The Lost Pandas fell apart in 1984 when guitarist Michael Duane (later of dustDevils) was sacked, and Panda's drummer Jaz Rigby followed in protest. Gedge and the Pandas' bass player, Keith Gregory, decided to continue the band, renaming it The Wedding Present.
Gedge wanted to use the name "The Wedding Present" in honour of one of his favourite bands,The Birthday Party.
Gedge and Gregory recruited an old schoolmate of Gedge's, Peter Solowka, to play guitar and auditioned a string of drummers, including Mike Bedford, with whom they recorded a demo tape, before settling on Shaun Charman. The country's clubs and bars were toured as the band prepared for the recording of their first, self-financed single.
After some consideration, "Go Out and Get 'Em, Boy!" was chosen over early favourite "Will You Be Up There?". The A-side features drumming by hired hand Julian Sowa with Charman on its B-side. The single was released on the band's own Reception Records label with distribution through Red Rhino. Although Reception was only intended to be a vehicle for the release of their own material, it also released a number of singles by This Poison! and Cud.
Two more singles followed that did well on the independent charts and the band was spotted by veteran BBC radio DJ John Peel, who immediately started championing them and invited them to do a radio session, starting a long collaboration.
By the time the band started work on their debut album, a number of independent and major record companies showed interest, but the band declined all offers and decided to keep releasing their material themselves. The album was released in 1987 and titled George Best after the well-known Northern Irish football player. Disagreement on production values with the record's producer, Chris Allison, led to the product being remixed by the band and their engineer, Steve Lyon. The larger part of these conflicts seemed to lie with the personal and musical incompatibility of Allison and Charman.
Upon its release, the album was critically acclaimed and the band were soon lumped in with some of their peers as the 'shambling' or C86 scene, a categorization that they vehemently declined (although they were featured on the original C86 compilation). Musically, the album featured fast-paced rhythm guitar attacks; lyrically, apart from a few tentative excursions into social critique ("All This and More") and politics ("All About Eve"), Gedge's main concerns (which would become his trademark) were love, lust, heartbreak and revenge. Soon after the release of George Best, the early singles and radio sessions were compiled and released as Tommy (1985-1987).
With the departure of Charman very early on in 1988, Simon Smith took up the drum stool and follow up album, 1989's Bizarro was again popular with the music weeklies.
When Solowka, who has Ukrainian roots, started fooling around with a Ukrainian folk tune during one of their many Peel sessions, the idea arose to devote some of their radio time to recording their versions of Ukrainian and Russian folk song, encouraged by Peel. To this end, two guest musicians were invited, singer/violin player Len Liggins and mandolin player Roman Remeynes, and three Peel sessions were recorded with Gedge temporarily limiting himself to playing rhythm guitar and arranging the songs.
The band planned on releasing eight cuts from the Ukrainian sessions on a 10" LP and an initial batch was pressed when Red Rhino went into receivership. Rather than trying to find a new distribution company, the band decided to fold their Reception label altogether and sign with a regular record company: RCA. Solowka, Liggins, and Remeynes later split from the band to concentrate on the Ukrainian material as the band The Ukrainians.
Seamonsters is the third studio album by English rock band The Wedding Present. It was recorded in ten days in 1991 by American producer Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Albini had previously recorded two EPs with the group, Brassneck and 3 Songs and, like those records, Seamonsters has a rougher, harsher overall sound than the group's earlier two albums.
Solowka was replaced by Paul Dorrington and the band in 1992 released a single every month, and each of these songs charted before being released as compilations of both the A and B-sides. Each of these 12 singles hit the UK Top 40 and the band tied Elvis Presley's record of most Top 40 singles in the span of a year.
Following a quiet 1993 in which Gregory left and was replaced by Darren Belk, they followed up their record-breaking 1992 year with a new LP in 1994 called "Watusi". Following this, Dorrington left, Belk moved to guitar and they temporarily became a 3-piece before Jayne Lockey arrived. A mini LP, helpfully called "Mini" drove up early '96 shortly before "Saturnalia" zoomed in Summer '96 (along with the addition of new guitarist Simon Cleave after Belk's depature).
Following a gig in January 1997, Gedge decided to rest the Wedding Present name and started performing as Cinerama however while recording a new Cinerama album in 2004 he decided to resurrect the name the Wedding Present.
