A long and glorious decline

[glenatron]

The lights went down and a mix of sounds came from the speakers- radio voices from the early twentieth century and then beautiful female harmonies singing an entirely familiar melody, albeit one that I expect to hear from male voices. I suppose one might call it Women Together Today.

"The universe is a record Of everything you say and do."

It's a little over ten years since my favourite album ever came out - which is, by no coincidence whatsoever, the greatest album ever recorded - and to mark this occasion, British Sea Power announced a few shows that celebrated the anniversary re-release of The Decline Of British Sea Power. Now I am not great at thinking about gigs I want to go to- in fact, I have somewhat lost my passion for seeking out live music in the last few years - but fortunately my brother is and for my birthday back in February he bought us tickets for their London show. My response to it was not what I expected.

"A swallow is depicted there, along your fuselage."

When I bought The Decline Of... I was in a brief intermission of staying at my parents' house, having recently moved out of a flat nearby and being in the process of buying a first home. It was an exciting time, but also a happy one- I was in a relationship that seemed to be quite comfortable, quite grown-up, and we were temporarily living in the house I had grown up in. It was an odd house, built up from an old WW2 Nissen hut and entirely wood clad, comfortable in that cool November, with it's textured wall paper and the big green log stove in the living room that heated it. It connected up my childhood, my teenage years and the happy homecomings during university holidays with the changes ahead, my impending marriage and the house I was about to purchase. I had also joined a new band and I was exciting about the music we were going to make together. I missed my university friends but I was still young and there was a lot to look forward to.

"Oh little England, tonight I'll swim, from my favourite island shores..."

I didn't really appreciate The Decline Of British Sea Power for a year or so after I got it. I listened to it the next autumn and suddenly it blazed into my mind and my imagination and I realised in a flash what an astounding collection of songs it is.

"I believe that bravery exists."

The band didn't work out, I mean we recorded a pretty great album and I enjoyed a lot of things about it, but there were others that made me unhappy. Well, if I'm honest a lot of them were to do with the relentless political machinations of our singer. There were things I liked about him, the person I talked to when we had direct conversations, and I was ambitious for our music to achieve something too, but he spent so much time working at being a jerk that eventually that was what he became. He had a very troubled relationship with women as well, forever teetering between worship and contempt. There are things about him that I didn't realise until years after I left the band, but certainly I don't regret leaving, but maybe in some ways I regret joining. We did a lot of gigs, we played in some interesting places, once I got a free t-shirt - although given the investment I put into the album it doesn't feel like a great deal in retrospect - and it gave me a glimpse of the edges of the music industry. Those edges were full of boring middle-aged men, no different from most other industries. It didn't look so exciting from where I stood and the relationship between work and the chances of getting any pay whatsoever as a musician playing original music seemed unbelievably tenuous. All around me I saw amazing bands who could have sold huge numbers of records playing to empty back rooms and slowly washing away. With them went my faith in the music industry. I will always love music, but I wouldn't want to work there.

"I feel the lapping of an ebbing tide..."

I was standing in the Roundhouse with herecirm beside me and British Sea Power were playing Remember Me and at some point I realised that there were tears rolling down my face and I didn't know that I was crying until that moment. It was the strongest and most immediate emotional impact music has ever had on me. They weren't the last tears I shed that night.

"For then you will have lost it all, the last of this island..."

A couple of years after the time that we stayed there, my parents went ahead with their plans to demolish the old house and rebuild it. It was a massive undertaking, costly, time consuming and immensely stressful. They came through it stressed out, exhausted and having spent their life savings, but they also have a truly beautiful house. It's in a different position on the plot, with a tall prow, bright windows and gorgeous wood floors. Now it has been lived in for a few years it is a charming place and a well deserved reward for their retirement. The pine clad walls are gone, though and the old green stove and I will never be able to show them to Sari.

"They say the past is a foreign country, how can we go there? How can we go where we once went?

One of the first nights I listened to The Decline Of British Sea Power, on a deep November evening, I made a pecan pie in that familiar kitchen. It took ages because I'm bad at pastry but it was a really good pecan pie, what we had of it. We left it on the side in the kitchen over night and the next morning the pecans had all gone and the surface of the pie was covered with tiny mouse footprints.

"All through the years, all through the dead scenes, all through the memories, melodies..."

Every moment of the first half of the set was wreathed in magic and memory and that strange intensity that comes from listening to music that you have loved so intensely it feels as though every word of the lyrics is carved into your bones in a room full of people who are caught up in the same moment as you. Not your moment, though, because the last twelve years of your history are opening up like a flag around you and you are free to inspect them, and to enjoy them, and to let them go if you want. To let them rise like paper embers and give them up to the wind and the joyous noise of the sky. Not to let them weigh you down, but instead to allow them to lift you up.

I have lived out some of my potential and allowed a whole lot more to drift away to nothing, but I am once again engaged to be married and this time it is to the absolute love of my life. I am becoming a horseman, playing music I love with a band I enjoy belonging to and working on other creative projects in the moments in between. And just the other night I heard the greatest album ever recorded, played live in its entirety by one of the few truly great bands of our era. This is a good place to be.

"When wooden horses were in use, I would have built one and left it for you."