All Hype

Watching so many music videos recently, I have been reminded of a whole bunch of musicians from the nineties that I’d forgotten about completely.

In particular, I have remembered the Longpigs, from Sheffield I’ve just learnt (I lived there 5 years and never noticed that Richard Hawley used to be in this band) whose first small hit (no 67 in the charts according to unreliable wikopedia, I’m sure it did better) was an energetic song called ‘She Said’ from the album ‘the sun is often out’ which I then bought, after buying the single which had impressive b sides.

I remember buying the single (a cassette in those days haha) about two months after its release for 50p from the bargain bucket in ‘Badlands’ record shop on my much anticipated Saturday daytrip to Cheltenham with my best friend, and being elated about this.

I loved all the songs on the album, but there was one song that was particularly tender and soft with rocky contrasts too. Unfortunately on my tape cassette I could never hear the ending of this most loved song, as the tape was faulty, even when I first bought it, but thank God now for MP3s!

The song is ‘All Hype’ and it was sung, not by the front-man Crispin Hunt but another guy who sounded Irish to me and I always imagined it was Sean Hughes singing. Maybe it’s the fellow in the shades in this picture, looks a bit like Sean, the drummer Dee Boyle, a suspiciously Irish sounding name.

The song as I interpretted it at the time was about a Christian church, or leaving church or Christianity behind with the conclusion that it is ‘all hype’, which in 1995 when the album came out, I had done myself the year before, aged 13. When I’d left church I’d been sent a difficult letter asking why & at that time, this song was like the response that I couldn’t write myself.
Listening to this link below has been the first time I’ve ever heard the ending! It seems an honest sort of song

http://www.last.fm/music/Longpigs/_/All+Hype

Lyrics:

And I am living

Without the love of Jesus in my eyes

It's easier to swallow than collide

The way above the lows and sold your highs

[It's all hype]

When suddenly they strip it when you try

[It's all hype]

I still don't get the joke but nevermind

It's all hype

All heights

But your gonna fall down

Yeah your gonna fall down

And your gonna be round

And your gonna see

That I am leaving

The light of baby Jesus far behind

For one with history leaking from her eyes

As always things get tense when things are taught

Twisted and distort

But your gonna fall down

Yeah your gonna fall down

And your gonna be round

And your gonna see

And oh for heavens sake

I needed you today

And never having been

The countrysides obscene

I understood the part

But only only one

You've given up the choice

Why don't she dig my voice

And I believe in

The biggest touted answer to the lie

But always when it's caught you in the eyes

Cos usually it is that I don't mind
It's all hype

It's all hype