Wide Open Space August 5, 2020
Posted by Sobek in News.trackback
I accidentally found this new song two days ago (“new” in the sense that it was released in 1997). I had heard the name of the band, Mansun, once, and I had never heard any of their songs before.
My impression in the first few seconds was that I didn’t like the vocals. That changed over the course of the song, and now I totally love them.
The other thing I love is the layers of sound. I’ve listened to it about 40 times in the past two days, and I keep hearing new things in there.
I also love the drive to the song. It feels like happy energy to me. But then the song itself – the lyrics and the music both – aren’t really happy. It’s this totally chaotic soup of different things happening at the same time, and it sounds completely fantastic.
Supposedly they were trying to recruit the drummer to the band, and he thought they were standard, boring Britpop, but when they played the demo for this one he decided to join.
Mansun released three albums, then went to the studio to record a fourth but broke up before releasing it. I’ve listened to a lot more of their stuff since yesterday, but none of it works for me like this one. No matter what I’m listening to it just makes me think how much I’d rather be listening to Wide Open Space.
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Innocent Bystanders 
The open guitar is a repeating E/F chord to a D, which is super dissonant and implies nothing at all about key signature. Then bass comes in with a pedal on D, moving to an A and back through the verse, which means a pretty standard (and usually boring) root and fifth progression. I love that bizarre dissonance on top of ordinary harmony.
The lead guitar player does this “la-la-la” back-up vocal through all the choruses. But at about 3:07, during a verse, you can hear another “la-la-la” that’s about two octaves lower and done in this almost opera kind of voice that, if we isolated the track, would probably sound really silly. As it is, it blends so well that I didn’t hear it the first few dozen times I listened to the song.
Then in the final chorus, which is doubled, the second half changes from la-las to words, and again you totally miss it in the mix the first time you listen. I can’t tell what the guy is singing there.
There’s also this really dissonant keyboard descent starting about 2:59 that you don’t hear it first. It’s super weird. Everything about this song is weird in such a cool way.
It’s possible that I’m gay for the singer, too. But not in a gay way, you know?
The video is perfect. All the elements are so odd that they make no sense together, which matches the song wonderfully. I especially like the bit with the torch juggler. So mezmerizing.
The lyrics in the verses seem kind of weak, though.
I do love the lyrics in the chorus. Even better that he sings the words “you’ll never get to heaven with a smile on your face from me/ I’m in a wide open space/ I’m staring” all in one breath. That’s hard to do, with the sustained notes in there. He doesn’t do that live.
The guitar solo is good. Spacey and atmospheric, not very complicated, fits the song well. Sounds pretty typical of the Britpop attitude towards guitar solos in that decade.
Cool song. There’s even a trance version.
Currently listening to SRV “Greatest” but you have definitely piqued my interest so I’ll keep this tab open and listen later.
🎶The sky is crying…🎶
I don’t get it.
Vampire on acid?
I don’t get it, either. I get the impression that it’s an Odyssey kind of thing, with the kid on a journey looking for he knows not what an encountering a series of disconnected scenes. But I suspect the weirdness is intentional so people can put their own interpretations on it.
The main page has the UK version of the video. For whatever reason, bands will sometimes do different videos for different markets. Here’s the American version:
I can’t think of any reason why this is more appealing to Americans, but someone must have thought it was.
My first exposure to this song was the soundtrack for the first Gran Turismo back on the PSX. It had a really good mix of punk, rock, and grunge.
This track was also popular with DJs.
time period
Wide Open Space | Innocent Bystanders