Diagonal Days - 037

 Diagonal Days: The comic strip based on the character of the Diagonal Lane novels

Continuing the untranslatable joke from last week... no French or German versions this week either.

 

Diagonal Days - 036

No French or German versions this week... this episode is simply untranslatable!! The thought of pronouncing the last consonant of ANY word is incomprehensible in French, and the final T is pronounced in the German version of the word, Ballett.

Diagonal Days - 035

Diagonal Days: The comic strip based on the character of the Diagonal Lane novels

Wet Leg Mania-3: The Wet Party

This is the third and final part of the series of posts on Wet Leg, the band that is about to take over the world. Check out the first two parts: She Loathes You Yeah,Yeah, Yeah and The Wet Boyfriend.

Other than bad boyfriends, another major concern of Wet Leg seems to be bad parties. Now, having come of age in the disco era, I am no stranger to party songs. But where the average disco artist looked on the party as A GOOD THING ™, Rhian and Hester have the average millennial’s ho-hum attitude to parties and having a good time. In other words, NOT A GOOD THING ™. This is not surprising. We grew up in innocent, optimistic times when everything seemed possible if you pulled your socks up, spat on your hands, and got down to it. Now, with plastic seas and methane skies and AI Armageddon staring us in the face, it is difficult to imagine any of this turning out well, no matter how much we spit on the hand or how high we pull up the socks. In times like these, boogying the night away does not seem appropriate.

In the Wet Leg songs, the party seems to be a metaphor for life. The word “party” is strictly used in just a handful of songs. The rest of what I am calling the party songs are really about what a bad idea life in general is, and wouldn’t we all be much better off if we jumped off the nearest cliff.

Of course, in the usual Wet Leg fashion, the point is made with a good deal of humor and loads of peppy music. If you could shut your ears to the lyrics; if for example, Rhian sang these songs in a hoarse, unintelligible growl like Kurt Cobain, they could almost pass off danceable party numbers. But with Rhian’s clear, crystal annunciation, the lyrics are hard to ignore, as is their message.

On with the song analysis.

Angelica

I’ve said this before. This is my favorite Wet Leg song. It has everything: great concept, great jokes, great writing, super tunes (not one, but four) … and a gloomy message that makes you want to get into bed, cover your head with a blanket, and never come out. What more could one possibly want?

Rhian said in an interview that Angelica is a dear friend of hers, the one whom she used to stay over with when she was gigging solo in London (or was it Bristol? Sorry, can’t locate the interview to verify.). The song is about Angelica gatecrashing into a lousy party that bores her to tears (based on a true anecdote, one presumes), and then proceeding to solve matters by popping off everyone at the party with a ray gun (not based on a true anecdote, one presumes).

Check out the full lyrics. Unlike most song lyrics, it’s actually a fun read. 

My favorite verse in the song:

I don't know what I'm even doing here

I was told that there would be free beer

But that is only because it speaks to me as a beer worshipper. The girls too have stated in interviews that they are huge beer fans. How could they possibly be more perfect?

The overall message is one of disillusionment, a fed-upness with superficiality and the have-a-good-time-if-it-chokes-you attitude. The song has four great tunes jostling for supremacy, following the ABCD-ABCD-A/D structure of the other Wet Leg songs that I discussed in the previous post. The nagging, insistent opening riff is the signature of the song. But the riff that draws the most attention is the ‘good times, all the times’ boom-boom-boom marching tune. It sounds like a detachment of Wehrmacht Stormtroopers goose-stepping off to have an evening of fun and games, their Oberstleutnants Befehl ringing in their ears: ‘You will haff a good time, ja?’ Rhian and Hester chant these words in unison with flat expressionless faces, while the bass and drums thunder in the background.

Oh No

This is a rare low-key song in the Wet Leg set. It doesn’t have any standout riffs, but it is based on a whimsical Roald Dahlesque concept: the protagonist gets so overwhelmed by the stream of messages on her mobile phone that she actually gets consumed by it.

I went home

All alone

I checked my phone

And now I'm inside it

There are plenty of other references to the mindlessness of the social media driven lifestyle and lots of neat lines.

Then there is this nice bit about a party, which is what made me lump the song into the party section.

If you're going to the party

I heard there's gonna be some arty

People talking 'bout themselves

Or whatever it is that you always talk about, ah

The nicest part of this song is actually the video. Rhian and Hester goof around in big, flapping shaggy bear costumes on a waterfront pier on the Isle of Wight. They are natural clowns. They can create visual humor out of virtually nothing. Do watch the video right up to the last frame. The ending credits are a scream. Like the Monty Python sketches, even the credits are droll.

