33s & 45s

I came back when you'd left and cleared up after you
There was a shape in stenciled rubbish where the bed used to be
I know you think you've got the monopoly on grief
But I've had enough of that from you

I found a note I wrote to you about three years ago
I found a torn Durex packet
I found the tissues that we used to wipe away the years
The dried up issues of joy and sadness

And there was fluff - I never thought there could be so much fluff
We could measure our existences in inches of fluff -
There was fluff on the skirting board, fluff on the floor
There's been fluff on my stylus for a month
Or more

But we sorted out the 33s and 45s
And every single record was a memory
As you packed up your china you started to cry
But I bet you don't look like you've been crying anymore
We sorted out the 33s and 45s
Now I bet you don't look like you've been crying anymore

Oh yeah, my dismantled living room full of your home packed up in cardboard boxes
Spaces in the record shelves where you've taken what was yours (and possibly some of mine)
And now you're waiting for the man with the van and some of your new friends - people I don't know - who are going to help you down the stairs and out of my life

Oh thirty threes
Thirty-threes and forty-fives

We sorted out the 33s and 45s
And every single record was a memory
As you packed up your china you started to cry
But I bet you don't look like you've been crying anymore
'Cause time's the greatest healer - they say 'only time will tell'
And if I'm deep in self-denial I'll just say things
Are going very well
They're going very well
Very very well
And how's it for you?
Do you remember this one?
Or this one?
Or how about this one?

Oh thirty threes
Thirty-threes and forty-fives
My life in vinyl

Beatles, Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces
Stax records, Chess records, Tamla Motown
I remember the first time you came to see me - I put all the good records at the front of the stack so that when you looked through them to check me out you'd think I was cool. I played you Mississippi Fred McDowell on the Arhoolie label - tried to explain to you that this is my life - it might be so much fucking plastic to anyone else but to me it's everything

Oh thirty threes
Thirty-threes and forty-fives

words and music Eric Goulden / Wreckless Eric (MCPS / Copyright Control)

When Bungalow Hi came out I was surprised by the number of reviewers who wrote that 33s & 45s was autobiographical - to start with I wondered how the fuck they would have known that without following me around very closely for a decade or two. And I wondered why they couldn't credit me with being able to tell a story - because that's what 33s & 45s is. The component parts of the story are all taken from personal experience but it isn't just a morbid document of one particular break-up. I rather thought it was a universal break-up that a lot of people could relate to.
And it isn't as banal as trying to extricate yourself from a relationship whilst keeping your record collection intact which was another slant the reviewers put on it. It isn't about material possession. People that are record collectors, unless they're just nerdy anorak trainspotters, collect records because they love music. Sure the covers are very nice and it's great clutching a big piece of shiny black vinyl, but it's what it represents = the music and what it represents - it's a spiritual thing.
When you have a traumatic time you have to re-gather yourself, find your centre, and that's where the records come in - or they do for people like me. All those tunes, they're like a frame of reference.