Album: Million Seller
Year: 1993
. . .
The Pooh Sticks started their life as Scottish indie jokesters, releasing singles with inside joke titles like “I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well” and “Indie Pop Ain’t Noise Pollution” or album titles like The Great White Wonder.
But, of course, if you joke about something long enough, it’s often because you truly love it, and so it came to pass that the third album by the Pooh Sticks, the optimistically titled Million Seller, is a true power pop gem, with couple of songs that match what fellow Scots Teenage Fanclub were doing at the time. Million Seller was filled with songs like the joyful “The World is Turning On,” the gorgeously twee “Rainbow Rider,” and the absolutely irresistible “Baby Wanna Go Round With Me.”
An ode to being the lucky guy who is enjoying the love of the girl everybody else wants to be with, “Baby Wanna Go Round With Me” starts with some crunchy guitar chords before settling into a organ & guitar filled groove over which a massively overdubbed Hue Pooh (Yup!) sings about just how lucky — and how insecure — he is.
And when the other boys start playing up
Hoping to make her see
Well, I’ll admit it makes me feel good
Baby wanna go round with meAnd when she’s up there with her band
And after when the fans won’t leave
I get on the microphone
Shout “Baby wanna go round with me”It’s very simple and I know well
But sometimes it’s so hard to believe
Baby wanna go round with me, yeah
Baby wanna go round with meBaby wanna go round with me
That last part, is of course, augmented with a stop-time, and followed up by a guitar solo that plays the melody line: two of my absolutely favorite tricks in the book, both rendered totally and utterly effectively. The only thing this song is missing is a modulation. Oh, and handclaps.
But that’s OK, because even without those “Baby Wanna Go Round With Me” is 2:32 of sheer pop perfection. That sadly, is kinda lost.
“Baby Wanna Go Round With Me”
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