Too Late Now

With this song, the girls push their four-in-one concept to the limit. It not only has four completely different tunes, with their own tempos, riffs, and vocal delivery, but even the contents are different. It is four sub-songs jostling for space in one song. It is the Wet Leg brand of audacity carried to an extreme. They do it, because they know they can get away with it. If you wish to intellectualize about it, you can think of it as a songwriter’s steam-of-consciousness. The protagonist is trying to write a song, but her thoughts keep skipping from idea to idea.

It starts off as a melancholy lament about lost love. Abruptly, the songwriter decides this is not at all what she wants to write about. She starts having bleak thoughts about her unsatisfying life and decides to sound off about the way the social media is manipulating her head. Then she drops back into melancholy and has thoughts of ending it all with her lover by driving her car into the sea. Only, in the usual Wet Leg fashion, this suicide note is sung to a cheerful, swaying, bouncing tune that stands in stark contrast to the bleakness of the words.

This song has some rather saucy lines, some of them being my favorite Wet Leg lines.

I don't need no dating app

To tell me if I look like crap

To tell me if I'm thin or fat

To tell me should I shave my rat

And

I'm gonna drive my car into the sea

I'm gonna drive downtown while looking pretty ordinary

The below line is pretty funny too, but they have used variations of it in a couple of other songs, so it detracts from the punch.

 I just need a bubble bath

To set me on a higher path

On the other hand, the reuse of conceits like the above between songs just might be intentional. It creates recurrent motifs that bind all the songs on the album into a whole.

Check out the official video. It's hugely funny too, including the credits at the end.

The Wet Concerts

That’s enough of the song analysis. I leave you to discover the other Wet Leg songs for yourselves. In any case, the way to get the full Wet Leg effect is not to view individual song videos, but to watch an entire concert from start to finish. Rhian and Hester’s goofy dances between songs, their chatting with the audience, the way the songs flow from one into the other… it is a delightful experience. And by the way, each concert is just that little bit different. I must have watched hundreds of their concerts without ever being bored or feeling that it was repetitive. Heck, I have watched some of their best concerts multiple times, discovering something new each time.

Actually, they say that the *real* Wet Leg experience is to see them live, in person. The YouTube videos don’t even begin to capture the electricity in the air at their concerts, report actual concert goers. I can well believe it. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to experience it for myself. Wet Leg haven’t performed anywhere reasonably close to me in the past year and a half. Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch them live one of these days…

@Wet Leg: PLEEEEZE DO A CONCERT NEAR LYON….  PLEEEEZE PRETTY PLEEZEEEE…

Anyhow, until then, there are plenty of concerts on YouTube for people like you and me.

For your convenience, I have shortlisted their best concert videos on YouTube. Not necessarily their best performances, you understand, just the best ones in terms of video and sound quality.

The Rockpalast concert in Köln

This is undoubtedly their best concert on video, one of their tightest performances on record with excellent audio and camerawork. Actually, if you want to see the best concert of any of your favorite groups, check out if they have done a Rockpalast session. Those dudes at Rockpalast do some kind of magic. Not only is their video and audio recording technique exceptional, full of German high tech, but by some means they manage to get the artists to perform extra sharp on that day. Possibly the artists, on being confronted by all that German precision and efficiency, decide they had better up their game too.  This, despite the fact that the German audiences are probably the least demonstrative in the world. Or perhaps that has something to do with it. An audience making less racket makes for better audio recording, and the artists probably feel challenged to make that audience show some life.

If you want to see the BEST versions of all the songs I have featured in this and previous posts, check out this video. The only reason I did not link this video previously was that I wanted to give samples from a variety of concerts.

SD Version, with annotations

HD Version , without annotations

The 3voor12 Radio Session

This is an amazing live video. I have not heard another like it, for Wet Leg, or any other act. I wouldn’t recommend it to a Wet Leg newbie. Since it was for a radio session, there wasn’t a live audience, and Rhian and Hester don’t do any of their funny dances or uncork those blazing smiles or anything. They are rather wooden, actually. But the sound…. Oh me god! You can hear each instrument individually. You can virtually hear the strings on the bass guitar being plucked. You can hear the drumstick scraping on the high hat. You can make out exactly how each Wet Leg song is layered and arranged. Zero compression, zero post-processing (OK, probably not strictly true, but you know what I mean). You have to listen to the video with high quality headphones, preferably on a high def smart TV though, to get all this stuff I am talking about. Otherwise you'll think I'm talking through my high hat. It's a total waste to see this video on the computer or worse, a smartphone.

THIS is the video to watch if you want to see what drummer Henry Holmes brings to the table. His contribution is mostly lost in the general din of the other concert videos, but here you can see him driving the band with a steady beat. The way he copes with multiple, quicksilver changes in rhythm and tempo in the complex four-part structure of the Wet Leg songs. The way he puts in clever little fills that accentuate and stress the lyrics at just the right moments, without overwhelming them. I keep comparing Wet Leg to the young Beatles, and Henry is very much a drummer in the Ringo Starr mold: clever but not flashy, rock solid but not a technical showman, dedicated to making the overall song as good as it possibly can be. In short: egoless drumming.

