The Straitjacket Fits @ Bodega, 30 April 2005Damian over at Cracker nails it on the head when he observes that...

...to a greater or lesser extent, no-one knows at least half of the lyrics to your average Straitjacket Fits song.

This truth was hammered home to me last week, shortly before I was to attend the long-awaited reunion gig by my Favourite NZ Band Ever down at Bodega. My wife asked me how 'She Speeds' goes, and myself and another friend, die-hard Fits fans it has to be said, launched into this rendition (with a nod to DC again, for his own inspired attempts at transliteration)...

She Speeeeeds.
Eluegavizhanenashealing...Awaaaay.

In 'reality', it's actually this...

She speeds
Elusive as a thief in the night, she's stealing away.

Great stuff, whether you can understand it or not. Funnily enough, at the Wellington gig I attended, the (supposed) object of desire who inspired this song was standing but three feet to my right - with her partner. She was beaming. He was, well, beaming actually. Shayne seems to bring out pure sexual desire in virtually everyone it seems. I think it's the lips, myself.

Anyway, since I read and re-read the lyrics to the Melt album (from the cassette inlay! I owned it on cassette!) religiously during my early 20s, I was at least au fait when songs of that album were played (of which there were a few). I tried my best, in fact, to supply the Broughy harmony parts, only to be (thankfully) drowned out by the band itself and the more harmonically gifted members of the audience. The weird thing was, even when there were no harmony parts being sung (Mark Petersen, after some early mic problems, eventually managed to jump in and supply a good swag of them), I could still hear them, so hard-wired into my brain they must be.

A great night. A big "Cheers bro" to all those involved.
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