The Nameless Twin
Crooked songs will never run straight, but some are more wayward than others. Early renditions of Beauties & Beasts contained sections that don’t feature on the version eventually released on the Great Fears & Curious Predictions EP.
Crook struggled with a dilemma. “Are my songs becoming a bit wet?” he mused one June evening last year, as his taxi sped through Chatham. Next time the song was played, there was something different about it. Stuff was missing.
However, a magpie mind won’t let go of its treasure so easily. With environmentally-aware economy, the discarded parts of the lyric and melody ended up being recycled in a darker song that was played a few times at solo gigs last summer.
It soon became clear that this sister song was a sickly Siamese beast, separated to save its healthier sibling. After a period of intensive care, its life-support system was turned off and nature allowed to run its inevitable course.
Coming across it again over a year later, I’m struck by its exuberant melody and the defiance with which it struggled with its dying breaths. Here it is, in all its flawed glory, presented with Mr Crook’s blessing. Nameless twin, RIP.
Ah I’ve caught this on youtube before. Great tunes.
RIP
it is great tunes, thought so too, sad that it was never meant to get as famous as his sister
love the way you write HG, fits perfectly with Lupens ways and means, like you’re the window that makes us understand how he works
cool song too R.I.P *salutes*
bluefitsxxx
Thank you kindly, Dorian. Identity is one of my perennial obsessions. What intrigued me most about this song last year was not so much that it didn’t have a name, but that Mr Crook actively refused to name it: “I’m not sure it deserves a name”. That notion of something needing to be proven worthy before its identity can be encapsulated in words was something that I found very interesting.