The Route Du Rock Concert at Malo

The highlight of this video is Rhian attempting to do her usual banter with the audience in French. The band is clearly having a great time and it shows. Not one of their sharpest concerts. Unlike the Rockpalast concert, for example, they goof up multiple times, but they laugh, and they carry on. But that is exactly what makes this concert so good. This is the essence of Wet Leg….

Isle of Wight Festival 2022

 Possibly the cutest Wet Leg concert on YouTube. Here they perform before a home audience, the first time after their worldwide breakthrough. Rhian's mom is in the audience, and the guy taking the video is standing right next to her, and keeps showing how she reacts to the songs. Rhian and Hester look sheepish, with all their families watching them. Rhian keeps giving funny messages to her mom. She looks downright embarrassed singing Piece of Shit with all the foul language, knowing her mom is watching. Is Mike somewhere in the audience too? Now that's a thought.

Live on KEXP

 A delightful concert, which includes a delightful and insightful interview. The circuit breaker blows up in the middle of the concert, which adds to the fun. The girls are in great form. The only downside is that they seem to have been instructed by KEXP to bleep over all the rude words to avoid offending the radio audience. Sad.

Wet Leg Mania-2: The Wet Boyfriend

This is a continuation of my blog post about the phenomenal new rock band, Wet Leg. Check out Wet Leg Mania: She Loathes You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Last time, I analyzed their song Wet Dream. Today I take up four more: Ur Mom, Supermarket, Being in Love, Piece of Shit.

Like Wet Dream, all these songs seem to be about Mike. If you remember, Mike was what we decided to call the mysterious no-hoper ex-boyfriend of Rhian to whom many of the Wet Leg songs seem to be addressed. Rhian has never actually named him in public, to my knowledge. Possibly out of decency, but more likely to avoid a libel suit.

By the way, before I start the song analysis, I just had this curious thought: Mike must be the most loathsome boyfriend in the annals of rock. That actually makes me happy. I have had a wife, an ex-wife, and four ex-girlfriends describe to me in great detail my various shortcomings as a lover. It is a relief to know that there is someone out there who is probably worse than I am.

I also had this other thought: If I am right and Wet Leg prove to be the 21^st century’s answer to The Beatles, which was the thesis I put forward in the previous blog post, Mike would be the 21^st century's male equivalent of Pattie Boyd. Pattie Boyd, wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton and lover to Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, inspired an estimated twelve songs from these three artists, of which three are called the greatest love songs of the 20^th century: Something, Layla and Wonderful Tonight. She is thought to be the foremost muse in music.

Of course, in Mike’s case he would be the muse for the greatest hate songs of the 21^st century, but there you have it: that’s how it goes with us men. We’re used to it.

There is the minor possibility, although I kind of doubt it, that the Wet Leg songs are about a whole series of loathsome boyfriends.

This raises three possibilities:

1. Rhian is one picky gal.
2. The boys on the Isle of Wight seriously need to pull their socks up and get on with it.
3. Rhian is not your go-to person for boyfriend selection.

OK, now on with the analysis…

Ur Mom Song Analysis

(The song starts at 2:10, but the blather at the start is ultra cute, as always, and is a part of the Wet Leg experience)

This song is directly addressed to Mike, basically telling him what a good-for-nothing damp noodle he is. It eviscerates him. Starting right from the first verse, with a nice rhyme of ‘become’ and ‘mum’:

When I think about what you've become

I feel sorry for your mum

Ouch. That hurts. Not sorry for you, but for your mum, which makes it all the more cutting. I feel sorry for Mike. If it weren’t for the fact that the music is so good, and there are so many outstanding lines, this song might have been too painful for most guys to listen to. One tends to empathize. I have had similar things told to me by the then love interest at various points in time. Only without the music and the rhyming couplets.

And the knife keeps turning in the wound…

And when the radio plays and the static stays,

Yeah, I know it's time to go.

Nice. A clever line. I would have nodded appreciatively despite myself, had a former girlfriend told that to me.

And then some rather simple lines…

I get up, to go now

I give up, on you now

But this is where the music begins to get interesting. There is a sudden change in tempo, and a nice little riff from Hester that adds a punch. In live shows, Rhian makes some rather dramatic hand gestures at this point which would look corny on any other performer, but she can carry off anything. It adds a sense of drama to the song. The second time Rhian goes ‘I give up-up-up-up-up’. Again, this would be plain corny on any other performer, but Rhian makes it funny and cute.

