Some time in 2017 I was searching through the folders on my computer looking for a particular photograph, when I came across 5 mastered tracks. “What the hell are those?” ran through my head as I clicked to listen. They were 5 songs recorded for Little Big Head I’d promptly thrown away when putting the running order together.
“What was I doing?”, I thought. “These are amazing”.
As previously explained, 2 of the tracks ended up on the b side of our “Kelly’s Gone Insane” single (https://duncanreidandthebigheads.com/2019/06/17/the-story-behind-the-song-kellys-gone-insane/). The other 3 are on the “Little Big Head: 2019 Reissue” as bonus tracks. One of those is “April Fool”.
Unusually for these posts you probably haven’t heard April Fool (unless you already have the reissue of Little Big Head) and usually I wait till the end, having explained the song, to show where you can hear it.
But since you probably don’t know it, here’s a funny video by my good friend Stuart Diggle of the band Litterbug (https://litterbug.bandcamp.com/music) with the song as sound track.
So, a simple song about a guy who takes his girlfriend for granted and then doesn’t understand why she’s gone off “with the other guy”. A lot of fun to write, especially the middle 8.
I’d just seen the musical “Jersey Boys” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Boys) about Franki Valli and the Four Seasons which I really enjoyed. So hints of “Rag Doll” with “Ooh Ahh Oohs”. Compare and contrast with the original for yourself here: It’s a great song:
Lyrically there’s an interesting story as well. Back when I was in The Boys Honest John Plain (https://www.discogs.com/artist/342569-Honest-John-Plain) was working on a solo album but needed some songs. So he asked me to contribute and play on the record. It was a major moment in my life because, for the first time ever, I found writing easy and enjoyable. I’d written a few songs for The Boys before but it was always a struggle. This time, and who knows why, the songs just flowed. So I played on the record as did Casino Steel and Vom Ritchie (drummer for The Boys at the time). As all the Boys except Matt Dangerfield were there, John had the idea of calling it “The Mattless Boys” which gave us both hours of giggles in the studio. I think the idea was later attributed to me but I can’t take any of the credit for it.
The album turned out to be great, especially due to some stunning guitar playing by Petter Baarli (https://www.facebook.com/petterbaarli/) as you can hear now if you have Spotify:
One of the Songs I contributed is called “Any Old Time” which John loved. And he had written “Romanian Girl” which I, in turn, adored. So we shared writing credits on both as a gift to each other though John had nothing to do with the writing of Any Old Time and I had no hand in Romanian Girl apart from playing bass and harmony vocals.
Romanian Girl is about a time, according to John, when he tried to pick up a girl in a bar who was way more interested in a road digger also vying for her attention. John has always been great at self deprecation.
And so the lines “Never thought I’d be the one to end up, moaning like John Plain ………….writing songs about the girl who’s gone off with the other guy, getting drunk in the pub and wondering why”. It’s a direct reference to the song I love: Romanian Girl by The Mattless Boys.
So here it is: “April Fool”, a song which was nearly confined to the dustbin of history, never to be heard, but which was rescued by a stroke of luck when I opened the wrong computer file eight years later to find it sitting there. Hope you enjoy it as much as me.
“April Fool” appears on “Little Big Head: 2019 Reissue” by Duncan Reid and the Big Heads:
It’s released by those fine people at Cherry Red Records and can be best found here: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/artist/duncan-reid-and-the-big-heads/ as well as Amazon and other locations.