HOW THE WEST WAS WON - THE SANTA ANA WINDS EP

In 2008 The Wedding Present released a lovely little mini-box set called How The West Was Won, consisting of 4 EPS:-

1. The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girlfriend EP - featuring a remix plus three other new versions of one of the standout tracks from the LP El Rey

2. Don't Take Me Home Until I'm Drunk EP  - featuring another excellent track from El Rey, plus two other mixes and one new song

3. Santa Ana Winds EP  - featuring a slightly edited version of what I think is the best song on El Rey plus three more new songs

4. Holly Jolly Hollywood EP - four tracks originally made available as digital downloads as the first ever Wedding Present Christmas EP a few months earlier, including two covers one of White Christmas and the other of Back For Good.  Yup, the song taken to #1 by Take That.

Tempting as it is to share said covers with you today, I'm going with the Santa Ana Winds EP.  The thing about the El Rey album is that the band returned to the studio with uber-producer Steve Albini for the first time in 15 years.  It's an album that at the time I felt I little bit disappointed with...but looking back that was that's because I expected just a bit too much from it.  I didn't think it at the time it was as strong a record as the comback LP Take Fountain from just over a year earlier but in fact El Rey is one of those LPs that gets better with each and every listen....especially when you return to it after a few months.

Santa Ana Winds is the opening track and the version on the EP is about 40 seconds shorter in length, missing out in the main a morse-code type introduction.

mp3 : The Wedding Present - Santa Ana Winds

It contains one of those stunning bitter-sweet David Gedge lyrics on how to completely fuck-up a relationship:-

We keep exchanging glances all night long
until at last her friends go home
That’s when my heart starts beating faster
Outside, the Santa Ana Winds are blowing hot
Inside, some things are happening that really should not

When she says: “I’m handing myself to you entirely, completely”
Before asking, sweetly: “And are you falling for me too?”
And that’s when I pretend that I don’t have a girlfriend

I must look anxious because she fixes me with this gaze
“Face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot,” she says
We laugh together but I’m trying hard to ignore the fact I’ve won the jackpot means I’ve lost a whole lot more

Then she says: “I’m handing myself to you entirely, completely”
Before asking, sweetly: “And are you falling for me too?”
And that’s when I pretend that I don’t have a girlfriend “

I’m handing myself to you entirely, completely”
Then she asks, sweetly: “And are you falling for me too?”
And that’s when I pretend that I don’t have a girlfriend

The other tracks, as I said earlier, are otherwise unavailable

mp3 : The Wedding Present - Hulk Loves Betty
mp3 : The Wedding Present - Drink You, Eat You
mp3 : The Wedding Present - Twenty Jackies

Next month I will have the joy of going to see TWP in concert where they will be playing, in its entirety, their 1991 masterpiece, Seamonsters, as well as around 40 minutes worth of other material. Can't wait.