Welly – Lucky 7. Welly name 6 songs that have inspired them and a Lucky 7th of their own.
Welly are one of the UK’s most thrilling new bands. Playing with notions of artifice and aspiration, style and self, their blueprint for Pop on a budget. Welly’s songs create tongue-in-cheek songs, featuring a cast of characters –from posh boys who ski to those suspicious of local cuisine. Welly bring to mind the thrill and optimism of Brit Pop, at a time when it’s needed most.
Over to titualar band singer songwriter Welly with his Lucky 7, who shares with us six songs they loved as a child.
1. SQUEEZE – ‘UP THE JUNCTION’
My Dad, when I was about 5, gave me a clip-on iPod Shuffle loaded with his CD collection. This song, for whatever reason, attached itself into my psyche. I would idly sing the fizzy melody to myself at bus stops and doctor’s waiting rooms and the supermarket pub queues and smoking areas every day.
They say that if very young children like your songs – bounce up and down, bubble gibberish over them etc. – then it will be a bona fide hit. Something about the young, undeveloped mind being uninhibited by taste or style or pretence –pure undeniable rhythm and melodies only. So, seeing as my entire taste is based on my 5 year old self, hopefully I’ll make one of those too.
2. TAKE THAT – ‘SHINE’
Sat in the back of my Mum’s Golf with Chris Evans –on the radio, not in the car with us. Who can argue with this? Would always try to sing to impress my Mum or make her laugh. What a charmer. She would also play a lot of Robbie Williams (in the interest of balance) but I never really went for him. Take That were always having fun, it seemed. Despite having to hang out with Gary Barlow.
3. JOCELYN BROWN – ‘SOMEBODY ELSE’S GUY’
Come on! WHAT a tune. I don’t remember how or when, but I found this tune in 2021 for what I thought was the first time, until Mum gave me a few of her old clubbing CDs, and post-it-noted to the front of a Cafe de-la-Mar compilation was ‘Track 3 –Jocelyn Brown’, and I knew I had heard it before. Her voice, virtually viscerally groaning in the opening moments is incredible. I love the Style Council, and you can hear the synth-y, soul-y, shuffle-y ingredients of their stuff in this.
4. MIKA – ‘BIG GIRLS, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL’
A Mum’s Golf classic. I could really pick any song from this album, we listened to it endlessly, but this one makes the cut simply because I would sing along extravagantly to the ‘Laaadies …’ part to try to make Mum laugh. We saw him at The Brighton Centre back in April, surprisingly good. Although he did talk about himself a lot.
5. THE KINKS – ‘ALL DAY AND OF THE NIGHT’
Another one off Dad’s iPod. It might be my favourite song of all time. I must have listened to it over 1000 times before I turned 10. The guitars, especially the solo, are SO mangled, so distorted, so close to falling apart. And their harmonies, clearly the thirtieth take, so rasped, so fantastic.
Being lost in music, a ‘captured moment’ sounds pathetic, but the way we make music now, it’s ‘putting something together’; this ACTUALLY happened. In one go. This racket was made in a room somewhere, in one gulp. This song is something that took place, something they had to catch. Goosebump bait.
6. ESKIMO DISCO FT PINGU – ‘7-11’
The ‘Baby Shark’ of my childhood. No idea who green-lit this collaboration, it seems like such a mad idea on paper, but just listen to the song and it answers every question. It’s a funk-house, Jamiroquai-meets-Fatboy Slim-meets-Pingu coagulation, seemingly advertising robbing a corner shop (only now do I analyse it so).
I would STARE, DEEP into the computer at home, probably open-mouthed, drooling, bobbing my big head to this. Is it a ‘song’? It feels like musical Wotsits. My Mum would say they’re bad for me, and not let me enjoy them in the car. Same applies. But SO addictive.
LUCKY 7: WELLY – ‘SOAK UP THE CULTURE’
Well obviously I didn’t like this one as a child. But you might like it!
—
Recent Comments