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
Why Are You Being So Unreasonable Now?
The Wedding Present Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
It seems I'm always the last to know
And do I have to guess how you're going to feel each day
You never have a word to say
You should have told me
I don't understand why you didn't tell me
Surely you must know I hate what I'm doing
I don't want to upset you but it's yourself you're foo
But just why are you being so reasonable now?
I don't dare answer the phone
And when you call I still pretend that I'm not home
I don't want to see you anymore
Oh love, it's just not me I'm thinking of
No one can change that much in three days
It's not yours to take back?
Surely you must know I hate what I'm doing
I don't want to upset you but it's yourself you're fooling
The last thing I need is part twelve of the row
But just why are you being so reasonable now?
How can you do this to me
How can you do this to me
How can you do this to me
How can you do this to me
The Wedding Present's song "Why Are You Being So Unreasonable Now?" explores the frustrations and emotions of a complicated relationship. In the first verse, the singer expresses confusion and hurt over their partner's lack of communication about their feelings. They feel like they are always the last to know and that they have to guess how their partner is doing each day. The chorus then highlights the partner's sudden change in behavior, with the singer questioning why they are being so reasonable now after previously causing arguments.
The second verse reveals that the singer has been avoiding their partner's calls because they don't want to upset them with their true feelings. They admit that they don't want to be with their partner anymore, and that their decision has nothing to do with anyone else. The repetition of "how can you do this to me" in the final lines of the song emphasizes the hurt and betrayal that the singer feels.
Overall, the lyrics convey the complexity of relationships and how difficult it can be to navigate conflicting emotions and communication styles. The song's catchy guitar riffs and driving beat add to the sense of urgency and frustration in the lyrics.
Line by Line Meaning
You've never mentioned this before
I am hearing about this for the first time.
It seems I'm always the last to know
I am never the first person to know about things that involve you.
And do I have to guess how you're going to feel each day
I shouldn't have to predict how you're going to feel all the time.
You never have a word to say
You never communicate with me.
You should have told me
You should have communicated with me about this.
I don't understand why you didn't tell me
I am confused as to why you didn't communicate with me about this.
Surely you must know I hate what I'm doing
You should be aware that I don't like what I am doing right now.
I don't want to upset you but it's yourself you're fooling
I don't want to hurt you but you are deceiving yourself.
The last thing I need is part twelve of the row
I don't want another argument or fight.
But just why are you being so reasonable now?
Why are you suddenly calm and rational?
I don't dare answer the phone
I am too scared to answer the phone when you call.
And when you call I still pretend that I'm not home
I act like I am not home when you call
I don't want to see you anymore
I don't want to spend time with you anymore.
Oh love, it's just not me I'm thinking of
This is not just about me, I am thinking about you too.
No one can change that much in three days
It's not possible for someone to change that drastically in such a short amount of time.
It's not yours to take back?
You can't take this back?
How can you do this to me
I am hurt by what you are doing to me.
How can you do this to me
I am hurt by what you are doing to me.
How can you do this to me
I am hurt by what you are doing to me.
How can you do this to me
I am hurt by what you are doing to me.
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Hallucino_Ray
You've never mentioned this before
It seems I'm always the last to know
And do I have to guess how you're going to feel each day
You never have a word to say
You should have told me
I don't understand why you didn't tell me
Surely you must know I hate what I'm doing
I don't want to upset you but it's yourself you're foo
The last thing I need is part twelve of the row
But just why are you being so reasonable now?
I don't dare answer the phone
And when you call I still pretend that I'm not home
I don't want to see you anymore
Oh love, it's just not me I'm thinking of
No one can change that much in three days
It's not yours to take back?
Surely you must know I hate what I'm doing
I don't want to upset you but it's yourself you're fooling
The last thing I need is part twelve of the row
But just why are you being so reasonable now?
How can you do this to me
How can you do this to me
How can you do this to me
How can you do this to me
deanfromromania
I enjoyed this band in the 80's when the alternative scene was truly alternative. And, I'm glad to see them continue in their profession.
Duke0fMarmalade
the wedding present are just absolutely fucking great ive never heard a band with such a unique sound and classss tunes
Steve
Agreed....they were truly superb in the early days. Then when they jumped on the grunge bandwagon with Albini, that sort of lost me a bit and when they did the 1 single a month for a year campaign, that definitely lost me. I couldn't keep up with the all the bloody releases! The one problem with such a release schedule was that the song quality was lost too and that was me done. Shame.
Philip Davies
1988, seriously, can I be that long in the tooth! This was the first single I bought by this band and still have it, sounds very refreshing even after all these years (please don't anyone tell me just how many years it is!).
Philip Dalton
I bought the single also. Have you any idea how many copies it sold altogether?
Mark Atkins
saw this on the chart show and loved it, been a fan ever since. looking forward to the new album. met Dave at a cinerama gig in Leicester and I was embarressingly drunk, grabbed his hand and told him he was 'a god' before stumbling away.
stewart champion
every time im feeling a little jaded ,,its wedding present ,tunes like loveslave,crawl ,blue eyes etc that make it all a bit better ,,, great band
Romy Igoe
I love their 'matter of fact' conversational song titles. Great band !
Gareth Duerdin
Really good band . First class performance every time.
RobinLaRoca
Just watched this on the 7th anniversary of John Peel's passing with a big big smile on my face.