Saturday Flashback: The Beautiful South – Don’t Marry Her

“Definitely not a love song.”

Tom: In the last couple of weeks, we’ve talked about couple of songs with unconventional messages. This is definitely not a love song. And it’s definitely the explicit version.

Tom: As a kid, this was — if I remember rightly, and I may not remember rightly — the first time I was aware that songs could have explicit versions and radio edit versions. Not just quietly muting swear words, but actually rerecording lyrics.

Tim: And yet, in that video, she’s mouthing “have me” – you can’t quite stretch to recording another few seconds? But yes, and you’re not alone – I think it took my parents by surprise, when the only version they’d heard was on the radio, and the first time we listened to the album was sitting down for dinner on a Sunday evening.

Tom: This was proper, commercial-era Beautiful South: they were playing huge venues, they were all over Radio 2, and even made it onto a couple of Now albums. And you know what else? They have a lot of unconventional messages in that commercial era. It doesn’t matter what size you are. Don’t wait for them, they’re a jerk. It’s okay to grow old together.

Tim: And, FUN FACT: as a piece of GCSE English coursework I analysed the lyrics of Song For Anyone as a poem. Think I got fairly good marks for it, as well.

Tom: I’ll bet not many British people could name Paul Heaton. But most will know his music, and — perhaps with recognition, perhaps with nostalgia — he’ll have made most of them smile.