mp3: The Birthday Party - Happy Birthday

I put my Zen on random this morning as I had a busride to the deepest darkest reaches of the South Side of Glasgow to contend with, and I had to go on a bus; I hate buses. So I switched on, and what came out, but this gem. I was immediately whisked back to 1994, to St Petersburg, Russia, and a conversation in a dingy badly wallpapered dormitory room with a friend called Piers. Piers was considered a bit odd by most of them, with his squeaky voice and withered hand - you could hear him coming because of his curious arrhythmic limp as he stalked the corridors of our beige hostel - but he talkes a lot of sense, and it was Piers and Piers alone who introduced me the The Birthday Party.

I can take or leave some of it - the more histrionic stuff just grates - but stuff like ‘Mr Clarinet’, ‘Zoo Music Girl’, ‘Mutiny in Heaven’ (one of my favourites) and the above ‘Happy Birthday’ are just like Piers - witty, loud, awkward and lolloping. Hearing the now terribly sophisticated Nick Cave barking like a stupid dog and gurgling “What a red surprise!” will always somehow remind me of those cold winter (and autumn, and spring…) nights and Piers’s screeing Essex drawl.

Buy.