Lemonheads - Bit Part from It's a Shame about Ray

I heard this on the way to work this morning on Radio X, the local non-commercial private radio station. When Juliana Hatfield started the song by shouting

with her girlish voice and then screamed it again word by word

stressing the last word life with a yell, I was close to tears. A bit part of my life came back to me at that moment. The seven years in Luxembourg from 1990 to 1997. All those foreign languages, all those young people, all the parties, all the trips, and finally the awareness that it is a distant past which hasn't got any connection to my current life. Everything seemed possible then. Too much for me before 9 o'clock in the morning.

I have to admit that I always distorted the lyrics to big part in your life though they are pronounced clearer than clear. Before the song started I heard it in my head after Hatfield's introductory words. The speed, the melancholy, the HOOK. The power which turns into pure tenderness when Dando starts singing. I can't think of any other song which can change my mood so drastically in 111 seconds. It's a life-affirming song. A song about the energy you have when you are young. Kicking ass as hell. Looking at the lyrics now with the protagonist developing from walk-on to cameo to stand-in I get the impression he is talking of a seemingly innocent encounter with the opposite sex which turns into a one night stand without obligations:

It would fit Evan Dando, the most handsome young man in the world in the early nineties who plunged into drugs and reemerged (he is touring now). In any case it is the best song they have ever done. The one song you can melt down their œuvre to.