BIRTHDAY GIRL
(SINGLE)

 


feed the birds poisoned bread
in the square beneath my place of birth
people die, so will i
cut and dried and empty and quite alone


TWO TRACK 7" ON ROUGH TRADE. CAT NO. RT185.
side a) Birthday Girl
side b) Harmony Time

THREE TRACK 12 INCH ON ROUGH TRADE. CAT NO. RTT185.
side a) Birthday Girl
side b) Harmony Time, Money For The Trams.

Released a couple of weeks before the launch of 'Clock Comes Down The Stairs', the single was far from successful. Even so, 'Birthday Girl' remains one of Microdisney's most well known records. A song about death that is not so much suicidal as angry. It always reminds me, with fondness, of Cathal Coughlan's disposition to inform his audiences 'I wish I was FUCKING DEAD'. (See 'Clock Comes Down The Stairs' for a longer review).

Click on the record to play
Birthday Girl in Realudio.



'Harmony Time' gets the award for the best Microdisney B-Side of all time. A wonderful song which, along with 'Birthday Girl', highlighted perfectly how Microdisney could play upbeat poppy songs without losing any of the message. Reflecting increasingly self-interested times, it bemoans the breakdown of community.

if you want luncheon in your lap
knife your neighbour in the back
if you don't do it somebody else will

There's bitterness too for the comfortable middle class, the people moralising about the lives of those hit by the very hardships that their middle class society had created.

i pay my debts every one
i don't take drugs and i don't get drunk

You can see an appallingly bad Realaudio video of 'Harmony Time' here taken from a live concert. Blame the software, blame the original recording, blame the video player, but don't blame me.

'Money For The Trams', by contrast to the other two songs, provides a similar style ending as '464' on the previous single. It may make the point that Microdisney are not just a pop band, and it shows their need to highlight their anger, to not be misunderstood. As a song though it has very little value consisting mainly of disjointed noise.

'Harmony Time', unavailable elsewhere, makes this a compulsory purchase as does the sentimental need to own a song like 'Birthday Girl' in it's own sleeve.


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