The first Wedding Present single in 7 years was released in November 2004 followed by an album in February 2005. This line-up was Gedge, Cleave, bassist Terry de Castro and drummer Kari Paavola. Paavola declined to tour and subsequently left replaced by Simon Pearson and then Graeme Ramsey. Simon Cleave left early 2006 but rejoined in 2009. His 3 year void was filled by guitarist Christopher McConville.
In more musical chairs, guitarist Cleave departed again later in 2009 due to ill health. The vacant guitar position was actually snabbed by the drummer, Ramsay, who was replaced on the drum stool by Charlie Layton (who had previously served for a very short time in 2006). Following this in Summer 2010, long-serving bassist, Terry de Castro, also vacated to be replaced by Pepe le Moko. A year later, in late 2011, after the recording of the band's 8th studio album, Valentina, Ramsay departed to be replaced by (ex-The Young Playthings and The Pipettes), Patrick Alexander.
The band emerged in February 2013 with yet another new line-up after the sacking of le Moko and Alexander - bassist Jen Schwartz (from Me of a Kind) and guitarist Geoff Maddock (from Goldenhorse).
For more information please visit www.scopitones.co.uk
Falling
The Wedding Present Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Don't cry no tears around me
'Cause when all the water's gone
The feeling lingers on
Old true love
ain't too hard to see
Don't cry no tears around me.
who's with her tonight?
And I wonder
who's holding her tight?
But there's nothing I can say
To make him go away
Old true love
ain't too hard to see
Don't cry no tears around me.
There's nothing I can say
To make him go away
Old true love
ain't too hard to see
Don't cry no tears around me
Don't cry no tears around me.
The Wedding Present's "Falling" song is a sad and melancholic song about unrequited love. The lyrics describe a person who is still in love with someone who has moved on and is now in a relationship with another person. The person is trying to hide their pain and emotions, asking the other person not to cry in front of them because it reminds them of the happy moments they shared together, and that makes their feelings linger on.
The song is full of lyrics that invoke a sense of regret and longing. The lines "Well, I wonder who's with her tonight? And I wonder who's holding her tight?" are particularly poignant, as they suggest that the singer is imagining his lover with someone else, and wondering what she is doing at that moment. The lyrics "Old true love ain't too hard to see" suggest that the singer believes that his love was real and true, and he is struggling to move on from it.
The chorus of the song repeats the same lines over and over again, "Don't cry no tears around me," which reinforces the idea that the singer is trying to hide his feelings and wants the other person not to cry in front of him.
Overall, "Falling" is a beautiful, melancholic song that captures the pain and longing of unrequited love.
Line by Line Meaning
Don't cry no tears around me
Please do not cry in my presence.
Don't cry no tears around me
I don't want to see you cry.
'Cause when all the water's gone
Even when your tears dry up and you stop crying,
The feeling lingers on
The emotion remains.
Old true love
Real, genuine love
ain't too hard to see
It's easily noticeable and apparent.
Well I wonder
I am curious
who's with her tonight?
Who is spending time with her presently or currently?
And I wonder
I also wonder
who's holding her tight?
Who is hugging or holding her firmly?
But there's nothing I can say
There isn't anything I can say or do
To make him go away
To make the individual holding her tightly cease doing so
Don't cry no tears around me
Please do not cry in my presence.
There's nothing I can say
I am powerless and unable to affect the situation
To make him go away
To make the individual holding her tightly vacate the premise.
Old true love
Real, genuine love
ain't too hard to see
It's readily apparent and visible.
Don't cry no tears around me.
Please don't cry in front of me.
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Written by: Roy Orbison
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
LULUBELLE III
I remember NME describing this as being "so wretched that when you play it, birds drop dead from the sky" - but I feckin loved it!
Legrand Marnier
NME should better first show evidences of Ornithology Knowledge before writing such an Idiocy.
Obviously, birds can only sing, when hearing this song. And in such a more refined way, than when hearing just casual mobile melodies.
My birds do, at least. Get lost, NME and long live Wedding Present and Julee Cruise <3
Tina Michael
@Tony C, absolutely.
Tony C
Obviously didnt have a clue
Marc Domicello
THE WEDDING PRESENT WERE/ARE SO UNDERRATED THAT IT IS BEYOND RIDICULOUS!
Colin Hale
Awesome
Richard Percival
Sustain on that guitar..... Jeez..... Great cover.
arnoldtan
one of the best...
nico haupt
RIP Julee (65) ;-(