Rocker's lyrical wit is pure XTC - Vancouver Sun, July 1987 - By John Mackie

XTC songwriter Andy Partridge has earned a reputation as the master of the quick, bright and hilarious pop song - songs that have helped inspire a fanatical cult following that sees his group as the second coming of the Beatles.

But the wit-laden lyrics have also led some critics to label XTC as too smart for mass consumption.

After Partridge collapsed onstage in Los Angeles in 1982, though, XTC stopped touring, and a new, less manic side of the 33-year-old guitarist began to emerge. In songs like the pastoral Love On A Farmboy's Wages, Partridge displayed his talent for gorgeous acoustic pop that almost approached traditional English folk; on songs like the post-nuclear epic This World Over, he proved to he one of the most eloquent topical songwriters of his generation.

None of this made him very rich, mind, but it helped XTC retain its status as a major cult band. And when the band released its eighth album, Skylarking, last fall, things stayed true to form: The reviews were excellent, but radio didn't bite and sales were unspectacular.

But XTC is renowned for its unreleased B sides, and college radio deejays in the States started flipping over the album's first single Grass, to play a simple acoustic number Dear God, that questioned His existence. Soon. says Partridge. switchboards were lighting up with callers phoning in with two opinions -"That’s wonderful. I've always thought like that, please play it again," or "lf you play that record again. I'm going to fire-bomb your station, I'm not joking" and XTC had a minor hit.

Only Andy Partridge doesn't sound too happy about it. Partridge lobbied hard to keep Dear God off 'Skylarking because he thought the song was too ambivalent. The lyrics allow two interpretations. A listener could cull a non-believing message from lines like "the Father and Son and Holy Ghost/Is just somebody's unholy hoax," but it was just as easy to cast the song as a heartfelt letter to God, questioning why he allows the evils of the world,

"It's a paradox song, 'cause the idea of God is a paradox," Partridge says. "If there is a God, then I'm talking to him and saying, 'You don't exist.' If there isn't a God, then I'm talking to nothing…

"I wanna say wake up folks, there is no God and you'd better start taking responsibility for what you do, 'cause it's no good pretending there is a mammy or daddy figure in the sky who's gonna say. 'There there. it's all better now.'"

Partridge spoke over the phone from Toronto, where he was lip-synching Dear God with chums Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory for national TV at the Casby awards. "It's the great mimed Woodstock," he said of the Casbys. "The audience have to mime their applause as well."

The awards. which were held June 19 but won't be televised nationally on the CBC until September, turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. The biggest blunder came when Edmonton's Pursuit of Happiness were notified they had won group of the year, but it turned out to be a mistake - Parachute Club won.

Partridge found himself at the centre of another controversy when he made some of the-cuff quips about appearing on an awards show. ("I fought not to do it...I'm not into that sort of thing personally, but they'll throw us out of our hotel room unless we go"),

The Toronto Star ran his inoffensive remarks under the headline "XTC not thrilled by Casbys," the producers got a little hot under the collar and Partridge wound up writing an explanation which was stuffed into 2,000 programs at the show.

Partridge and company have finished a second collection disguised as their psychedelic alter-egos, the Dukes of Stratosphear. The album, Psonic Psunspot, should be out at the end of summer and includes songs like You're a Good Man, Albert Brown, Kaleidoscope and Braniac's Daughter (Braniac being a Superman villain - "He's an evil genius, sort of a green Lex Luthor with light-bulbs").

Back in XTC, Partridge seems to be getting a lot of fuel from failed relationships these days, turning the misery of breaking up into witty ditties like That's Really Super, Supergirl and Another Satellite.

He explains his inspiration: "If you want to do a bit of bleeding, what better than to get wounded . . . Being chucked is always good for verbal explosions"'

A visceral examination or what makes him tick also driven Partridge. He calls it "a desperation to get my soul out and see it. to get it on the plate and have a go at it with a knife and fork and say 'yeah there.' It's a cross between immortality and paying the rent."

But he hesitates to probe too deeply into what keeps the band going. "It's this strange atomic motor. I shouldn't took at what makes it work, 'cause I'm afraid of taking it apart and it won't work any more."

For now, the band is working, and Partridge describes his songwriting regimen that helps fuel it.

"You go about the everyday mundane business of life and lavatory, and then suddenly a song goes ‘pee-oing’ in your head, and you have to run to the guitar and get it out. It's like a feeling of nausea or something - you’ve just got to get it out when it comes up.

"I mean I don’t sit down and torture myself or anything, face a blank pad for hours and hours. I just wait till the stuff comes, and if it doesn’t come l just go over to the pub or whatever."

How are things changing as he gets older?

"You get fatter and your hair falls out," he replies, laughing. "I think it's called wisdom. and setting your ways. I'm getting near to being a cantankerous middle-aged man now - I’m not a snotty teenaged kid any more."

All original work is acknowledged as being the copyright of the originator.