin Rossiter mouths those words helps them seem warmer, somehow.
Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan