It Took Seconds

Three minutes and thirty-one seconds: “At Home He’s A Tourist” had a massive effect on me when I first heard it, buying the History Of The 20th Century Gang Of Four compilation on a second-hand tape. I think it was the first song I fell in love with for its guitars.

I loved a lot of guitar music, of course, but mostly bands like The Smiths where it was the lyrics and attitudes that attracted me. I didn’t really care about the sounds guitars made. At school people into guitar music tended to be into classic rock, or metal, and in both cases the solos were kept separate from the rest of the track, and the lead guitar worked broadly in service to the song. I’d heard plenty of then-modern indie where the guitar worked as a kind of colour field of texture but I’d not dug into post-punk and so I wasn’t prepared for how the guitars on “Tourist” splintered, fought with the vocalist, broke out of their confines, stabbed and tore at the groove. I thought, I still think, it’s an incredibly exciting record.

What would your 3’31” track be?