Mark L wrote:

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Good song anyway with clever lyrics.  Live it is even better. I know some dislike the long drawn out nature of it live but I have both live CDs and I think it's the best track on them, giving Bob the chance to individually name check and thank the group members. Some of Bob's best lyrics are in this song and it should have gone higher than 13 although I do think SLAY is better and had it followed Mondays, would probably have hit the top spot.

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 Why Geldof insists of the   rather childish na na na ending that seems to go on forever is beyond me. The song is about a suicide and should not be trivialized and turned into a banal singalong. How an intelligent man like Geldof can not see this is beyond me.

The record is a lot better. It sticks to the point, is brilliantly produced, and we get to hear the near bass flourish just at the end of the song, a nice little effect that I love and that live is never played.

I suppose one can do an edit on the live version to cut out all the na na na's , and maintain ones sanity, and healthy relationship with a great Rats song. But the record that I loved when it came out in 1979 sounds best just as a record.For me anyway.

ArrGee wrote:

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I don't think much of it live nor on record. Musically it is simplistic and dull. I think the problem with it was it was a follow on of Mondays, so having penned an observational song about a serial killer, why not do one about a suicide. On Sky Arts Video Killed the Radio Star Geldof said they tried to make a great video cos the song wasn't so good.

I think less of Surfacing as years go by. On its release I thought it was a pretty good album, but it wasn't long before I was listening to other stuff like Eat to the Beat, London Calling and Get Happy! all of which I still think of more fondly. The only song that seems vital is Someone's Looking. The rest are OK, but not paticularly important to me.

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 Fair enough if you don't like it or find it 'simplistic and dull'. Others may beg to differ but at the cost of their sanity.....

I'd rate bands like XTC, Magazine, The Only Ones and Wire way ahead of The Clash. Nice of The Clash to give permission to the 'faraway towns' to do their own thing musically. Infact lots of them did it way better than the Orkney bankers,  and couldn't give a flying monkeys about the mythology of a flyover in West London. Towers Of London by XTC is a much better song than London Calling, any day of the week, and XTC like the Rats could produce music without trying to be socialist politicians at the same time,and boring everyone to tears with their self righteousness.

manatthetop wrote:

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ArrGee wrote:

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I don't think much of it live nor on record. Musically it is simplistic and dull. I think the problem with it was it was a follow on of Mondays, so having penned an observational song about a serial killer, why not do one about a suicide. On Sky Arts Video Killed the Radio Star Geldof said they tried to make a great video cos the song wasn't so good.

I think less of Surfacing as years go by. On its release I thought it was a pretty good album, but it wasn't long before I was listening to other stuff like Eat to the Beat, London Calling and Get Happy! all of which I still think of more fondly. The only song that seems vital is Someone's Looking. The rest are OK, but not paticularly important to me.

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 Well it is about someone killing themselves. But as you rightly point out Another song should have gone after Mondays I am behind mark on this one I to think someone's looking at you would of hit the top spot if it had come after Monday's

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 All the conjecture and what if's gets a bit tiring in the end. If x had been released instead of Y at Z time. I think it's good enough that most of the songs were decent sized hits. 'Collecting' numbers ones seems a bit egotistical,and might have done more  damage if there had been more number ones-that's the paradox of that kind of success, be careful what you wish for etc.

I presume the band came to some collective type decision as regards which songs to release as singles, so that's how it panned out. Individual members of the band had their own views of what to release but the decision to follow Mondays with Diamond Smiles still produced a sizeable hit. Lots of great bands never had any hits so I'm always well aware of how indicative being a 'hit producing' band is of anything except some arbitrary type of  approval.

Noel: All the conjecture and what if's gets a bit tiring in the end. 

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Says he who's opened posts such as:

Will the Rats sell out the Roundhouse?

Could Bob solo have sold out the Marquee?

Favourite/best set openers?

Rats better on vinyl or CD?

It's a forum and so opinion and conjecture is inevitable. Bit rich of you to invite it on the subjects that obviously aren't tiresome to you and then tell others they are effectively sending you to sleep with their conjecture!

