On their second album The Decemberists expand their musical palette, adding horns, strings and bells. They continue to expand your vocabulary (dictionary moments include bombazine, dalliant and tarlatan), and introduce you to 19th century Neapolitan songs and 20th century American novelists. This isn’t just a band it’s an education.

We begin with, well let’s be honest, “Shanty For The Arethusa” (it was a real ship BTW) is just that, a sea shanty, including details of the cargo, the destination and a warning about the sorts you’ll find on the crew. It’s a classic sea shanty that sailors sang to pass the time and get a bit boastful about themselves, a different stripe of folk song.

A number of the songs here have a Dickensian atmosphere about them, something that hovers around much The Decemberists music. “The Soldiering Life” (including its reference to bombazine, a fabric made from silk and wool used in 18th and 19th century mourning dresses if you didn’t know. And this alongside references to pantaloons and stevedores, it’s gorgeous stuff) and “The Chimbley Sweep” have this about them, but that atmosphere doesn’t take over the whole album. 

The other thing we find on “Her Majesty” is Colin Meloy continuing to grow as a songwriter. There are many examples here, “Billy Liar”, “Los Angeles I’m Yours” and “The Gymnast High Above The Ground” boom-boom-boom after the opening sea shanty really are something else. And a little later there comes another boom-boom-boom with “Song For Myla Goldberg”, the aforementioned “The Soldiering Life” and my personal highlight, “Red Right Ankle”.  

“Red Right Ankle” is absolutely breathtaking. It’s the exact style of guitar playing I wish I’d applied myself to its mastery (I’m more of the Joe Strummer school myself, all six strings at once or none at all), it is gloriously melodious and has a lyric that confuses and delights equally. A paean to a joint and its limbs and their reliance on each other, a verse about Gypsy Uncles and hideaways in the Pyrenees, another about those “boys that loved you”, very probably the same ones Springsteen sings about in “Thunder Road”, and the only use of the word ventricle I’ve yet to encounter in popular song. I’ll flag this as Colin Meloy’s first great song.

“I Was Meant For the Stage” and “As I Rise” close out the album in a gentle style. 

Reading around blogs and message boards “Her Majesty” seems to fall way down the list of many fans favourites, it certainly isn’t their finest (which is also not saying it’s bad) but it has enough about it to ensure it gets a regular spin in my house. Oh and to save you the bother of searching, to be dalliant is to be flirtatious, tarlatan is another type of fabric, the 19th century Neapolitan song is "Funiculì, Funiculà" which is referenced in the song about 20th century author Myla Goldberg. Are you not now feeling educated ?

Red Right Ankle - https://youtu.be/axkyYrismAw

OK it’s time to settle in…we are now starting on a lengthy section where we will cover The Decemberists entire output. I’m somewhat obsessed with The Decemberists. It was, however, an obsession long in the making. Back at the beginning of the 2000’s, I would suppose 2002 when this album was originally released, my brother Miles told me I should have a listen to this album as he figured I would like it. I got as far as (legally) downloading a copy but for one reason or another I never got around to listening to it. Fast forward a decade or so and I was in my local at the open mic night when a fella I now only remember as Ian got up and played an absolutely fantastic song. When he’d finished I asked what it was to be told it was called “Don’t Carry It All” by The Decemberists. “Hang on” I thinks, that was the band Milo told me to have a listen to 10 years ago (!). So when I got home I dug up that (legally) downloaded copy I had stored away and had a listen, I loved it. So I then ordered a CD of the album Ian had played a song from, “The King Is Dead” and when that arrived I found I loved that too. An an obsession was born.

For those unfamiliar with The Decemberists they are a 5 piece band from Portland, Oregon who are influenced particularly by English folk music and The Smiths. Now the latter of those two should put me right off but main-man Colin Meloy has taken that influence and fashioned it into something much more interesting. He’s a great, great songwriter and a fantastic lyricist, the number of times I’ve had to reach for a dictionary while listening to this band, I’ve lost count of.

