10 REASONS WHY

... YOU NEED THIS BAND IN YOUR LIFE

Suede are my favourite band - yes even more than The Smiths (yes I did
just write that)  ... and it's not an easy choice to make

especially when you consider The Smiths .... and also my love for the Manic
Street Preachers that has gone hand in hand with my love for Suede - even
though they are very similiar and the Manics also do affect me very deeply
(1 example Motorcycle Emptiness) Suede just affect me in a totally different
way - it's like they go directly to the very core of me

Suede's world was a Ballard -esque landscape of towering high rises, asphalt
underpasses, misfit lovers adrift in the city, under nuclear skies of poison
rain ... getting beaten up on escalators ... in 16 hole boots - but it was also
way more than that, as in their songs they also encapsulated a very british
notion of romance and escape

this ... in 10 points, is why you need THIS BAND in your life.

1/ PANTOMIME HORSE



I really could just leave it at this - this song. this one song - from that
first musical flourish to the final strains of Brett's empassioned vocals.
this is my favourite Suede song ...  I can't even began to explain the
impact it's had on me

'I was born as a pantomime horse
ugly as the sun when he falls to the floor
I was cut from the wreckage one day
this is what I get for being that way

Well did you ever, did you ever go round with them?
Well did you ever, did you ever go round the bend?

I was conned by a circus hand
Tragic as the son of a superman
"I would die for the stars" she said
This is what I get for my beautiful head

Well did you ever, did you ever go round with them?
Well did you ever, did you ever go round the bend?
... ever tried it that way, have you ever tried it that way?'




2/ THE ASPHALT WORLD
words are useless
useless.and.pointless

just watch the below

'Sometimes we ride in a taxi to the ends of the city

Like big stars in the back seat like skeletons ever so pretty

I know a girl she walks the asphalt world
She's got a friend, they share mascara I pretend
Sometimes they fly from the covers to the winter of the river
For these silent stars of the cinema
It's in the blood stream, it's in the liver
I know a girl, she walks the arse felt world

With ice in her blood
And a Dove in her head'

3/ OUTSIDERS,FREAKS + MISFITS

'Birds of a feather flock together
And so will pigs and swine
Rats and mice will have their choice
And so will I have mine'

'Like his dad you know that he's had
Animal nitrate in mind
Oh in your council home he jumped on your bones
Now you're taking it time after time'





... Orwellian nightmare while Brit-Pop ruled  - yes please.

Suede wrote for the outsiders, freaks and misfits and in a way that's what
they were too - in the midst of cheery/cheeky brit-pop anthems, while Blur
were doing this and Oasis were doing this Suede released  WE ARE THE PIGS,
an apocolyptic Orwell inspired anthem ... says it all really. Brett never looked
cooler than on the Top of the pops appearence ... (and I need that WE ARE THE
PIGS t shirt) They took this to even more extremes on the stunning and darkly
ambitious DOG MAN STAR - something in a league of it's own and totally out of
step with the mood of the time (but now revered as one of the greatest albums
of the 90's) ... all of this perfectly illustrates the band and where they positioned
themselves ... Suede WERE that strange boy in the corner at the party, the one
not fitting in with everything and everyone around him.

'High on diesel and gasoline, psycho for drum machine
Shaking their bits to the hits
Drag acts, drug acts, suicides, in your dad's suits you hide
Staining his name again
Cracked up, stacked up, 22, psycho for sex and glue
Lost it to Bostik, yeah
Shaved heads, rave heads, on the pill, got too much time to kill
Get into bands and gangs
Loved up, Doved up, hung around, stoned in a lonely town
Oh, here they come, the beautiful ones, the beautiful ones
You don't think about it
You don't do without it
Because you're beautiful'

'Maybe, maybe it's the clothes we wear
The tasteless bracelets and the dye in our hair
Maybe it's our kookiness
Or maybe, maybe it's our nowhere towns
Our nothing places and our cellophane sound
But we're trash, you and me
We're the litter on the breeze
We're the lovers on the street'

