Underwater Moonlight

Certain Songs #2332: The Soft Boys – “Underwater Moonlight”

April 1, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

Despite all of the tasty psychedelic goodness that preceded it, Underwater Moonlight ended with its very greatest song, making it like who’s next in that the four best songs on the record opened and closed it, with the final song being an epic for the ages.

“Underwater Moonlight” opens with drummer Morris Windsor’s kickdrum on every beat while he twiddles around on his hi-hat with bassist Matthew Seligman adding cool random notes while Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberly Rew play off-beats with their guitars. And then Hitchcock tells a tale as old as time.

Certain Songs #2331: The Soft Boys – “Queen of Eyes”

March 31, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

And so Underwater Moonlight went through a slew of great songs, including three that I very much almost wrote about: the footstomping “Positive Vibrations” with its insane guitar hook, sitar solo and amazing coda; “Insanely Jealous” which featured not one, but two rave-ups without getting faster, and the instrumental with the inside-out guitars, “You’ll Have to Go Sideways.”

All of which are great, but just set up the final two songs, the first of which is the insanely gorgeous “Queen of Eyes,” the first of Robyn Hitchcock’s power-pop songs for the ages. “Queen of Eyes” opens with Hitchcock’s and Kimberly Rew’s guitars in an quantum entanglement sent straight from psychedelic heaven, and a song that is on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Psychedelic Power Pop Division.

Certain Songs #2330: The Soft Boys – “Kingdom of Love”

March 30, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

All things considered, “Kingdom of Love” is far more representative of the charms of Underwater Moonlight — and Robyn Hitchcock’s music in general — than “I Wanna Destroy You.” A mid-tempo choogle with surreal lyrics and some utterly great guitar playing, “Kingdom of Love” also keeps the quality level way high.

It starts with Robyn’s guitar playing choppy rhythm in one speaker with Kimberley Rew supporting in the other while Matthew Seligman plays some aggressively hooky bass, over which Hitchcock quietly sings.

Certain Songs #2329: The Soft Boys – “I Wanna Destroy You”

March 29, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

I wish I could remember exactly how I came to buy Underwater Moonlight. Or for that matter, when it was. I always like to think that it was sometime in the early 80s, but it might not have been until early 1984, and it might have been spurred by the entry in the Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, which called Underwater Moonlight “one of the new wave’s finest half-dozen albums”

In any event, I bought an import version of it at Tower Records and put on track one side one and was instantly blown away, as “I Wanna Destroy You” is one of the greatest album openers ever.