Geldof's songs deal a lot with death. I see no trivialisation of suicide in this song and quite how it follows that the recorded outro is brilliantly produced but the live outro is childish and banal is beyond me. I see the purpose as I wrote above and for me it works. I hope that doesn't make me thoughtless, or disrespectful to the deceased, but it's the Geldof melancholia that was one of the Rats most attractive features to me as I grew up.

Mark L wrote:

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 I hope that doesn't make me thoughtless, or disrespectful to the deceased, but it's the Geldof melancholia that was one of the Rats most attractive features to me as I grew up.

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 I loved that too!  I was really fascinated by all the death and suicide lyrics - morbid, I know!  Maybe when you grow older and have a family and become more aware of your own mortality you change your views a bit and find the whole subject more horrific.

Personally I feel the na, na, nas, sum up the whole story:

"Nobody saw her go,
They said they should have noticed" etc - nobody noticed, nobody really cared, sums up people just being dismissive, not noticing when others are in distress, being self-centred "talking about clothes and the latest styles"

I guess Mondays was always going to be hard to follow - I do remember a radio 1 DJ (think it was Annie Nightingale) slating it and saying it was a bit of a cheap imitation and they could do better!  But I like the whole feel of it, the lyrics, the tune, and the video!  Probably prefer tracks on their first 2 albums on the whole, but there you go.

manatthetop wrote:

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 Gets the fans going anyway

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Flocking to the exits!  Given the lacklustre encores, I should leave after the high of Rat Trap rather than the come down of Having My Picture Taken, Diamond Smiles and, last and by every means least, The Boomtown Rats! 

Whenever the Barton/Bradbury Rats played Diamond Smiles midset,  it was a good excuse to head to the bar. 

Mark L wrote:

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Noel: All the conjecture and what if's gets a bit tiring in the end. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Says he who's opened posts such as:

Will the Rats sell out the Roundhouse?

Could Bob solo have sold out the Marquee?

Favourite/best set openers?

Rats better on vinyl or CD?

It's a forum and so opinion and conjecture is inevitable. Bit rich of you to invite it on the subjects that obviously aren't tiresome to you and then tell others they are effectively sending you to sleep with their conjecture!

Geldof's songs deal a lot with death. I see no trivialisation of suicide in this song and quite how it follows that the recorded outro is brilliantly produced but the live outro is childish and banal is beyond me. I see the purpose as I wrote above and for me it works. I hope that doesn't make me thoughtless, or disrespectful to the deceased, but it's the Geldof melancholia that was one of the Rats most attractive features to me as I grew up.

 

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On the original recording of Diamond Smiles the na na na outro is less obvious as the na na na are not so prominent, being largely buried in the musical mix, so therefore less noticeable and obvious.Any live version I've heard lately, like Geldof in Islington and about 7 times I've seen the Rats since they reformed, the na na na ending has gone on for at least four minutes. Suss makes a good point when he says it might as well be two songs.

Listening to the live version from the Roundhouse Geldof seems to talk his way through the song, rather than sing it. Re Trivialisation of suicide it's not the main body of the song, or the lyrics that trivialise the subject but the unneccessary na na naing in the live version. If i were singing it (conjecturing here!) I would not deem it necessary to lead the audience in a childish sing along. The record is 3.45  mins and the live version goes on for at least 7 minutes- I'm in the less is more camp on this one. 

On the other hand Lisa's comments about the na na na's are very perceptive ,and something I had not considered. Anyway I have always liked/loved Diamond Smiles and prefer the to the point record than any live version I have heard.

ArrGee wrote:

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I don't care about the chart placings. Dave is a far better song than Diamond Smiles. So is Fall Down and He Watches It All though neither would have been hits. I wasn't comparing the clash to the rats. All I was writing was that London Calling turned out to be a better LP than surfacing.  The only really good LP from the clash and not a patch on English Settlement.

Diamond Smiles is one of the lesser Rats songs. It would be in the bottom half and is the weakest song in the current set. Well except for the eponymous song and Having My Picture Taken.