'Suede's sexual lyrics made them a rallying point for the alienated, one
of the few British bands since the Smiths who united as much as they
divided'

'Me and Brett would go and see the Smiths in Brighton. Says Osman, and
you'd see rugby players down the front with their arms round each other,
very strange ... and you'd know that these people kissing each other's necks
were the same people who were going to beat you up on the way back to
the station. As one pledged to looking quite chic, quite special, Brett was an
obvious target of grief everywhere you went, there was always the threat of
someone beating you up. He sighs, everyone was always pushing themselves
towards being some sort of sexual, potent, violent character all the time'

4/ ESCAPE

Suede's lyrics often dealt with escape - in all it's meanings and guises

'She can walk out anytime, anytime she wants to walk out that's
fine (BY THE SEA)

'See you in your next life when we'll fly away for good, stars in our
own car we can drive away from here' (THE NEXT LIFE)

'As we tumble through the sky ... we can stay a while in heaven
today' (STAY TOGETHER)

'Angel, don't take those sleeping pills, you don't need them
Though it's just time they kill' (SLEEPING PILLS)



(yes, the above  is how they used to START their concerts!)

and even though songs like SO YOUNG and THE WILD ONES don't
actually refer to escape in any way (So Young intro aside) they do 
have that feeling of fleeing your surroundings in a blurry haze of
desperation and romantic abandonment

By the sea is particularly heart-breaking - it is one of Suedes most
emotional songs and I really like the duality (He/She) of the lyrics

'She can walk out anytime, anytime she wants to walk out that's fine
She can walk out anytime, anytime she feels that life has passed her by
And when I start my new life I won't touch the ground
I'm gonna try hard this time not to touch the ground

He can walk out anytime, anytime he wants to walk out that's fine
He can walk out anytime, across the sand into the sea into the brine
And when I start my new life I won't touch the ground
I'm gonna try hard this time not to touch the ground

So we sold the car and quit the job
And shook some hands and wiped the make-up right off
And we said our good-byes to the bank
left Seven Sisters for a room in a seaside shack
And when I start my new life I won't touch the ground
I'm gonna try hard this time not to touch the grounds

Into the sea we'll bleed ...'



comments about BY THE SEA:

'I sat by the sea with this song playing in the background the day my best
friend lost his battle with cancer. I think of him everytime I hear it. I'm sure
he has a new life now, and definitely won't be touching the ground'

'I'm speechless'

Interesting fact:
''By the Sea (1996) was actually written when Suede were recording their
first album (in 1993) which is why the songs opening line is almost identical
to 'So Young''
- and why it is so heartbreaking

YOUTUBE comment about 'The Wild Ones'

'so beautiful
so touching . . . .
a song to say goodbye to this very world.....'

5/ Extraordinary B-sides

Suede are legendary for their B-Sides being as good as their A-Sides

the early B-sides had the music press and fans in rapture over them

Check out SCI-FI LULLABIES (a B-sides compilation) for proof of this
Disc 1 especially is better than most bands actual proper ALBUMS

Don't take your life 'cause your bicycle won't fly





6/ STAY TOGETHER video


the band hate this video (+ song) - famously walking away rather than having
to watch the video - saying it's full of 'empty symbolism' - the symbolism is the
thing I love about the video (and I wouldn't call it empty) - so many frames I
love - I mean JUST the first 4 seconds and that shot of Brett - ****   I mean,
need I say anything more ...



