There’s so much tragic within this tune, but also such a beauty. Even though Elbow are always dodging comparisons to that other big British piano pop-rock band, they’re truly one of a kind. The majestic Guy Garvey is many things: Elbow frontman, BBC Radio 6Music presenter and former magazine columnist – he used to have regular pieces in the late lamented Manchester listings bible City Life. “Starlings”. Taking up his usual lovelorn position, the jaunty swagger of this song belies its story of a man seeking to move on from the wreckage of another ruined relationship. It’s safe to say that we can all agree to actually not agree. Quite often ELBOW‘s bluesy tunes and his charismatic voice automatically set the listener into a bar environment. The Manchester group, founded in 1997, match gorgeous orchestral strings with distorted bluesy guitar riffs and Guy Garvey’s poetic ruminations about love, loss and aging. It’s an epic plea for love and the power of it. 20 – Oakland, Calif. @ Fox Theatre “You have the time-worn shimmer of tarantella on a Tuscan plain” – ‘The Take Off and Landing of Everything’ (The Take Off and Landing of Everything, 2014). And after all these years it’s still okay. 21 – Santa Ana, Calif. @ The Observatory, © 2020 Paste Media Group.
Elbow love to kick things off with a bang on their lead singles (think: “Grounds for Divorce” or “Neat Little Rows”), and the first taste of 2019’s Giants of All Sizes was no exception. “Blinking and stoned/Rain in your hair/You only smoke/’Cause it’s something to share” – ‘Great Expectations’ (Leaders Of The Free World, 2005). ‘The only sense the world has ever made’ … In one of the band’s best romantic moments Garvey decides to capture the perfect moment with another person by just switching off right now. The poetry is even better when the music works so great as well. Some people find beauty within things others find extremely ugly. All Disco (2017) An Audience With The Pope (2008) Any Day Now (2001) Asleep In The Back (2001) Bitten By The Tailfly (2001) Charge (2014) Colour Fields (2014) Coming Second (2001) They’ve never quite crossed over to the United States, but they do sell out mid-size venues with a devoted fan base here. “One Day Like This”. They also remain festival heavyweights 20-plus years into their career: If you ever get the chance to see them at Glastonbury or some other British festival, you’ll understand. It’s their “Hey Jude,” their “Bittersweet Symphony,” their “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” It’s that song you can’t help but sing along to live, and forget everything else in the world. If James Bond was from Bury, then this is kind of glorious one-liner he’d mutter before taking the bad guys down and then smooching a lofty Eastern European countess. The British group did become an institution for beautiful sounds, gentle melodies and heart wrenching lyrics. © 2020 NME is a member of the media division of BandLab Technologies. Pure perfection. Over the past almost 20 years they brought us big stadium anthems, nasty little blues rockers and psychedelic Britpop in a way only a few bands are able to deliver.
Read more about it in our legal notice. The song, which alternates between loud bursts of energy via a loud-as-hell horn section and downtempo acoustic grooves, resolves in one very lovely verse and string crescendo: “The violets explode inside me when I meet your eyes / And I’m spinning and I’m diving like a cloud of starlings… Darling, is this love?”. ‘We still believe in love so fuck you’ … It can’t get any better than this. The musical diamonds off the band’s first six albums – find them right here. All Rights Reserved, that other big British piano pop-rock band. Swelling strings and swirling synths build up to a fever pitch before guitarist Mark Potter tears it all down with a punishing, bluesy guitar riff that recalls both of the aforementioned songs. ‘Spitfire thin and strung like a violin’ … pretty often the words of Garvey are pure poetry. A perfect song on a perfect album: “One Day Like This” is one of those life-affirming, epic... 2. ‘Do they know those days are golden?’ … Gentle Garvey on a pattern of symphonic strings, combined with a sentimental message.
Once—maybe twice—an album, the Manchester band will lose the orchestra and acoustic guitar and just go for it, something they do best on “Grounds for Divorce,” the lead single on The Seldom Seen Kid. ‘I come back here from time to time’ … The final track from the band’s debut album Asleep In The Back is still one of their best ones. “If I loose a sequin here and there/More salt than pepper in my hair/Can I rely on you when all the songs are through/To be for me the everthere?” – ‘The Everthere’ (Leaders Of The Free World, 2005). Guy Garvey looks back on his childhood in this first album tearjerker, which sees him returning to his family home and reminiscing with a heavy heart. The opening line of Elbow’s breakthrough hit was grotesque and intriguing in equal measure. One that combines everyday elements with a certain lyrical beauty.
With a slow horn section mimicking the central melody, Garvey croons one of his best-ever choruses: “Another sunrise with my sad captains / With who I choose to lose my mind / And if it’s so we only pass this way but once / What a perfect waste of time.”.
by Norman Fleischer. But can we at least agree on ELBOW?
A simple ‘Love you, mate’, a deeply sad ballad. When the final shift comes around 3:45 the track suddenly becomes something like the best song ever recorded. A chord change maybe. Addressing the scourge of Brexit and a string of deaths that affected the band (including Garvey’s own father), there’s a certain rage in his voice that’s relatively unheard throughout their discography. Like this imagined affair with an unknown lady. If there’s such a thing like uplifting melancholia, it an be found in this track. ‘What a perfect waste of time’, isn’t it? Guy Garvey’s reminisces of a former lover make for the world’s shortest novel.
