What was it you wanted?

13/11/2008 by Tony Attwood.

“What was it you wanted?” is one of a handful of songs with a pulsating simple beat and very laid back accompaniment. It also has the extremely usual effect of the harmonica being used with echo at the end of each verse – although never quite in the same way.

As such it is the perfect vehicle for a song about disassociation, about falling apart, about the failure of understanding.

There is no connection at all between the singer and the person to whom he sings. So great is the problem that the distance gets greater as the song progresses. And each time the message gets half way close the singer moves further away.

What was it you wanted,
Could you say it again?
I’ll be back in a minute
You can get it together by then.

There are of course moments when it sounds as if the singer is going to listen

You got my attention,
Go ahead, speak.

But it fades away – and we gradually get the picture that this is not just a simple message that is being given – but something much deeper. There is the suspicion that there are others around who are watching, “Someone there in the shadows, Someone that I might have missed?”

The singer realises just how deep this goes – the disassociation from the world is greater, we are ready to shout, “What is going on?” but the simple balanced song won’t allow this interruption. We continue relentlessly.

In the end we are shocked by just how far from reality the singer is slipping

Are you the same person
That was here before?

And then the line, “Who are you anyway?” which takes us as far as we can go. But it is that pulsating beat, never changing, that haunting harmonica, the laid back voice. A case of a complete merging of music and lyrics into a perfect reading of the song.

An undervalued masterpiece.

Posted in Oh Mercy, The Songs | Print | No Comments »