I'm not gonna lie  - I am kind of obsessed with the 8 minute version of this song
(below) it really is like a whole new song - throughout the course of the song it
changes in so many ways - I really like the spoken (barely audible) part ... and
that ending, I could listen to it on repeat for hours ... I know, I'm kinda weird :)

'Trippy little girl where the pigs don't come
16 tears for every year
Hooked up together with the burning year
Here lies the shadow of a gun'

7/ THE SLEEVES
equalling the sleeves of  The Smiths ... and that's saying something
the below are my favourite 2 Suede sleeves 
... Dog man Star is my favourite album cover of all time

'The gender-ambiguous cover art provoked some controversy in the press,
prompting Anderson to comment, "I chose it because of the ambiguity of it,
but mostly because of the beauty of it." The cover image of the androgynous
kissing couple was taken from the 1991 book Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take
Photographs by Tessa Boffin and Jean Fraser. The photograph was taken by
Tee Corrine and in its entirety shows a woman kissing an acquaintance in a
wheelchair



'The artwork, which features a naked man sprawled on a bed were lifted from
one of Anderson's old photo books. Taken by American photographer Joanne
Leonard in 1971, the front cover picture was originally titled "Sad Dreams On
Cold Mornings" and the rear photo "Lost Dreams" Anderson says, "I just liked
the image, really, of the bloke on the bed in the room. It's quite sort of sad and
sexual, I think, like the songs on the album'






below - Brett talking about the debut album cover

8/ COOL FANS

suede fans are cool. fact. how could they get any better? if they loved

morrissey also (damn perfect) ... and were american. and held flowers
while waiting to see the band ... such great style - I need that leather
jacket so bad (and I'm vegetarian) - sorry morrissey.

9/ STILL LIFE

'this still life is all I ever do'

this. song.




10/ HE SAID, SHE SAID
 'I want the style of a woman, the kiss of a man' - INTRODUCING THE BAND

'I've never seen myself as overtly heterosexual, but then, I didn't see myself

as gay. I sort of saw myself as some kind of sexual being that was floating

somewhere' - Brett Anderson

Brett did not write from your typical guys point of view. Nor did he leave it
open and not mention any gender (like many singers do so it can be interpreted

differently by different people) ... his lyrics often alluded and mentioned HE

in them which confused a lot of people and led many people to assume many

things

'In the high life, I've got this feeling now
I've got this horrible feeling
On the escalator they took it out on him
As the ridiculous world went by

Oh he is gone
He's my insatiable one'

Below - Brett talking about writing lyrics

'Like the leaves on the trees
Like the Carpenters song
Like the planes and the trains and they lives that were young
He's gone
And it feels like the words to a song'



'Well he writes the line wrote down my spine
It says "Oh do you believe in love there?"

So slow down, slow down, you're taking me over
And so we drown, sir we drown, stop taking me over

We kiss in his room to a popular tune
Oh, real drowners'

I had to include the below video - I really wanted it as it's own reason above
but just over-ran ... a very special Suede song and a truly stunning video
(my favourite video of all time) - when you see it you'll know why it had to
be included

'she can start to walk out, if she wants'

some youtube comments:

'SO AMAZING song and wonderful video. After so many years it still

takes my breath away... '

'I've cried when you play this at SOS festival. I couldn't sing and your voice

make me cry again and again... That's my fav song, and when I heared was
like too much sensations, cause all the years that I heard you I thought that
I never see you in concert... So was crying for hapiness. Thank you so much,
for make people feel like me in your concerts'

'This is gay. That's not a bad thing, but I'm saying that this is balls-to-the-balls,

ripping chest hair, poofter fairy queen gay. Still like the song though'

'I just wasn't particularly interested in Suede just being liked; I was only
really interested in Suede being loved ...

... Suede was about the intense passion of being loved as a band and
constructing a universe for people to dive into and that was all part of the
iconography of the sleeves and the worlds I sang about and possibly the
overuse of lots of the imagery was all part of it. Maybe it was all part of
my need to belong somewhere. We established a Suede landscape, and I
always loved those bands that did that. Maybe it's a very much overused
reference point but I did grow up loving The Smiths records and loving
what they did and the kind of tribalism they created' - Brett Anderson

... from our home high in the city where the skyline stained the snow