LIST 201 - 06/05/2016 (The Many Guises of... Bobby Wratten)

(Trembling Blue Stars - Strange Fruit, Upstairs at the Garage, London 10/02/2001. Pictures are author's own)

Hello again,

The latest The Many Guises of... tribute feels less like a List, and more like an expression of gratitude. 

It's just north of a quarter of a century since I heard The Field Mice for the first time, and since then no single songwriter has soundtracked so much of my adult life, or filled so many of my hours of listening pleasure, as Robert "Bobby" Wratten.  

Whether that be helming The Field Mice, Northern Picture Library, The Yesterday Sky, Trembling Blue Stars or present project Lightning in a Twilight Hour.

Whether that be with some choice, pithy, lovelorn, poignant words or else an expansive, imaginative soundscape.

Whether that be in the guise of any of the many affectionate covers of examples from his sizeable back catalogue.

Whichever, there's always Bobby.

Skywriting by The Field Mice, as I'm sure has been mentioned on these pages more than once already, will probably always endure as my favourite album of all time.  Trembling Blue Stars' 1996 debut Her Handwriting is also top five in my personal list.  Numerous other Bobby-penned longplayers pepper my personal tops 20 and 40.  Depending on how I feel, either Clearer or Of The Perfect Kind by the first-named band would count as my single favourite song of all.  

I've felt the pain of the Bobby's ultimately doomed relationship with the then Annemari Davies as played out over a succession of albums, and have been able to reach into the messages, portents and counsel they offer when faced with splits of my own.  Not, however, that falling out of or indeed in love is a prerequisite to enjoying such as Her Handwriting, as unflinchingly and unremittingly about the end of a presumed perfect love as it may be.

I've shared Bobby's anger over social and societal ills and injustices.  The awfulness of many men in tracks such as Song 6.  The inherent and sadly still not eradicated homophobia which informs tracks such as This Love is Not Wrong and A Statue to Wilde.  The imposing of religious will as railed against in such as Ancient Fiction, included in today's selection. 

Bobby's erstwhile Sarah Records bosses Matt Haynes and Clare Wadd were determinedly of the opinion that one shouldn't have to shout to be left wing.  Bobby never has shouted, and his convictions burn no less brightly for that.

Selections in previous Lists have already taken out quite a few potential candidates for today's tribute, but I'm very happy with the selections below all the same, and the deeper cuts would have made it on in any event.  In truth, I could have filled this List two or three times over.  Now there's an idea...

J xx



THE FIELD MICE - The World to Me (1990) 

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - For This One (1996) 

BUDDHA ON THE MOON - Norfolk Windmills (1997)

(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

LIGHTNING IN A TWILIGHT HOUR - Ancient Fiction (2015) 

THE FIELD MICE - White (1989) 

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - Never Loved You More (1998) 

NORTHERN PICTURE LIBRARY - Lucky (1993) 

THE FIELD MICE - A Wrong Turn and Raindrops (1991) 

THE OCCASIONAL KEEPERS - The Life of the Fields (2008) 

LIGHTNING IN A TWILIGHT HOUR – The Sky Beyond the Sky (2016) 

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - This Once Was an Island (2007) 

THE YESTERDAY SKY - A Winter's Dawn (1992) 

FUTURE CONDITIONAL ft BOBBY WRATTEN - We Don't Just Disappear (2007) 

THE FIELD MICE - Indian Ocean (1990) 

ANGIE HEATON & THE GENTLE TAMERS - Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise (2007) 

NORTHERN PICTURE LIBRARY - Untitled No. 3 (1994)