Yeah, I loved you, that was crazy

'Cause you just don't motivate me

And then a couple of rather ordinary lines, but the rhythm section breaks out into a rocking groove at this point, making it the one solid base of a song that shifts constantly. The use of the word ‘motivate’ is rather innovative though. Using a bland bit of corporate speak here rather than a more colorful word has the unexpected effect of making the line more dismissive and cutting.

At one point, there is just the groove going on with Rhian and Hester going Pom-Pom-Pom… Pom-Pom-Pom, with a kind of hollow, distant echo in the background. It sound like a gay marching tune fading into the distance. A mental picture is created of Rhian walking away from poor, broken-down Mike with swaying hips and a skip in her steps, relieved to have finally broken away from the no-good chump. But has she? Would she have written ten songs about Mike if she had?

And when you're getting blazed, spooning mayonnaise

Yeah, I know it's time to go

Then the enigmatic line. Was Mike in the habit of eating mayonnaise right out of the bottle (ugh!) with a big spoon? The song video (see below) seems to suggest it. That alone would have justified Rhian leaving him. Or is it a reference to that bit of urban slang ‘Mayonnaise spooning’?  Check it out in the online urban slang dictionary if you don’t know what it means. Knowing the pleasure Rhian and Hester take in hiding dirty double-entendres within their songs, I suspect the latter.

And then, of course, the big line of the song…

You're always so full of it

Yeah, why don't you just suck my dick?

A male punk-rocker singing that would merely sound nasty, but on a girl it’s simply hilarious, especially the way Rhian spits it out in live concerts with swagger and elan. Of late, in some concerts, they have started changing it to ‘why don’t you just suck my clit’, but that just isn’t as funny. @Rhian: go back to dick, please.

Then there is the primal scream therapy. Rhian just stops the song midway and invites the audience to scream as loudly as possible, which they invariably do. Not unless they are doing a concert in Germany. The Teutons simply look down their noses suspiciously and mutter ‘Was ist denn das?’  Take a look at the video of their Rockpalast concert in Köln, if you don’t believe me.

Most commentators call this the fun element of Wet Leg. They do it because they can, and they know they will get away with it. Possibly there is an element of cheekiness here, but to me it fits in perfectly with the song, like the pom-pom-pom march. It is as if she is doing a primal scream to get that noodle-head out of her hair. But has it worked? After several hundred primal screams distributed over several hundred concerts over a year and a half, I have my doubts. We will have to see if Mike still features in the second Wet Leg album.

And then BOOM. Right after the scream, they dive right back into the heavy Pom-pom-pom groove as if had never gone away, until the music stops abruptly again, and the song ends for good this time.

Quiz: what is the Ur Mom tune? Please hum it.

Can’t? Give up?

That is because there isn’t one. To be precise, there isn’t ONE. There are SEVERAL. That is the essence of the Wet Leg style. Where most bands are happy to discover one good tune, one good groove, or one good hook, and flog it to death in a song, Wet Leg pile on tunes and hooks and grooves into a song with gay abandon, as if daddy has a groove mine in the backyard. Where most pop songs follow the ABAB or AABBAA verse-chorus song structure, Wet Leg have this unusual ABCD-ABCD-A/D song structure. Each verse has its own tune, its own grove, its own tempo and one or more hooks. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It creates a swaying, constantly moving, shape shifting effect, where you can’t pin them down on anything. No sooner than the audience adjusts to one groove, they move on to another. That is why you don’t find audiences dancing at Wet Leg concerts. They do these curious ape-like lurches. That is the only way to dance to Wet Leg songs.

As a one-time songwriter, I find this unbelievable. It is so difficult to find one good tune or one good groove, that most songwriters guard them jealously and use them judiciously. I can only put it down to the fact that they are so young and are so bursting with creative ideas that they can afford to splurge. I am curious to know if they can carry on like this into their second and third albums.

As for hooks, that is easier to understand. Rhian has this remarkable ability to pull hooks out of thin air, simply by the way she modulates her voice. In a way, for her, hooks come cheap. Recall the pom-pom-pom or the up-up-up-up and the countless other vocal artifacts in this song and others. Any one of them is good enough to latch the song into the listener’s head, which is what hooks are all about.

Here is the official video of the song. It is a nice little mini movie with a story and everything. Unlike the other videos, this one appears to have been made by an external production house. But you can see the Wet Leg humor on full display, so they clearly had a lot to do with it. Mike is represented here as a lost, Harry Potterish figure, more to be pitied than censured. You can see Mike spooning mayonnaise somewhere in the middle of the video at 2:50.

Supermarket Song Analysis

With Supermarket we are back to the comic short story format of most Wet Leg songs. Where Ur Mom did not have much of a story, being one long painful tongue lashing delivered by Rhian to Mike, here we have a proper Mike story. It can also be seen as a commentary on our love-hate relationship with supermarkets and on the consumerist culture in general.

