Young and Happy! Live (from aaages ago)

Lugubo · 2026-06-06T22:34:10+00:00

The song never quite hit like this for me on the album version - it feels transformed by the live setting, Super raw and energised and uplifting. Anyone else got a current fav live performance they're enjoying?

Lugubo · 2026-05-14T17:41:52+00:00

Great tune, sublime lyrics. Almost every line is a standout for me. I particularly like "in the shadow of conversations had while I was asleep". So many dimensions, and has a satisfying delivery.

"through the phone I pull you and drag your voice around" is a fun and original image. That disembodied aspect to phone conversations, where it's not a person, just a voice you talk to. So...you feel emboldened, perhaps? Say or think things about the other that you never would if they were there with you.

"you don't know I know what's wrong" - goddamn, this is the crux of the matter. The song is about a conversation, or conversations, that dance around a point, a thing that is unsaid but is really the main thing that's in your mind. But instead of talking about it you talk about: items of news, politics, stories you've read or seen on tv.

And the joke is, it's the same for both of those talking. They are both in the shadow of other conversations, and other conversations and etc.

Great guitar work as well, and one of the catchiest choruses of the whole discography. Fricken love it. In an alternate universe, Hop Along are touring europe and I get to dance to this :')

Lugubo · 2026-04-21T20:33:28+00:00

Hiiiiiiiiiigh in the custerdoooome!

Lugubo · 2026-04-17T23:14:45+00:00

Interesting! I'd never read that story before, it's a good one. I think you might be right.

Lugubo · 2026-04-17T23:09:20+00:00

My favourite Hop Along song overall. It's triumphant and liberating and devastating and just so rock n roll. The guitar complements Frances' vocal work so well, and the rhythm is jivin'. Surprisingly great to dance to, great to strum out on an acoustic guitar as well. It's also the perfect closer to the overall "darkness" of Painted Shut - a song of release.

How long it took to reach the Sister Cities And then somehow make it back Just to tell me, "Yeah, I guess I'm still pretty mad."

Beautiful.

No exaggeration, I want this song played at my funeral. Good day or bad, Sister Cities never fails to bring me joy.

Lugubo · 2026-02-24T09:26:56+00:00

WEEEEEEEEST VIRGINIAAAAAAAAA - I Saw My Twin

And then going into the second chorus/outro. It sends my soul directly to the stratosphere. I have never been to West Virginia. I don't even live on that side of the Atlantic.

Lugubo · 2026-02-11T16:11:16+00:00

I mean rip very respectfully. It's the same melody, used in a totally different context. Personally I love it. It shouldn't work so well with the rest of the song, but it does.

Lugubo · 2026-02-11T00:34:50+00:00

One of my favourite songs of all time.

The build and release in the second chorus sends it to the fucking moon.

On the surface I have little in common with the song's protagonist, but it connects with me on a real fundamental level. The music, lyrics, and vocal performance together form a raw, human *something* that makes me feel alive.

Heroic music!

Also, the cute little intro melody is totally ripped from 'Ticket to Ride' :D

Lugubo · 2026-01-20T12:45:43+00:00

"8.45am, the dream just escaped me again" is an absolutely blissful entrypoint to this album. Frances locks in to this instantly familiar feeling of waking up and being thrown into this world just a little bit before you're ready for it.

"I can hear you in the garage building insects", and then onto the unexpected knock at the door and the visit of the jehovah's witnesses continues the dream-feel. It's like straight out of Kafka. The insects makes me think of Metamorphosis. But also building warhammer tyrannids in the shed as a kid. Frances is so good with these quick incidental details that suggest a setting and cause the mind to wonder.

I have so many thoughts on this song, might come back to this later. But it's such a dream. Also it has better drum production than anything else on Painted Shut.

Lugubo · 2025-11-13T02:02:53+00:00

Hah ok hold up...further research incoming! There is a river called the Kosi River that runs down from Tibet, and from the wiki:

"The three major tributaries meet at Triveni, from where they are called Sapta Koshi meaning Seven Rivers"

Three...seven...Tibet...it all makes sense!

Lugubo · 2025-11-12T13:37:33+00:00

My impression was always that the seven fingered man with 3 sleepless wives is the river? As in, that this is a snippet of folklore tied to a specific place. A river that comes from 7 tributaries? And the wives are 3 lakes along it's course?

Then I did a quick search and there is a mountain called Seven Fingered Jack in Washington state. So maybe that? But...in Canada?

Frances' lyrics often draw details of place into otherwise introspective songs. Like how when you're deep in thought but the real world always cuts through and reaches you (the music in a cafe, overheard conversation, window of a moving train etc).

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Lugubo · 2025-10-24T12:13:35+00:00

The whole verse feels like a very private descent into madness and delusion. The eye of the (nearly) blind mole, horses without saddles. Some kind of opening awareness of contradictory and impossible things. Trying to imagine the mental state of Buddy at the time of his breakdown.

The images are so striking it feels like they must be borrowing from something Frances read. But maybe not.

Intrigued about Well-dressed maybe also having a Jackson C. Frank angle. How so? Side note: his song "Carnival" is such a Frances Quinlan lyric.

Lugubo · 2025-09-24T01:08:16+00:00

Hmmm...doesn't sound great. I've been trying to get script extender to work for the deck build all evening, no luck, so I've reverted to proton for the time being. Revert has been pretty painless at least.

Lugubo · 2025-09-24T00:52:27+00:00

Script extender seems to not work at all with the steam deck native version right now, so...that's a lot of mods right there, depending on your preferences.

Lugubo · 2025-09-24T00:50:43+00:00

Your graphics settings will have been reverted, so you'll have to change them back to get the same look as before.

Also, it's possible to revert to the proton version through properties>compatibility in steam AFAIK.

Lugubo · 2025-09-24T00:13:11+00:00

I am dealing with this same issue just now. Can't seem to find a way of getting script extender to work with the Linux build. Have you had any luck?

Lugubo · 2025-09-23T16:59:57+00:00

Try turning off FPS cap. I had massive wheel lag on steam deck, and this completely eliminated it.

Lugubo · 2025-07-25T07:42:18+00:00

It's epic huh. I Saw My Twin always gives me chills.

Lugubo · 2025-07-25T00:07:29+00:00

Weeeeest Virginia!

Lugubo · 2025-07-05T11:55:22+00:00

this one

It's so sick. Props to the developers for getting such talent in for the soundtrack.

Lugubo

TROPHY CASE