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![[The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful]](/gubbins/images/thehotpuppies7.jpg "Amazon.co.uk listing for this CD")
Amazon.co.uk listing for this CDwww.thehotpuppies.com
www.myspace.com/thehotpuppies
Track listing:
1. The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful
2. Just Like a Roman Candle, Joe
3. Under the Crooked Moon
Scroll down for lyrics!
This is a bit late, the release date being May 1st. It's not any fault of the single, which is marvellous indeed and should still be readily available from HMV, Amazon and others, as well as direct from Fierce Panda (assuming you can get their site search to work with Firefox, or indeed anything other than Internet Explorer. Pesky amateurism...)
Title track The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful is charmingly written as an open letter to outspoken The Observer agony aunt Mariella Frostrup. It also apparently references Vertigo — which is my cue to admit to being an ignorant philistine when it comes to films, and especially Hitchcock. There's a helpful and very in-depth summary of it here if you're interested — the song is from Judy's point of view, although there's more and less to it than that, the song making sense in its own right. Briefly, and without giving spoilers, a young woman steps into the still-warm shoes of a previous partner, gradually taking her place but feeling it a sham (hence the letter being written.) It's very, very clever, and at the same time a brisk little pop number with compelling vocals and excellent production.
Like previous single Terry there's a video produced by Stuart Ekers, this one featuring the band in a surreal array of fairytale costumes. Which takes the lyrics in a particularly non-Hitchcock direction, unless you count the giant bird playing guitar...
Just Like a Roman Candle, Joe offers a thumping bass beat and another less-than- enthusiastic endorsement of love, featuring recurrent Puppies motif the mingling of parts. (Which reminds me, radio-stormers Limb by Limb and Relentless thoroughly deserve a release, as do any number of songs featured over the last few years in live sessions and on various sites — stuff it'd be a shame to not give maximum audience to.)
Second b-side and closer Under the Crooked Moon wouldn't be out of place in a live action Tim Burton film, right before the skeletons and zombies get a conga line going... in fact, this whole single would have worked well as a late October issue, each song a little uncanny in its own way. It may in part be the frequent use of vintage instruments and retro keyboards that does it; modern music rarely contains this variety of sounds.
One plus to this review being hideously overdue is that I can include some info about future plans. According to an announcement at AngryApe we can expect one more single on July 17th — How Come You Don't Hold Me No More? — followed a week later by debut album Under the Crooked Moon. Put it in your diaries, people.
Update: perhaps AngryApe were imagining the single? Album's on schedule, though...
THE GIRL WHO WAS TOO BEAUTIFUL
Dear Mariella
I am twenty-five
I live alone
I think I might have found love
But I just don't know
There's something wrong
'Cause he has another love
And she's been buried a year
And there might be a passing resemblance
But... Dear Mariella, how can I compare?
To the girl, to the girl
To the girl, to the girl who was too beautiful?
It's not fair
There's a ghost in his house
In his room, on his bed and this chair
And all my friends say it's not right
But I don't care, I'm gonna change my hair
'Cause he wants her
And I just want somebody there
Dear Mariella
It's gone from bad to worse
It feels like I'm chasing a hearse
And now I'm even wearing her clothes
I feel like a ghost
Just the other day
Staring from across the street
I think I might have seen her mother
But... Dear Mariella, she didn't see me
Just the girl, just the girl
Just the girl, just the girl who was too beautiful
There's a ghost in his house
In his room, on his bed and this chair
And all my friends say it's not right
But I don't care, I'm gonna change my hair
'Cause he wants her
And I just want somebody there
Mariella... Mariella...
Don't say that time is on my side...
There's no picture... in the cellar...
She's such a lovely place to hide...
Oh, yours faithfully
What would you do if you were me?
Would you wanna let go
Like I wanna let go
I don't need to let go
'Cause I am the girl, I'm the girl
I'm the girl, I'm the girl who was too beautiful
There's a ghost in his house
In his room, on his bed and this chair
And all my friends say it's not right
But I don't care, I'm gonna change my hair
'Cause he wants her
And I just want somebody there
JUST LIKE A ROMAN CANDLE, JOE
Is this love or open heart surgery
Is this good this is good this is good luck looking at me
Crying to make you happy
This doesn't make me happy
Does such a love leave a hole in my belly now
Is this wrong is this wrong this is hard luck looking at me
Drowning to make you thirsty
Drowning to make you thirsty
Woo... just like a roman candle
Woo... just like a roman candle, Joe
Out of breath, but it's still too tight on me
??? it's his highlight beating me
Aching to make you fake me
Thank you to make you break me
Woo... just like a roman candle
Woo... just like a roman candle, Joe
But don't you wanna be free?
Don't you wanna save yourself a little dignity?
No... that is not what I need...
I don't care which bits are you
I don't care which parts are me, yeah
Woo... just like a roman candle
Woo... just like a roman candle, Joe
Woo... just like a roman candle
Woo... just like a roman candle, Joe Joe Joe
UNDER THE CROOKED MOON
There's a waltz down by the bay
That is never far away
And is hidden in vanilla
From your mother's sword of familiars
There's a waltz down by the sea
That is coughing in the breeze
With all the scotch philosophies
And the bourbon legacies
CHORUS:
But hey... ho... the one thing I know
Is that yes we'll be dancing
Soon we'll be dancing
Yes we'll soon be dancing
Under the crooked moon
Well it's just ??? Lazarus
You and me and Douglas heard banging
??? Bernice
Under a stair that's a whole symphony
For a waltz down on the pier
That is played at this time of year
For the ghosts that you hold dear
And some of the ones you choose to fear
CHORUS
Crooked moon...
And every crooked star in the sky
Will scream for you
Shoot for you
Tonight
CHORUS
All lyrics are, naturally, copyright the band.
Please post any suggestions in the comments. I'm rubbish at transcribing.
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