The chronological order of these songs is for some reason becoming increasingly hard at the moment. Once again, I began writing with eager fingers, ready to type the words ‘Middle Era’ in a welcoming fashion, perhaps with fancy formatting like this:

Welcome to The Middle Era.

Instead I’ve spent the last hour desperately trying to muddle my way through this blended 2008-2009 world, relying on my infamously unreliable memory, my dodgy, untrustworthy document ambitiously titled ‘Discography’, and certain musical clues in songs like: How shit is it? And, to what extent does the singer sound like an annoying 15 year old?

My heart and my head both tell me that In The Corner was probably written before most of the last 6 or so songs I posted. But the rest of my body is sitting comfortably, knowing I’ll never have the dedication nor research skill to definitively prove this is the case.

So, In The Corner will sit here awkwardly, camouflaged in its 2nd verse strings and extra percussion, which were almost definitely added months later, thereby causing Mass Chronological Confusion.

Anyway, the song itself:

In The Corner was a big one. One of my most successful pop songs, I thought at the time. It is catchy, no doubt…

When I listen to it, I think of the disgusting blue t-shirt I was wearing as my band played Battle of the Bands. It was our first gig, we brought loads of friends, we won, and I’m pretty sure we played In The Corner as our last song. It’s an extremely happy memory – one of the times where being in a band really does feel like the most fun thing in the world. A memory which is only slightly tainted by how much I dislike the song now.

But I do dislike it. There’s something so annoyingly naive about it. The lyrics all about being friends, the sickly sweet melody, sung sickeningly badly by myself. The acoustic guitar, the bouncy bass line, with the top string clearly out of tune. The drum groove stolen from Easy by Lionel Richie (ok I actually quite like that bit). The Lighthouse Family style strings. The ‘oh oh oh oh oh oh’ bits in the chorus. I imagine my friends in the band thinking fuckin ‘ell not this one again. Being embarrassed at me croaking it out each time. I assume really they were none the wiser. But the whole thing does seem a bit lame. We played this song for a long time in the band. GUYS. WAKE UP. BE A BIT MORE OFFENSIVE FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.

As a side note, I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that my first collection of my own songs on iTunes was called ‘Invasion’. Haha. Then it later graduated and became ‘Quick, Invasion!’ which is awfully emo. We’re still in the ‘Quick, Invasion!’ phase here. But just think of that phrase and then In The Corner playing in the background. It’s hilariously inappropriate. I spent so long unsure of what I wanted my music to actually sound like. And it’s a million miles away from In The Corner.