The very first song sets a template for The Decemberists that still holds today and also marks the first time I had to reach for the dictionary. “Leslie Anne Levine” is a folky lament concerning the titular character who is singing from the point of view of being the ghost of a newborn who was “Born at nine and dead at noon”. The dictionary moment is delivered by the line “Fifteen years gone now, Still a wastrel mesallied” where messallied seems to be derived from the French word "mésalliance" meaning a marriage to a person of inferior social standing. In second song, “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect”, we hear of “The perfume that the air would bring to the indolent town”, I can’t think of another songwriter using language so beautifully. If you decide to start listening to The Decemberists get used to moments like this and an expansion of your vocabulary. 

“Castaways And Cutouts” is a primarily acoustic based album, pedal steel guitars give it a country tinge in places, upright bass adds a hint of jazziness. Meloy is finding his way as a singer and a songwriter but there are goodies here and those, added to his wordsmithery, make it all a delightful listen. Certain lyrical themes are evident that work their way through the bands entire output, soldiering, death, star crossed lovers, seafaring (yer bog standard folk subject matter I guess) and these coupled with the language (I’m on about it again…“And here in Spain I am a Spaniard, I will be buried with my marionettes, Countess and courtesan have fallen 'neath my tender hand”) create an atmosphere of an older world, long gone. 

This is not to imply that the music within is in any way “old fashioned”. “Grace Cathedral Hill” (“I'm sweet on a green-eyed girl, All fiery Irish clip and curl, All brine and piss and vinegar”) and the final “California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade” (“We're calling all bed wetters and ambulance chasers, Poor picker-pockets, bring 'em in”) are both quite breathtaking songs lyrically and melodically. It is a perfect mash-up of Folk and The Smiths that I suspect fans of either will find as engaging as I do. “Castaways And Cutouts” presents The Decemberists fully formed, from here on they hone their craft to heights that have kept me enthralled for some 15 years.

Grace Cathedral Hill - https://youtu.be/82QuFhr_ABc

This is another one I owe to my ex-girlfriend’s older brother, Doris. A record I would hear him playing while I was hanging out with his sister and eventually had to hear in full for myself.

Deaf School were formed in Liverpool in 1974 and their 3 albums recorded between 1976 and 1978 were a bulwark against the prevailing blues rock and prog of the times. They had a style influenced by Roxy, Bowie, cabaret and theatre as you might expect from students from Liverpool Art College. They were a lasting influence on many Liverpool musicians that followed them. Frankie Goes to Hollywood singer Holly Johnson has said “They revived Liverpool music for a generation” and journalist Paul Du Noyer wrote "In the whole history of Liverpool music two bands matter most, one is The Beatles and the other is Deaf School."

“English Boys/Working Girls” is their 3rd album and musically is in a more aggressive style than the previous records, possibly as a reaction to Punk which rose just as they released their debut. It’s one of those records that I heard back then and it fitted perfectly into the New Wave of the time without ever being a part of it. I had no knowledge of their history before this album, it just had the sound (see also Bill Nelson’s Red Noise “Sound On Sound” later on), so I had no preformed idea of what or who they were.

The members of Deaf School went on to other things after the band ended. Guitarist Clive Langer became one of the most prolific producers of the 80’s and 90’ working with Madness, David Bowie, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners among many others, and co-wrote “Shipbuilding” with Elvis Costello; singer Bette Bright formed The Illuminations and later married Suggs from Madness; singer Enrico Cadillac Jr formed bands with Ian Broudie and Steve Nieve; vocalist Eric Shark helped set up the Probe Plus indie distribution network.

This is music that sits comfortably in the Bowie and Roxy art-rock scene but had something about it that made it work for the New Wave fans. It’s a superb album and I’d recommend anyone to check it out. Deaf School are one of the UK’s great ignored bands.

English Boys (With Guns) - https://youtu.be/wBHwlUJBnug