After reading about The Bluetones covering the theme from '80s TV show Minder at around the same time as this radio session track was recorded, I somehow had it in my head that "I'm Over And I Know It" and the Minder theme were one and the same. Apparently not - it's in fact a cover of a song by sometime tour support The Webb Brothers. So my impressions of this song were affected by associating it with a TV show that I've never seen and didn't actually have anything to do with it.
The Bluetones' version seems to be pretty faithful to the original (at least as far as a 30 second clip on Amazon can prove...) a sort of boozy, mock-celebratory spiral of despair that covers up the tears with handclaps and 'do-do-do's. It feels more like a tribute to a band that they're fans of than something that they had their own unique spin on to offer, although it's not hard to see it fitting in with the likes of "Never Going Nowhere" in their recent tendency towards double meanings and commenting on their own outsider position. It's a well done enough song to have me at least interested in hearing the full original if I can find it.
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3 comments:
It makes me feel old that somebody could not immediately know the Minder theme, let alone dimly remember the footage of Dennis Waterman singing it on TotP!
I used to have the original Webb Brothers track on a NME freebie somewhere. I haven't any more but my recollection is that it was very similar, but slightly more expensively produced and with less good vocals. I agree that the Tones haven't really added a lot, but I suppose it made the BBC sessions album better value. Shame it's not complete though.
Haha apologies for that!
What songs did the sessions album miss out?
I don't have all the tracklistings, but the Peel ones are on the BBC Site. Anyway, Peel or Evening Sessions were almost always four songs each.
By the look of it the 2000 session is complete, though.
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