Rhian apparently got the idea for this song after the COVID lockdown, when the simple act of being able to visit your local supermarket became thrilling. This song is based is based on the whimsical premise that Rhian takes Mike along to the supermarket and they become so giddy at the experience that they actually get high. So high, in fact, that they get thrown out of the supermarket by the security.

In this high state, Rhian is wondering dreamily what to do, and she decides to take Mike to see her parents.

I want to take you back to meet my parents

I wanna tell them 'bout that job that you do

And I think you'll like it when you meet my parents

And I think there is a good chance of them liking you

Seemingly ordinary lines, but nice rhymes and a neat structure. What makes these lines funny is that they are clearly meant in irony. This is obvious from the gently mocking tone in which Rhian sings this verse. It is clear that Mike doesn’t have much of a job, and Rhian’s parents are probably not going to be thrilled to see him. Add to that the fact that they are both out of their minds on a supermarket high, one can only guess the upshot.

As I said, a nice bit of humorous slice-of-life storytelling which leaves a lot to the imagination. Sadly, no music video for this song. It would have made for a very funny video with the usual Wet Leg touches.

Being in Love Song Analysis

This is the best-sounding version of Being in Love on YouTube, but it is a bowdlerized version: Rhian bleeps over all the rude words as this show was for a US radio show. The below version sounds a bit muddy, but it has all the rude words intact.  

This has to be the most original love song ever in the annals of pop. It doesn’t talk about loving someone, or feeling blue after a break up or any of that crap. Rather, it is a cynical look at the *process* of falling in love…

I feel like someone has

Punched me in the guts

But I kinda like it

'Cause it feels like being in love

The closest song I can think of is the 1991 Eurhythmics song Love is a Stranger, that was about the dangers of loving someone obsessively. But that was a rather dark and over-the-top song, nothing like this one.

As someone who had once fallen in love, got dumped, spent years in a black funk, and then woken up one day, several years later, wondering bemusedly what the whole fuss had been about, this song speaks to me. But I came to this enlightened state rather late in life. I’m rather surprised Rhian has arrived here at such a young age. On the other hand, millennials seem to live life in fast forward, unlike us innocent boomers. And I had been rather slow in matters of the heart compared even to my peers.

Another nice verse in the song…

I tried to meditate

But I just medicate

Pour me another drink

Don't wanna have to think

The best part of the song for me is where Rhian yodels ‘being in luh-uh-uh-uh-ove, luh-uh-uh-uh-ove’ in a sarcastic tone, making clear what she thinks of love.

This song isn’t strictly about Mike, but one presumes Rhian got to this enlightened state as a corollary to her break up with Mike, so I have bunched it with the Mike songs.

Piece of Shit Song Analysis

This version of Piece of Shit is convenient in that it shows all the lyrics. The below one is a better performance, though:

 

I love this song. In purely lyrical terms, it is my favorite Wet Leg song, although musically I prefer Angelica. As I had proposed earlier, many of the Wet Leg songs should be seen as short stories, and this is a proper short story, albeit shortish. Like a well written short-short, through the form of a dialog, it reveals more and more about the two main protagonists (Rhian and Mike, one presumes) and their back stories, like peeling back the layers of an onion, and it ends with a sting in the tail, which all good short story writers aim for. It is a thin slice of life that leaves it to you to reconstruct what came before and imagine what might follow.

It uses a lot of strong language, but it sounds perfectly natural in the context. This is how people converse in private, when deeply moved. It isn’t like a punk group using foul language to shock.

I’ll leave you to discover the song for yourself, without blathering on about it. But I would like point out a couple of highlights. The first one…

You're like a piece of shit, you either sink or float

So you take her for a ride on your daddy's boat

And you are not in love, but it's close enough

You say you think about me when you're fucking her.

I love the rhyming and the mental association of shit sinking or floating with daddy’s boat. And the following verse is precise and cuts like a knife.

The second highlight of the song is of course the ‘sting in the tail’:

Yeah, technically, I know that I agreed

But it was unenthusiastically

The whole song is turned upside down in the last verse. It seems they had an agreement to some kind of an open relationship, but she is now regretting it, although she defends herself weakly by saying she had just gone along with it under pressure. It puts a different angle on the whole grouse that precedes it.

I swear, this is probably the only pop song ever that has words like ‘technically’ and ‘unenthusiastically’ in it. Even if there are others, I doubt these words have been used to more devastating effect.

I like to categorize this as a Mike song, as it neatly rounds off the Mike song cycle. In all the other songs, Rhian punches and pummels Mike, and lays out his inner hideousness for the world to see. But it is not at all clear what it is exactly that Mike is supposed to have done to incur Rhian’s wrath. This song seems to provide the reason.

