And As We Drive, I Keep Calling Leaving Cute One Liners
Lilys – not the Lilys, just Lilys – are one of those bands that appeared out of nowhere in my life, stole my heart and then proceeded to disappoint in ever increasing amounts ever since. In Britain, they’re the definition of a one hit wonder; their song “A Nanny in Manhattan” – that’s the video above, kids – was used in a Levi’s advert, and everyone heard it and thought “That is 1960s pop the way we like it, daddio” and rushed out to buy it before never buying anything by them ever again. Me, I was different only in that I bought the single and then loved it so much – although loved the B-Sides even more – that I bought the album it came from, Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, and found out that the album was even better than the single – Seriously, something like “Returns Every Morning” is pop perfection to me – so that I even bought the second version of the album when it was reissued with new songs and a new production that brought in new instruments like oboes and strings as if it was trying to sound like the Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev axis that was making NME readers excited at the time. There’s no doubt about it, I was a fan.
And then their next album, The 3 Way, came out, and it was… not as good, shall we say. Some of the songs were wonderful, but there was an effort you could hear, a strain compared to Better. Like anyone in love, I put it down to me; I’m not listening to it properly, or I just don’t get it. It took another album, Precollection, to make me realize that it was them. It was the classic split: We grew apart because of artistic differences, I guess; they wanted to go in a different direction (namely, shoegazing), and I didn’t want to follow. There’s no real regrets to speak of, but any song from Better Can’t Make Your Life Better still makes me feel as if harmonies and guitars and weird noises are all you ever need to make me smile.
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