Suffer In Silence

"Suffer In Silence" doesn't stand out straight away from The Bluetones' very large collection of B-sides. The none more taut rhythym section keeps up a brisk pace with just a hint of tension and verses detail struggles with uncomfortable shoes and friends who won't pay their share at lunch. So far, so...nice. But on top of the humour being handled a good deal more cleverly than normally on their more comedic songs, there is just a hint of a biting undertone to the song. Mark Morriss does repressed anger just as well as he does repressed anything, lingering every few words for just long enough.

Then, a minute in, everything is laid bare. The hinted at big chorus never emerges, musical spikiness is replaced by a gentle shuffle and Morriss sings in detached fashion some of the most curiously affecting words of their recent career.

Every night I return to the same chair,
By a phone that's attached to the wall,
And I hope that no one will call.
I'm not waiting for an invitation,
I'm not waiting for horrible news,
But the other shoe to fall.

It feels like something really bad is happening, a big shadow hanging over half the song (or you realise next time, the whole song) that he hopes if it is ignored might somehow magically disappear. That's why he fixates instead on the little things of the first verses, I guess but the dread is still there, creeping in. This is followed by Adam Devlin kicking up the kind of wandering, aggressive solo that he can probably knock out in his sleep (but which is short enough to work regardless), and then we're round to the same thing again, just as unsettling as the first time. That the song finishes with no real resolution at all makes it all the more quietly unsettling.

A great song, and a very pleasant surprise when Luxembourg's other B-sides suggested that they had all but given up on that front, too.


mp3: Suffer In Silence