On the other hand, in all the other songs, the picture created of Mike is that of a wishy-washy, no-good lay about. In this song, we are presented with a smooth-taking, two-timing twister. The two don’t jell. So there is the possibility that this song is about some other seedy boyfriend of Rhian’s. Or it might be a work of pure fiction. Only Rhian can tell.

I haven’t mentioned humor so far. This isn’t as obviously funny as the other songs when you listen to it. It sounds like a long, furious rant. But the humor is obvious when you read the lyrics (see the link above). This is one of those rare songs where the lyrics can be enjoyed independently of the music. It reads like the screenplay for Elaine's thread in a typical episode of Seinfeld. You can visualize the scenes that lead up to this, and the song itself passes for Elain's lines in the final confrontation scene between Elain and her horrible boyfriend-for-that-episode. 

Part III: The Wet Party

(Featuring My favorite Wet Leg song, Angelica)

Wet Leg Mania: She Loathes You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Rock n Roll Lives again.

For old codgers like me, music died at around the same time as Kurt Cobain. It is pretty much widely accepted by my generation that Nirvana was the last of the great rock acts. Everyone who came afterwards was cowering pygmy in the shadows of the dinosaurs that romped the planet in the golden years of rock.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an old curmudgeon who refuses to listen to new music. I rather like some of the newish alternative rock acts like The Kills or Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Dea Matrona. But comparisons with Led Zep or Deep Purple or Dire Straits … or even (hushed tones, bowed heads) The Beatles? Oh, come on.

But, at last, after thirty-year long spell of drought, there is one pale, green shoot. A promising, sprightly, lively shoot. Does it herald the start of a new golden era? My generation is holding its breath. And praying.

Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers.

It was a bare twelve months ago that two little girls from the Isle of Wight got fed up with their moldy existence and COVID and horrible acne-scarred boyfriends and all that stuff, and got themselves a pair of guitars and launched a rock group. They called their band Wet Leg. In a bare six months they had conquered the known portion of the world, having released several super-hit signals, released a hit record, played at all of the biggest venues on the planet and had gathered two Brits and two Grammies along the way. They count amongst their admirers Barak Obama, Elton John, Nick Taylor of Duran Duran, David Grohl, the former Nirvana drummer, Jack White, probably the best of the new generation of guitar gods… the list goes on.

They just may be the biggest thing to have happened to the music industry in three decades.

Never heard of them? No problem. Check out this video of the song that launched their career. Prepare to fall in love.

With their meteoric rise, record-breaking downloads, and top awards on debut, they have already earned themselves a footnote in the history of rock. Will they one day be counted alongside the greats of rock? Only time will tell.

But they have youth on their side. They are bursting with talent, and are getting better all the time. Their humor is scintillating. Their laughter is infectious. They have a charisma that you can slice with a knife. They sound like no one else, either now or in the glory days of rock. Their songwriting is outstanding, at par with the best. I am putting my bets on them, and so are a lot of people far wiser and more knowledgeable than I am.

Wet Humor

What endears them to me most, being a humor writer myself, is their use of humor. Possibly no other group since the Beatles has succeeded in melding humor with rock so effectively. Comic concepts, exquisite wordplay and a delicious use of the language vie with hard-driving, foot-stampingly good grooves; the music not drowning out the lyrics, rather pushing it, prodding it, and teasing out its inner meaning. Delivered in Rhian’s crystal-clear, cut-glass British accent, you can make out every word, even in the din of a deafening closed-room concert.

The songs nearly always tell a story. A wry, gigglingly-good story. But these are not those long, plodding things called ballads. Most of the Wet Leg songs are designed like a conversation. You get flashes of dialogs. Bits of description. Just a handful of words scattered in the air like confetti. The rest of the story gets created in the listener’s imagination. It is like painting an iceberg in the mind’s eye from a glimpse of the tip. It is that perfection to which every short story writer strives. Being a writer myself, I know how difficult it is to achieve, for any kind of fiction. But to manage that for humor is beyond belief. There is a seriously talented short story writer within those two girls somewhere, waiting to burst out.

Having said all that, I must admit there are still a lot of people out there who don’t get what the whole hoo-ha is about. “Yes, they’re rather nice,” say these folk, “but what is so special about them?”. For people like that, I am writing this series of blog posts, dissecting each of their major songs, and explaining, in my humble opinion, why it is so special.

Their first hit, Chaise Lounge, the one that made them famous, has already been analyzed to death in countless articles, podcasts, and videos. There is no point in adding to the verbiage. So, I have chosen to start with their second hit, of which less has been written.

Wet Dream – Song Analysis

Rhian got the idea for this song when an ex-boyfriend sent her a WhatsApp message saying he had had a wet dream about her. The fellow must be a real jerk. Like most guys I have my share of wet dreams, but, also like most, I have the decency to keep it to myself. Naturally disgusted, she took it out of her system by writing a hugely funny song about it. That is how the true humorist deals with life’s curve balls. They don’t yell or scream or take up Buddhism. They turn the experience into comic art.

