Track-by-Track / Poem-by-Poem Commentary
Each poem in my book Black Skies Die Starless has a song listed at the foot of the page. The song titles are included as they have an important correlation with the poem, whether that’s as a key reference, contextual suggested listening, or I’ve listened to that one song on repeat the entire time I’ve worked on that poem. The Playlists themselves are below, or if you want to take your sweet time, then go through them track by track
Playlists
Spotify
YouTube
THE 90S: Scarfo – Alkaline
“nostalgia must die / shoot me gently”
This was one of those listen on repeat songs. Inspired the concept for this book. Found Scarfo in a particularly dark time, a break-up, a breakdown, and the start of most of the events and relationships that make up the second half of the book. (Not on Spotify playlist)
Pop Fact!
Scarfo singer Jamie Hince ended up marrying supermodel Kate Moss, but before that he let me (a poor student / aspiring music journalist) finish his curry while I was interviewing him in a transit van parked outside Swansea railway station, Halloween, 1997.
(Not on Spotify)
I’VE FOUND GOD IN SEATTLE: Nirvana – Lithium
“light my candles in a daze / ’cause I’ve found God”
Kurt was the nearest thing to a messiah we had. I remember an ex-girlfriends’ ex-boyfriend scrawled “Kurt Cobain Lives” on the entrance to Ravensbourne Park. I didn’t believe. But he looked like western Jesus, the long hair, the beard. What would have happened if he had found god, had been in Jerusalem 2000 years ago?
Pop Fact!
The Polyphonic Spree version of this song is amazing and is probably the definitive version (ducks and hides)
SWINGING: Kenickie – Come Out 2 Nite
“we’re getting drunk in the park / we’ve got our gang and I know we’ll always be friends”
I was in the same school year as the women in Kenickie. Maybe if my parents had stayed in the North East I could’ve been in their gang and stayed out late dressed cheap and tacky. Instead I had other friends who introduced me to other vices. The only band I wish would reform and play a nostalgia gig, because we didn’t have them in our lives for long enough.
Pop Fact!
Recognise those dulcet tones? Of course you do, the singer from Kenickie is the amazing Lauren Laverne off of the telly.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOONS BROMLEY HIGH STREET: Manic Street Preachers – From Despair to Where
“I try and walk in a straight line / an imitation of dignity”
Going to therapy as a teenager was weird. Especially as I didn’t know what the purpose was. I found more comfort, more acceptance, and more answers in my Sony Walkman. Also, there is a secret bonus Manics song for every poem in the book.
Pop Fact!
I once won a Manics quiz on Radio 1 when Mark and Lard had Nicky in the studio. Nicky played Archives of Pain on the bass and sent me a DVD. Annoyingly they called me James ‘Woodo’ Wood throughout. Only one of which is officially my name, and I don’t like it.
BEAT-UP MICRA: Fountains of Wayne – Survival Car
“funny how the ground can find my wheels / I’m going where the road won’t dare”
First heard this the same weekend in 1997 that I heard Scarfo. I was alone in my house in the student village. I couldn’t drive, still can’t. Jealous of all my friends who could. I’d have probably been at Glastonbury instead of listening to it on the radio. I’d have been anywhere.
Pop Fact!
Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne wrote songs for That Thing You Do and the Josie and the Pussycats movie. He didn’t write Survival Car however: although he is credited as a co-writer, Chris Collingwood was responsible for this slice of amazing power pop.
FINDING AN EMPTY PACKET OF RIZLA ON A TEENAGER’S BEDROOM FLOOR: Catatonia – Sweet Catatonia
“and with my fears in the back of my mind / will they gang up on me?”
For me Sweet Catatonia has always been about ignoring problems, stuck in inertia, ignorance is bliss. I like the idea that you can just bury your head in the sand about certain things, but of course, eventually you won’t be able to breathe. Thankfully my feathers were never examined in a lab, and I was very careful to blame most things on my friends.
Pop Fact!
Me and my friend Enna once interviewed Bob and Aled from Catatonia upstairs at the Newport Centre, but it was very difficult as we are both chronic mumblers, and there was a very noisy aquarobics class taking place at the same time.
