Sunday, May 31, 2009

hefner recollections

While I was out and about today, I found a copy of Hefner's excellent We Love The City on LP from Heartland Records. Upon arriving home, those opening lyrics to the title track brought back a flood of memories:

This is London, not Antarctica, so why don't the tubes run all night?
You are my girlfriend, not Molly Ringwald, so why won't you stay here tonight?

It's made me realise that Hefner are a band which I associate so many fond memories with. Of course, the aforemention
ed song's chorus of, We love the city, because it lets us down, rang particularly true for me back in Brisbane, even if the song was about how depressing London can be, but it's but one of many Hefner tracks which have struck me for many different reasons across many stages of my life. 

The Fidelity Wars
This was the first Hefner album I ever purchased, in 2000 from Red Eye Records in Sydney whilst on holiday down there. I was in year 11 at the time and became interested in the band after reading about them in Select. Upon hearing 'The Hymn For The Cigarettes' for the first time, I was even more hooked. Darren Hayman's terrific lyrics inspired the budding writer in me - all that angst mixed with sadness and
 rejection. At the time I had no hope of meeting anybody who I could sh
are this with, so it has been great to talk about Hefner with other fans at various points.

We Love The City
This was given to me by one of my favourite people in the w
orld, Lina, on my first trip to Sweden in 2003. I spied it in her CD collection, got super jealous, then became ecstatic when she so kindly gave it to me at the end of my visit. I remember listening to the title track for the first time when I did hit London, and never had it felt so right. Last year at my first How Does It Feel To Be Loved?, I was super excited to dance to 'The Day That Thatcher Dies' - such fun! 

Boxing Hefner
I only bought this recently, from an indiepop listee off ebay. To be honest, I haven't listened to it all that much, but I really wanted a copy so I could have 'Christian Girls' on CD. What a song! I only heard this for the first time last year (shameful!) when the lovely Andrew from Pants Yell! put it on a really excellent mix for me. Great song, and I am sure, a great collection of other tracks for me to soon fall in love with.

2 comments:

Kippers said...

Hello KItten would have to be my favourite Hefner song I think. (Not that I've heard them all by any means.) Christian Girls is ace too, but!

Anonymous said...

Nice reading about Hefner after such a long time. First time I heard them was on the John Peel Show on BBC 1 in 1998, when he played "the sad witch" from their album "breaking god´s heart". Fell in love with them instantly and still love them. They also did some nice sessions for his program.