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 I think XTC's best two albums are Drums and Wires and Black Sea, and also Psonic Sunspot under alter ego The Dukes of stratosphere. I like them all but those are my tops and also Skylarking, which when it came out the NME described as being  'as relevant as Cardinal Wolsey...' ouch.

Mark L wrote:

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didn't see anyone rushing to the exit during it in Mcr or B'ham! 

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 There were quite a few leaving before they came back at the Roundhouse, but to be fair they were probably just trying to get home on the trains.

Mark L wrote:

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The Fine Art of Surfacing is very well received round this neck of the woods and gets better with age like fine wine in my view. Some of the guitar work in tracks like SLAY and When The Night Comes is top notch. It's all catchy, confident stuff on Surfacing with more hooks than all the anglers in Cornwall.

It probably sold less well than Tonic but for me, they're pretty much neck and neck at the finish.

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It may be catchy, but nowadays I find it pretty shallow and over produced.    I don't think there is a  bad song on it, just a lack of really great ones that the first couple albums had in spades.  Nice n Neat is ruined by the bop shoo wops at the end, Having My Picture Taken is pretty trite, and at times on When The Night Comes, lyrics appear to be shoehorned in and expanded to fit the song rather than having a proper flow.  

In the UK, Tonic sold more, but worldwide Surfacing is probably the bigger seller. 

ArrGee wrote:

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Mark L wrote:

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The Fine Art of Surfacing is very well received round this neck of the woods and gets better with age like fine wine in my view. Some of the guitar work in tracks like SLAY and When The Night Comes is top notch. It's all catchy, confident stuff on Surfacing with more hooks than all the anglers in Cornwall.

It probably sold less well than Tonic but for me, they're pretty much neck and neck at the finish.

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It may be catchy, but nowadays I find it pretty shallow and over produced.    I don't think there is a  bad song on it, just a lack of really great ones that the first couple albums had in spades.  Nice n Neat is ruined by the bop shoo wops at the end, Having My Picture Taken is pretty trite, and at times on When The Night Comes, lyrics appear to be shoehorned in and expanded to fit the song rather than having a proper flow.  

In the UK, Tonic sold more, but worldwide Surfacing is probably the bigger seller. 

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 I dig it out occasionally and play Wind Chill Factor and Keep It Up, Sleep and Nothing Happened Today. Not very often but when I do the songs sound pretty ok. I always worry that we overvalue music in general as if our lives depended on it. They're just songs in the end, filling a need to be  'entertained'.

ArrGee is right about Surfacing being overproduced, but playing a few songs from it  occasionally won't do too much harm.

noelindublin wrote:

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Mark L wrote:

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By and large, the lyrics scan OK to me on When The Night Comes, but once or twice, I can hear Geldof doing what you suggest. In the ' Frankie takes' line, 'news' is elongated and in the next line, too many words seem included. Somehow, though, it works. I remember one reviewer confirming this saying that there was a lot of 'hurried up poetry' in this song and that it only sounded ok due to the oscillations in Geldof's voice. Or words to that effect.

 

I'll try and look it up.

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 Does anyone know if Bob, in  general,  writes the words first and then the music? I get the impression that a lot of the songs are 'lyric led'. Wonder did he keep a song notebook, and where is it now?

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It's interesting listening to the first airings of Mondays in San Diego as the lyrics evolve even over the two nights.  I suspect that the basic premise and even the tune get worked out first and the lyrics fit in. But you'd have to ask Geldof, that's just how it comes across to me.

Quite surprised to hear TFAOS only dug out occasionally or ok in small doses as though it were an old jumper or macaroni cheese! I love it and think this review pretty spot on:

Review by Mike DeGagne, a Canadian reviewing for All Music:

"Chock-full of new wave charisma and tamed by Bob Geldof's upfront wit, The Fine Art of Surfacing is novel in both its lyrical flair and modern pounce. Made famous by the colourful history of "I Don't Like Mondays," a true story about a 16-year-old girl who shot 11 people without showing any remorse, The Fine Art of Surfacing switches gears from this song's well-crafted harshness to the hectic pace of tracks such as "Nice N' Neat" and "Sleep," among others. "Diamond Smiles" jaunts along on a hiccup-like rhythm, while "Keep It Up" is downright frantic. "Someone's Looking at You" basks in a certain type of smug paranoia, and songs like "Having My Picture Taken" and "Nothing Happened Today" are beautifully lit up by Geldof's wide-eyed dramatics and explicit vocal swings. Sharing the same sort of stylishness as A Tonic for the Troops, The Fine Art of Surfacing bursts with florid pop genius, which in turn kept the Boomtown Rats from sounding like other new wave bands that existed at the time".

