Tart Tart
| "Tart Tart" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Happy Mondays | ||||
| from the album Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) | ||||
| A-side | "Tart Tart" | |||
| B-side | "Little Matchstick Owen's Rap" | |||
| Released | March 1987 | |||
| Format | 12" | |||
| Genre | Madchester | |||
| Length | 4:18 | |||
| Label | Factory - FAC 176 | |||
| Writer(s) | Happy Mondays | |||
| Producer(s) | John Cale | |||
| Happy Mondays singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Tart Tart" is a 1987 single by the Madchester band Happy Mondays. It was the first single to be released from their album Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) in March 1987. According to a commentary accompanying the film 24 Hour Party People, the first verse of "Tart Tart" is about Martin Hannett, who later produced the band's second album Bummed. The second verse is taken from Bez's "Freaky Dancin'" (p. 198-200):
- 'Tart Tart' was the single that was going to make us massive. It was a personal favourite of mine an I was counfounded as to why it didn't do better than it did. It was met with pretty decent reviews, but maybe the public needed a little longer to acquire the taste for X's growling, cryptic lyrics and the rawness of the musical accompaniment. I had a special affinity for the tune because of the references to one of the very first people we had met in the early Haçienda days. Her name was Tart Tart.
- She was a strange type of woman, an old groupie from the 60s, something she wasn't adverse to admitting. The drug culture of the hippie era hadn't treated her too well an she was looking pretty rough an haggard by the time she met me an X, but we liked her friendly disposition an slightly kooky ways. She looked upon herself as an abstract artist but I think her main way of carving a living was by wheeling an dealing on the darker side of life. The first time we came across each other, me an X were sporting freshly barbered skinheads an were bobbin an weaving about the club in our usual fashion, up to no good. She told us a spooky little tale of how a few months earlier she'd painted a picture of two young skinheads in The Haçienda, an hadn't known why the image had taken over her canvas at the time. It transpired that our meeting crystallized the meaning of the painting for her: she took it as fate that she was destined to take us an the rest of the band into her life. She did so willingly an often laid drugs on the lads in times when money was short.
- One weekend we'd called by as usual to pick up a bag of goodies, promising to pay up on the following Monday. She was happy with the set-up and we went away thinking no more of it, but the chilling reality of the situation was that we were never going to get to pay her the debt.
- On returning with the dough a few days later, there was no reply at the door. We went back a few times over the next couple of days but again there was no response. Eventually, another friend of ours went round an forced the door. Everyone was starting to get a little anxious by now as she hadn't contacted anyone for some time. He found her dead at the bottom of the stairs. She'd died of a brain tumour an was black an blue from throwing herself around, smashing her head on the walls an ultimately down the stair in a desperate attempt to stop the pain an agony. The police assumed they had a murder case on their hands because of the extent of her bodily injured an even dragged the lad who'd found her off for an interview as prime suspect. Obviously, the postmortem put the record straight.
- Her sudden an lonely death was a shock for the band as we'd all come to look upon her as a special an unusual friend. Her death gave rise to the immortal lines in the song:
- Now T T, she laid it on,
- An a few days later she's gone,
- So it's back to the womb,
- To get drowned, drowned, drowned, drowned, drowned...
- The poignant reality of the words touched me, they meant so much, like I found most of the lyrics in those days did. They were all taken from our collective life experiences, with X effortlessly shaping the form of the language to fit the tunes. To me they were classic words that spoke volumes about the times we were living in.
This popular song was voted 'Britain's Most Loved' single of the year in 1987.
The B-side, "Little Matchstick Owen's Rap" was voiced by the sound engineer, Mike Bleach.[1]
Track listing
12"[1]
- "Tart Tart" (4:18)
- "Little Matchstick Owen's Rap" (4:15)
References
External links
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