SONGS THAT SAVED MY LIFE#14: YOUNG GREEN AND CLEAN......

Time often does funny things to your memory, and ones memories of youth are usually viewed through rose-tinted glasses: the summers were long and hot, sex was plentiful, and the party never stopped. Bollocks - this is the UK where hot days are often outweighed by rainy ones, getting laid is easy if you have the looks and confidence, and if you want to party then you have to work (usually in a dead end job) in order to afford it. Not such a rosy picture after all! Don't get me wrong: i'm not trying to be a killjoy. My own youth had its highlights but also some lows, and typically it's music that brings back memories of both. I was a shy, nervous and naive teenager, and at the age of 18 i somehow found myself living and working miles away from the - to my youthful mind - shithole town i had grown up in, and i couldn't have been happier. I had been working on a YTS scheme in a £1 shop for about a year, when my "skills" in organising the store room were requested on a road trip down south - places outside London like Uxbridge, Hemel Hempstead, and Watford - by my manager at the time, an affable Geordie named Bryan. He was more than a manager, being a good mate and a good laugh, and after several trips to sort out other stores with no concept of organisation i was offered a trainee assistant managers position in the Watford branch. With the knowledge that my YTS tenure was coming to an end soon, and an overwhelming desire to escape my hometown, i of course snapped it up, and within a few weeks i was settled in a shared house there. The next few months weren't exactly a wild party, but after making a few friends i had some good times, and that Summer was a pretty decent one, soundtracked by some of the best music i'd ever heard. It was 1995, the Summer of Britpop when Blur and Oasis battled it out for the No.1 spot, where an underdog band from Sheffield had the biggest hit of their (mostly unsuccessful) 18 year long career, and where just about any guitar-based band could get signed and have a hit. The whole "Britpop" scene had actually begun a couple of years before with the first successes of bands like Suede and Blur, when British guitar based bands formed a backlash against the then dominant American Grunge scene, and 1995 would prove to be its peak year. There are quite a few records that always transport me back to that time, but one key album stands tall above all else: I Should Coco by Supergrass. I'd first heard them earlier that year through their "Mansize Rooster" single, their first hit, and was immediately gripped by its headlong charge of Buzzcocks-meets-Madness punk-pop. Their image and sound - influenced by The Jam, Madness, Buzzcocks, The Kinks (amongst others) -  meant they were swiftly included in the Britpop scene of the time, although the band never saw themselves as part of it, and their debut album was eagerly anticipated. Could they keep up the youthful rush of their singles over a long player? Released that May, it turns out they could. By then i was settled in my new digs, and rushed home after work to play it. Several times! Part of I Should Coco's charm was that it partly doubled as an early singles collection/best of so far, featuring all their first four singles and a b-side (one more was to be released which would be one of their defining songs, but more later), but that didn't detract from the rest. Kicking off with a barked "1-2-3-4!" the album opener "I'd Like To Know" storms in on frantic punky guitars and harmonies, before heading straight into the 100mph buzzsaw pop tale of a teenage drug bust (true story of singer/guitarist Gaz Coombes being busted for posession of weed aged 15) of "Caught By The Fuzz". The pace doesn't let up as the piano-led anthem for youth "Alright" follows, with more punk-pop thrills in the shape of "Lose It", "Lenny", "Strange Ones" - written about some of the odd characters that the band shared a street with - and "Sitting Up Straight" all flying past. After this initial burst of energy it's time to kick back with a spliff and relax a little, as the more acoustic sounding "She's So Loose", the throwaway sped-up vocals of "We're Not Supposed To" and the bluesy pub-rock of "Time" bring in a more contemplative mood and point the way to how the bands sound might evolve. The blissed-out gentle psychedelia of "Sofa (Of My Lethargy) and the brief Country strum of "Time To Go" close the album, and it's all over in just over 40 minutes. It begs to be played on repeat even now.

One song from the album would be forever imprinted on the minds and hearts of anyone who was 18 that summer: "Alright". A paean to youth and discovering alcohol, girls and freedom, its deceptively simple lyrics and tune are enough to make it memorable, but it was the Monkees-styled video that sealed it. Supergrass went on to make four more albums and a wealth of great singles before splitting in 2010 - "Richard III", "Moving", "Sun Hits The Sky" among them - but they will forever be linked with the image that hearing that song evokes. No bad thing.