Hear hear!

I don't think there's a duff track on it, whereas Tonic is embarrassed by ' Can't Stop', or at least slightly diminished by it.

Then they rather cheekily recycled it into 'Up or Down' on ITLG!

Mark L wrote:

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Quite surprised to hear TFAOS only dug out occasionally or ok in small doses as though it were an old jumper or macaroni cheese! I love it and think this review pretty spot on:

Review by Mike DeGagne, a Canadian reviewing for All Music:

 

"Chock-full of new wave charisma and tamed by Bob Geldof's upfront wit, The Fine Art of Surfacing is novel in both its lyrical flair and modern pounce. Made famous by the colourful history of "I Don't Like Mondays," a true story about a 16-year-old girl who shot 11 people without showing any remorse, The Fine Art of Surfacing switches gears from this song's well-crafted harshness to the hectic pace of tracks such as "Nice N' Neat" and "Sleep," among others. "Diamond Smiles" jaunts along on a hiccup-like rhythm, while "Keep It Up" is downright frantic. "Someone's Looking at You" basks in a certain type of smug paranoia, and songs like "Having My Picture Taken" and "Nothing Happened Today" are beautifully lit up by Geldof's wide-eyed dramatics and explicit vocal swings. Sharing the same sort of stylishness as A Tonic for the Troops, The Fine Art of Surfacing bursts with florid pop genius, which in turn kept the Boomtown Rats from sounding like other new wave bands that existed at the time".

 

 

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I  used to listen to Surfacing 'obsessively' when I was a teenager so the songs are well familiar, I tend to get tired of any music, no matter how good, so I normally play cd' albums for a few days and then try something different. That keeps things  fairly fresh.

Some of the songs like Mondays, Someones Looking, and Diamond Smiles you just don't need to put on, as the are almost over familiar, esp since Geldof and the Rats play them live. I have a particular fondness for Wind Chill Factor, maybe the best non single track on the album? Not too keen of the religious subject matter of Nice and Neat, good tune but maybe with different lyrics it would be more my cup of tea.

Funny that Smash Hits back in the day was saying the album was too Bowieish, though I can't seen exactly what they mean. Thanks to Mark for digging out the old  Smash HIts review a while  back. Not sure if the Canadian reviewer is correct in calling Keep It Up  'downright frantic', but Canadians are Americans with brains, as someone once said.

Agree with you both here great song. Just like a 6 foot mole

Fingers keyboard work was fantastic throughout Surfacing. Sleep is another great track from TFAOS. Time is certainly speeding, speeding, speeding - 34 years since I bought this masterpiece from HMV in Wolverhampton and the guy behind the counter told me it was good but not as good as the last album.

People are still saying it now!

Mondo Bongo contains the often overlooked gem Elephants Graveyard and the superb Fall Down. Should have filed this under the best lyric bit, but isn't 'Not only cripples have a need for crutches' one of the most remarkable lines Bob has ever written?

They are very emotional and it was sung amazingly by Simon.

Any song that ends with 'down' by the Rats is ok by me. Drag me, Fall, Up or...........then again!

Jules wrote:

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Those ending in up (careful how I say that) are good too lol . Keep it up, Straight Up ....

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 Of course, if there any hint of life in the title it is generally sh!te, Ratlife, Charmed Lives ...

Seeing as we're off topic anyway, and I'm too lazy to research or think, did the Rats do any songs where the title doesn't actually feature in the lyric? Discounting Whitehall 1212 and instrumental track versions obviously.

No, can't think of any apart from House Burned Down, which can also go in the songs ending with 'down' category.