Random Play: The Smithereens

Sometimes a song takes you back so vividly that you can feel the sun on your face from a summer over twenty years ago.

The Smithereens are a New Jersey based power-pop band that have been around for nearly 30 years. Back in the mid 80s they released this single, with an old friend of theirs Suzanne Vega on gorgeous backing vocals. Her presence helped get the track played on radio, I bought it and played it to death; smoking cigarettes late at night, cursing lyric writers who could catch my state of mind so easily. "I'm alone and lonely every night" as the slow jazzy acoustic groove smouldered away.

Ah broken hearts. Bastard bastard things. Thankfully the only trace of a fractured aorta is in the songs of my life....

The Smithereens - In A Lonely Place