The song starts with a sarcastic request to enter into her ex’s head, presumably to view his sick mind.

Beam me up (beam me up)

Count me in (count me in)

Three, two, one (three, two, one)

Let's begin

The third line 3-2-1 is rather clever, by the way, as if she is waiting in a Star-Trekish transponder beam to be uploaded into his head. I didn’t get it the first time I heard the song, so I had to look up the lyrics. She trills it very quickly with an ironic slur, so it’s not as easily comprehensible as the rest of the song.

Each line is echoed by Hester with a slight delay, in a slightly different tone, which creates a delicious effect. Unfortunately, Hester’s voice is drowned out in most concert videos on YouTube, but you can hear it clearly in this amazing acoustic version that they did during a radio interview:

This acoustic version, by the way, showcases what amazing vocalists Rhian and Hester are. It is a near-acapella rendition (someone is strumming a guitar, but it’s barely there). There are very few artists who can make a song sound that exciting without instrumental backing. Sure, there are many folk artists who sound pleasant with minimal accompaniment, and acapella groups sound great with dozens of voices playing different roles with all kinds of vocal tricks, but there is a tautness and electricity in this rendition that is difficult to achieve with just two fragile voices singing plain and clear, without artifice. In some ways, it is even better than the rock version.

After being beamed up, the wet dream unfolds. Rhian croons out a sordid running commentary in a light, happy voice that counterpoints the insalubrious details, while Holmes’ drums go rat-a-tat-a-tat in the background. Rhian accentuates the lyrics even more in live performances. She swings her hips from side to side and fondles the neck of her guitar suggestively. But the stony expression in her eyes makes clear what she thinks about the whole business.

Two verses particularly standout.

What makes you think you're good enough

To think about me when you're touching yourself?

Just in case the sarcasm in the voice is not enough to bring out the irony of the lyrics, this verse spells it out. I rather like the understated ‘what makes you think you’re good enough to…’ rather than something more vicious. It makes the words more cutting.

Another verse that intrigues everyone is this:

You said, "Baby, do you want to come home with me?

I've got Buffalo '66 on DVD"

My guess is that is how this fellow – let’s call him Mike for convenience – propositioned Rhian early on in their relationship. Buffalo ’66 is what they call a “cult movie”. It’s about a gangster who kidnaps a young tap dancer and forces her act as his sham wife for a particular purpose. It’s the sort of movie that the Mikes of this world obsess about. What I particularly like about this verse is the way Rhian slurs and stretches out ´Buffalo ‘66’ in mocking tones in live performances. It’s hilarious. I bet poor old Mike squirms every time he hears this song.

This song showcases Rhian’s amazing vocal abilities. By turns, she croons, she chats, she trills, she chants, she hits high notes, she deliberately lets them go off key… all in a way that seems perfectly natural, like an extended conversation with her misguided ex. Most people who hear this song the first time won’t realize they are listening to a virtuoso performance. I certainly didn’t. She makes it sound effortless and casual. But a great deal of effort has gone into making it effortless.

With minor variations in intonation, phrasing and tempo, she achieves an astounding amount of interest, movement and dynamics within the 3 minutes of a standard pop song. A refreshing change from the dull, monotonous dirge that defines most pop performances nowadays. Neither does she have to indulge in the pointless vocal contortions of modern R&B groups. I worship the great Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey as much as anybody, but they knew to put in the fireworks at just the right places, in just the right way. Their latter-day copycats just grate on the nerves. The labored ‘Yo dudes, let’s put in some dynamics here’ brand of dynamics that most pop songs nowadays seem to have, has the contrary effect of making them dull and lifeless and formulaic. Any of the Wet Leg songs is a masterclass in how to achieve dynamics in a way that sounds refreshing, effortless, and natural.

Wet Fun

If you see videos of Rhian and Hester from their pre–Wet Leg days – and there are a couple on You Tube – you will see that they are both trained singers with a formidable range. Actually, all the Wet Leg bandmembers are alumni of an Isle of Wight music college. But, after years of struggling and getting nowhere, they decided to throw all the training out of the window and SIMPLY HAVE FUN.

Wet Leg was born of that decision.

Wet Leg is all about FUN. In capital letters. Having fun, and conveying a sense of that fun to their audience. But making a song fun is a lot more difficult than going into a recording studio and having a few beers and goofing around. It is HARD WORK. And it requires heaps of natural talent and an unerring instinct for what works and what doesn’t.

Luckily, they have it in heaps, several dozen heaps. And they debuted at a time when the world was pretty fed-up itself, and looking around for just their brand of madness.

Wet Videos

Check out the video of Wet Dream too. It is rather charming, goofy and fun. I usually avoid music videos, much preferring live concert videos, but I make an exception for Wet Leg. They do their own videos, and they have an instinct for visual humor that verges on Monty Pythonesque.

