Tuesday, 24 November 2009

13. Run-Away, Super Furry Animals (2007)



This is the sound of our car on that weekend in August; the trip from the Green Man through the lolling, endless valleys; the rocky roads to the coasts; a journey through a Wales that was ours, and ours only. This is the sound of the dramatic cliffs at Mewslade that made my jaw plummet – half an hour from the house in which I had grown up, a world away from the land I had left; the waterfalls at Newcastle Emlyn; the bay at Aberporth; the sea at Barafundle; the B&B at Nantgaredig; Dylan's boathouse at Laugharne; the church at St Davids; even the bacon roll in the layby van on the A40. This is the song that we played over and over again as I fell in love with the country I came from, discovering the secrets it hadn't told me in my childhood, the stories it held that I hadn't wanted to know as a teenager, desperate to fly the coop, find life breathing elsewhere.

This song is the sound of a country running away with its own – an older soul heading back, her eyes looking again, her heart bursting.
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous25 November 2009 at 08:40

    loving snapshots and loveletters to the land of our fathers set to music by the most consistently brilliant band of the decade (the last one too come to think of it). the arguments as to why they aren't the biggest band in the stratosphere are for elsewhere. love the blog, roll on 2019. x

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  2. Mitchell Stirling19 December 2009 at 19:26

    I spent the night of my 25th birthday at SFA's gig at the Roundhouse this year. I began the night at a Mexican restaurant in Euston with my cousin and his best friend. Much food and drink later I was apologising for them posing with the skull from their Day of The Dead centrepiece. Somewhere around this point we forgot that we might want to get to the gig before it starts, especially as none of us had been to the done up Roundhouse at that point. We managed to get in and get drinks and only miss 'The Gateway Song' as we got settled in our seats. They followed that with this song and were the best I've seen them.

    We got the last train back to my cousin's house in Kent and saw in the next day watching another Welshman, Joe Calzaghe outclass Mikkel Kessler. A good solid birthday all round!

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  3. Jude Rogers1 January 2010 at 17:45

    I was at that gig! I gave it five stars in The Guardian too. I love them!

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