Not Even The Rain

A poetry inspired lyric from an album that is very much part of the background of The Charlatans back catalogue. Between 10th And 11th came out in March 1992, well after the first flush of their success with The Only One I Know and Some Friendly and when the Madchester wave had well and truly crashed and receded. Their second time in the sun would come in the wake of Oasis and Britpop with the 1995 self titled album and then Tellin’ Stories. In between they seemed a little like a band lost, making two albums that underwhelmed slightly (at the time though they’ve grown in hindsight). The band had some combustible relationships, had seen the departure of one guitarist (Jon Baker) and the arrival of another (Rob Collins) and were fixed up with producer Flood. Between 10th And 11th had a really strong single, Weirdo, led by Rob Collins funky, wheezy organ, stop start dynamics and Tim Burgess delving a bit deeper with his lyrics. The whole group at this time gave the impression of wanting to be seen as more than just five figures shaking their fringes to The Only I Know and searching for a way forward- even the album’s title suggests they were caught between back then and moving on.

The last song on the album is a hidden gem in their songbook and borrows a line and its title from poet E. E. Cummings, from one of his most famous poems, ‘nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands’. Over crisp drums, a fine bassline and some swirly psyche from guitars and organ, the band whip up a slow burning groove. Flood’s production is crisp and upfront, there’s less of the murky stew the group had live, and Tim coos some stream of consciousness words through the reverb. Early 90s psychedelia from a band finding their way. Good stuff.

‘Why don’t you say it again why don’t you
Save me again I can’t do anything
Not even the rain has such small hands’

(No One) Not Even The Rain

Not Even The Rain

We’ve been watching series one of The Hour recently, the missus and I. For some reason we missed it first time round but then watched series two, so we’ve been catching up. In episode three there’s a part where smartarse Freddy quotes some poetry. I recognised it and later realised it was the last verse of an E E Cummings poem. It goes like this…

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

…which is quite lovely really, especially the last line. E E Cummings wrote thousands of poems, playing about with syntax and form, wilfully disregarding punctuation and spelling. Having an art and design background he liked to think about how poems would look on the page.

I like this naughty one too…

The problem with Cummings is his stuff has turned into the kind of faux-philosophy quotes you see on fridge magnets, mouse mats, cloth bags and ‘inspirational’ posters, and worse the kind of thing some folk get tattooed on their inner arm. Not Cummings fault but still.

This is a picture of French actress Lizzie Brochere, who plays smartarse Freddy’s wife in series two of The Hour.

And this is some jazz…

Slim’s Jam