HEAVEN 17: Chemical Brothers – Leave Home
“the brother’s gonna work it out”
Never dropped an E. But there was always a rave anthems side to this indie kid, who’s first real exposure to anything outside of the Capital One playlist was Madchester. By the time of the Chemical Brothers break through, there were no better moments in the indie clubs when they’d start to go dancey and you could lose yourself and your pint on the dancefloor. Could have picked so many songs here, but I have amazing memories of dancing by myself among a crowd, while a DJ played this in the big beat tent at Phoenix 95.
Pop Fact!
I first saw the Chemical Brothers supporting the Manics at London Astoria in 94. They were called The Dust Brothers in those days. They also did phenomenal remixes of Faster and La Tristessa Durera, released as MSP Done & Dusted.
CRUSH THIS TOWN: Melys – Diwifr
“but there’s no wires on me / dependant on nobody”
This song feels how this poem reads. Distracted, disjointed, and if like me you don’t speak Welsh, a bit cryptic. Thanks to Google Translate and two kids learning the language at school, I now have a lot more understanding of Melys. Thanks to understanding that I am neurodiverse, I now have a lot more understanding of why I struggle to have conversations.
Pop Fact!
I once sent Melys a letter (to Sylem HQ) in the late 90s but they never replied. I like to think its because the rain was so bad that the envelope was basically destroyed in the motion of taking it out of my pocket and putting in the post box.
READ INTO IT WHAT YOU WANT: Mazzy Star – Fade Into You
“I wanna hold the hand inside you / I wanna take the breath that’s true”
Before everyone potential relationship there’s a smoke-filled bar, full of loneliness, desperation, and normally, slightly out of my league, a woman, and she may not be Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star singing this song, but it may as well be.
Pop Fact!
Hope Sandoval sang on Sometimes Always which is the best The Jesus and Mary Chain song, not Just Like Honey which all the music nerds say is.
A FUTILE ATTEMPT TO GET CLOSER TO HEAVEN: S*M*A*S*H – Barrabas (Piloted)
“but as soon as he dressed in the odour of all mankind and became a christ / he was crucified”
LSD from Amsterdam. Four boys in Clyne Valley Country Park. At the top of the hill, it hit. I listened to this song on my headphones and singing out loud “Barrabas was saved”. But it wasn’t enough.
Pop Fact!
S*M*A*S*H wrote a song called I Want To Kill Somebody in which they namechecked multiple Tory MPs. Unlike Kneecap, this didn’t really make frontpage news in the 90s. People were probably more concerned about freeing the Weatherfield One. Or who killed Dirty Den. Or some actual news.
(Not on Spotify)
ON MOUNT HOREB: Throwing Muses: Snakeface
“fire in my eyes / beat me to it”
Kristen Hersh has something incredibly hypnotic about her voice, her delivery, her head moving in tiny circles as she sings. I think Moses when he went up to talk to the Firey Bush and get the ten commandments was probably sat by a burning cannabis plant and got a bit high on the fumes and started watching Throwing Muses videos on MTV. I think the idea of satan as a snake is why I chose this song over the also excellent (and name-checked) Firepile.
Pop Fact! This song features in the film Empire Records (1995, open til midnight, this is mark) at the point when Liv Tyler’s character Corey tries to seduce housewives favourite Rex Manning. Thankfully she rejects his offer of ranch dressing and hooks up with AJ instead.
IN WHICH GOD PLAYS THE LONG-CON: Super Furry Animals – God! Show Me Magic
“wouldn’t it be nice to know / what the paper doesn’t show”
The most literal choice here. It’s all a card trick. Multi-level marketing. The whole thing. Love SFA. This song is them at their guitar bending, noise-polluting early bonkers best.
Pop Fact!
Twin Town and Notting Hill actor Rhys Ifans starred in the video for this song in 1995, and then in the Oasis video for The Importance of Being Idle in 2005. I’m not saying that he preferred one band over the other, but when both bands played at the same time at the V Festival in 2005, he was stood next to us in the little tent watching the Super Furries rather than watching the Gallaghers on the main stage.