Wet Interviews

Here is Rhian talking about this song in an interview (move to 11:40, but this whole interview is ultra cute)…

The Wet Leg interviews, by the way, are things of beauty in themselves. The zippy comebacks, the tongue-in-cheek observations, the unbelievable tall tales said with a straight face…  they are reminiscent of the famous Beatles press conferences of the early years. Later on, of course, the Beatles turned into boring, self-obsessed old farts, like everybody else. But that is another story.

Samples of Wet Leg Humor:

Interviewer: What went through your head when Harry Styles called you and asked you to be his backing band?

Rhian (without a pause, with a straight face): We thought he must be thinking of some other band called Let Weg.

(The best part was that the other band members kept a straight face too)

Interviewer: Are you ready with your second album?

Rhian: Oh yes, it’s all ready.

Interviewers: when are you releasing it?

Rhian, Hester (in turns): As soon as we find it. We buried it somewhere deep underground, and now we’ve forgotten where we buried it.

(Interviewer was a Dutch dude in this case. He looked perplexed. He couldn’t figure if they were being straight, or if this was some kind of British humor)

Interviewer: How would you describe the musical style of the second album?

Rhian: Heavy metal… (long pause. Looks sideways at Hester)

Hester: … disco (finishing Rhian’s sentence).

Rhian: I do a lot of low growls in the second album. I had to practice for it.

Interviewer: What is the origin of the name Wet Leg?

Rhian: That is what we call the mainlanders on the Isle of Wight. Because they come off the ferry, and their legs get wet in the process.

This joke took on a life of its own, by the way, and has become a part of the Wet Leg legend. Even I thought it was true at one point. The reality is more mundane: Rhian and Hester wanted a band name that could be described in two emojis, and came up with this name after trying out various combinations. Or was that another joke? One can never be sure with these girls.

The first time I heard the band name, I thought it referred to that unmentionable woman thing that bachelors are blissfully unaware of and that we married men to our horror have to learn to deal with. For all I know, that is probably the real origin of the name. It would explain why they are so coy about it.

The Beatles Reborn?

In this article, I have made no secret of the fact that Wet Leg reminds me a lot of the young Beatles. Before they became hairy, spiritual, bell-bottomed dudes, that is. Their joie-de-vivre, their sparkling songwriting, their use of humor, their scintillating personalities, their rocket-like rise on debut, the shock and freshness of their songs in a barren landscape… not to mention the the slightly disgusting band name... all that recalls the Beatles to me. Yes, yes, the Wet Dream album can’t be compared to Sgt. Pepper and Revolver and all those classics, but I am comparing them to the *young* Beatles, remember? The Beatles did not become the high priests of all things music overnight. Will Rhian and Hester create the 21^st Century’s answer to Sgt. Pepper? Who knows. Give them time to develop. Maybe they will.

But there is one HUGE difference between the young Beatles and Wet Leg that hits you in the eye. Other than gender, that is. The majority of the Beatles songs, especially in the early days, were about LOVE. They looked on LOVE, GIRLFRIENDS, and GIRLS in general, as a GOOD THING ™ (except for one or two bitchy songs in Rubber Soul, when Paul McCartney had been dumped by Jane Asher). The Wet Leg songs, when they are about love, tend to hit the sour note. They look on boyfriends, and boys in general, as ticks and slugs, and have a ho-hum attitude towards loving them. In other words, NOT A GOOD THING ™. I don’t know if it is because Rhian is going through a phase after having broken up with some particularly icky specimen, but songs like Ur Mom and Wet Dream make you despair for the male of the species, and you wonder if somethings shouldn’t be done about these bearded bounders. It is possible that Rhian will one day come across a moderately subhuman exhibit, and the Wet Leg songs will turn brighter, but until then, their theme song shall remain: She Loathes You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

Part II: The Wet Boyfriend

Featuring Ur Mom, Supermarket - Song Analysis

 

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 Diagonal Days: The comic strip based on the character of the Diagonal Lane novels

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Diagonal Days: The comic strip based on the character of the Diagonal Lane novels

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Diagonal Days: The comic strip based on the character of the Diagonal Lane novels

This is the first time Mrs. Bromowitz is appearing in this comic strip. In the Diagonal Lane novels, I describe her as having put on some weight after having retired as a ballerina, which often happens to ex-dancers, but still a handsome woman who made the hearts of all the middle-aged men on Diagonal Lane go pit-a-pat. Somewhat imperious and commanding, like Catherine the Great.

To draw her, I drew on an old photo of early 20th century ballerina Anna Pavlova for inspiration. Let me know if the above sketch matches how you imagined Mrs. Bromowitz when you were reading Death On Diagonal Lane.