Set in his beloved Manchester, ‘Jesus is a Rochdale Girl’ is a low-key, beautiful trip into domestic life in the city and the highly personal stories within it. His words typically tell a story or make grand statements on love or heartbreak or somewhere in between.
Not afraid of making people sit up and take notice, this otherwise sentimental song stuck out of the crowd thanks to its alarming imagery. Get ready for an emotional trip into Elbow’s back catalogue. And their upcoming seventh album Little Fictions – out on February the 3rd – is another proof of it. “Disjointed tales’/That flit between short trousers/And a full dress uniform” – ‘Scattered Black and Whites’ (Asleep In The Back, 2001).
And just in case you’re not familiar with the lads around unique vocalist Guy Garvey – it’s never too late. Who else could write a gorgeous ode to pub culture that references Shakespeare? It’s no wonder this was the song that soundtracked a marriage proposal when Elbow played Manhattan’s Webster Hall in 2014. “It got me into the musicality of words.” It’s a nigh on impossible task, but we’ve done our best to round up his 10 best lyrics. The buzzing newcomers deliver a catchy argument for the timelessness of British guitar music. Voted best song musically and lyrically at the 2009 Ivor Novello Awards, ‘One Day Like This’ sees Guy Garvey on top, loved-up form. This article was originally published on Mar 5, 2014 but updated on January 16, 2017.
Featuring blown-out strings and horn sections before settling into an acoustic groove on “Lunette,” this is something close to Fleet Foxes’ “The Shrine / An Argument,” jam-packed with pitch-perfect Elbow one-liners. Having the Glastonbury audience sing on your song? Every line in this song is quotable, and every word is of utmost importance. “Starlings,” the lead track on 2008’s The Seldom Seen Kid, is Garvey’s finest moment as a lyricist. Garvey dares a visit. This track marked the band’s first ever national radio play, three years before the release of their debut album, on John Peel’s Radio 1 show. “I haven’t been myself of late / I haven’t slept for several days,” he sings, before adding, “But coming home I feel like I / Designed these buildings I walk by.” Later, he repeats, “I never know what I want but I know when I’m low that I / I need to be in the town where they know what I’m like and don’t mind.” Moving away from home can be scary, and adulthood can be stressful, but oftentimes, going home to see mom (“I haven’t seen my mum for weeks,” he admits) can be the best medicine. In exactly that moment. The track explodes with their heaviest guitar line to date, one that echoes Garvey’s “woah-oh-oh-oh” melody throughout the track, so catchy that crowds sing along with it on a nightly basis. One of the stickier, uglier ones. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.
“I’ve been working on a cocktail/Called grounds for divorce” – Grounds for Divorce’ (The Seldom Seen Kid, 2008). Over a quiet finger-picked guitar and an occasional soft keyboard line, this is the most simplistic thing Elbow have ever recorded, and the results are jaw-dropping. Take “Mirrorball” from The Seldom Seen Kid: “We took the town to town last night / We kissed like we invented it” is about as cliché as it gets in the hands of any other singer, but it works perfectly here, as Garvey describes the morning after a life-changing first date. Every line in this song is quotable, and every word is of utmost importance. “I’m proud to be the one you hold when the shakes begin/Sallow-skinned, starry-eyed/Blessed in our sin” – ‘Powder Blue’ (Asleep In The Back, 2001). Don't worry, NBHAP's editors can help you with that. The title, which comes from a line in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (“Come, let’s have one other gaudy night / Call to me all my sad captains / Fill our bowls / Once more, let’s mock the midnight bell”), depicts drinking and pub culture in a positive light, illustrating the fun nights instead of the hungover mornings.
An easy floating and reduced piece that feels like a warm summer breeze. An appreciator of the craft as well as one of its main modern talents, his moving, witty and chest-swelling lyrics are influenced by the likes of 20th century American poet Robert Frost. Even the most obscure and ordinary sceneries get a certain amount of dignity when Garvey sings about them. An awareness that’s as beautiful as it is incredibly sad. But what to listen to from the sheer endless sea of new records? The 10 Best Elbow Songs 1. “Station Approach”. ‘I drink until the doorman is a Christmas tree’ … One feeling that singer Guy Garvey always manages to transport is like he’s the perfect man to have a drink with. A particularly Garv-ian take on romance, this slow-burning ballad sees him imploring his lover to stay with him, even when he’s old and a bit bonkers. But instead of harping on the “single heartbreak” and a relatively dire financial situation, he remains optimistic for the future, not yet allowing himself to define his life by what he has and doesn’t have: “And nothing to be proud of / And nothing to regret / All of that to make as yet.” It’s perhaps the most poetic thing Elbow has released to date—a beautiful and unadorned track that doesn’t try to be more than the sum of its parts, yet ends up becoming so much more on repeated reads of the lyrics. His voice has never sounded better, reaching towering heights as he sings, “‘Cause holy cow, I love your eyes / But only now I see the light / Yeah, lying with you half awake / Oh, anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day,” perhaps doubly true when the “Throw those curtains wide / One day like this a year would see me right” refrain hits. Screw you if you dare to disagree. “My favourite poetry often involves nature,” Garvey has said. It’s Garvey & co.’s entry into the all-timer club. But they stand alone in a sea of bands who might vaguely fall under the “adult contemporary rock” category.