71. ‘Anniversary Waltz’

B-side of ‘Girls And Boys’, first of two-part CD. Produced by Stephen Street.

This was interesting for only two reasons. Firstly, Damon was by now (January 1994) talking of including two waltzes on ‘Parklife’, the other being ‘The Debt Collector’ (see 73). ‘Anniversary Waltz’ had originally been recorded as a jingle for Simon Mayo’s radio show, later being played in its full-length version (1.21) on a Mark Goodier session in July 1993 (see 61), at which time it was lugubriously entitled ‘Why Is The Time Signature of ¾ Obsolete In The Late 20th Century?’ Ultimately, one waltz was felt to be adequate for ‘Parklife’. The other point of note is the sound of geese (see 84) at 1.13. This was sampled from Stephen Street’s copy of BBC LP ‘Sound Effects’ – the same album that yielded the cow noises on the title track of The Smiths’ ‘Meat Is Murder’, which Street also produced.

“Justine doesn’t like my waltzes,” says Damon. “She says they remind her of my Aryan side.”