Y’know What? I Don’t Think I Will Mess with Texas.

Josh T. Pearson is an amazing guy – a real legend in his own lunchtime, for whom I feel a huge fondness.

At the same time though, I’m almost frightened to listen to his first recorded statement in twelve years, for precisely the reasons set out by Doug Mosurock in this excellent review. I just don’t wanna have to take what it seems like he’s laying down here, y’know? Hopefully he’d get what I mean.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I heard the weirdest thing, as Radio 4’s daily arts programme ‘Front Row’ suddenly played a burst of Pearson’s album, using it as the hook for an almost unbelievably simple-minded item about long songs. I mean, if they wanted to do some promo for the record, you’d think Pearson himself would provide ample material for a good story, but no…

“That was an extract from the new album by Texan singer-songwriter Josh T. Pearson, which features a number of songs that last nearly TEN MINUTES. Hello, Mr. Writer-from-The-Guardian, could you tell us whether any people have written long pop songs in the past?”

“Why yes, ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Macarthur Park’ were quite long, and since then people have often recorded long songs. In the ‘80s, bands like New Order put long songs on 12” singles.”

“Ha ha, yes, I remember those. I suppose you could put them on a CD now and make them as long as you like. Have there ever been any long rap songs, I wonder?”

“Why yes, since you ask, rap music has always had long songs. Here’s a bit from ‘White Lines’ by Grandmaster Flash – that’s pretty long..”

“Well, thanks for that Mr. Writer from The Guardian. Josh T. Pearson’s album is out now..”

And people wonder why we prefer to read about music on the internet these days.

Labels: BBC, Josh T Pearson, stupidity, Texas