JESUS DON’T APPEAR IN NO SUNBEAM: Massive Attack – Risingson
“automatic crystal remote control / they come to move your soul”
A vibe more than anything. There’s an intense paranoia in this song, paranoia and nothingness, futility, empty gestures of a lost love. I’d never even looked at the lyrics until four minutes ago, they don’t really seem to be saying much apart profound, but in this case it’s more the music and the delivery than the words themselves.
Pop Fact!
When I used to DJ I would mix this into The Clearing by Arab Strap. Not many indie DJs mix and beat match and do “proper” DJing. This is because mixing is hard to do when bottles of Carling are 70p and you’re hammered before you’ve started your set.
THROUGH NEON HALF-LIGHTS: Suede – Stay Together
“just you and me together under electric light / and she will dance in the poison air”
The poem is more colourful, the song is basically black and grey and white. But I think the two match beautifully. It’s very much you and me against the world into or away from some kind of nuclear future.
Pop Fact!
I passed out down the front watching Suede at Phoenix 95. Once they’d pulled me out I told the St John’s Ambulance that I’d only had a couple of beers AND NOTHING ELSE, which may have been a lie. Still, I got to lie down on a bed and listen to the rest of the Suede set in comfort.
THE PERPETUAL ILLUSION OF PROGRESS: Sonic Youth – Swimsuit Issue
“don’t touch my breast / I’m just working at my desk”
This song was written about a Geffen Records worker who was sent to therapy for sexually harassing an employee and remained employed. For this poem I could have chosen so many songs from the 90s which are relevant today. Sowing the Seeds of Hatred by Credit to the Nation. Most songs by Blaggers ITA, Senser, PCP by the Manics. Nothing has changed. Society has point blank failed to learn anything in the last thirty years.
Pop Fact!
Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth used to have a complimentary copy of Melody Maker sent to their house from the UK every week. I did work experience there and copied their address into my notebook. Although quite what 17 year old Jamie planned to do with that information was beyond me. Fly to New York and say hello?
SWANSEA SOUND: Dinosaur Jr. – Feel the Pain
“I feel the pain of everyone / then I feel nothing”
This is what I’m talking about when I flippantly say “I hate the 90s”. The rain, the darkness, the feeling lost. And being both incredibly empathetic and also nihilistic, I struggled massively. Medication only ever took me to extremes. I felt so very sad, sometimes angry, and always so alone. This song captures that.
Pop Fact!
I got my first guitar – a very cheap black Encorestrat copy – from my parents the Christmas I turned 17. Thirty years later for Christmas last year I got a J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. signature Jazzmaster from my wife and it is my favourite of all my guitars. I play the riff from Feel the Pain on it every time I pick it up as some kind of ritual offering to gods of fuzzboxes and chorus pedals.
ATROPHIA: Kenickie – Acetone
“I would like another way to breathe / keep my eyes wide open in my sleep”
I learnt the word Atrophy from this song. I wrote a song about Atrophy (Atrophy Pt.1). I wrote another song about Atrophy (Atrophy Pt.2). I don’t know which one became this poem. But I was very sad and whereas a younger version of me was Come Out 2 Nite, the older one was Acetone.
Pop Fact!
This poem used to be a song, but it was set to the chords of Alice in Vain by Sleeper. I spent a lot of time “borrowing” Sleeper songs and riffs, and then making them scuzzy and lofi.
YOU AND NO-ONE ELSE: Hopper – Baby Oil Applicator
“but you’re always out of reach / and stabbing me”
I don’t know what the song is about. Heroin? Love? Murder? I used to play it for hours trying to get some kind of meaning from it. All I knew was that it was incredibly bleak and scuzzy and I was obsessed. The poem contains elusions to self-harm. I was not in a good place.
Pop Fact!
The poem title is taken from Just by Radiohead. Because of course, I did it to myself, and that’s what really hurts.
(Not on Spotify)
UNREAD SEROXAT™ (PAROXETINE) PATIENT INFORMATION LEAFLET: Elastica – Blue (Donna’s 4 Track Demo)
“John’s gone his senses loaded / over by your house it’s so basic”
A hugely different song to the album version. It’s the kind of song that I would listen to at 4am when I couldn’t sleep. It was either that or try and find some kind of connection with ITV night screen, adverts for a nightclub in Bridgend and gay chatlines.
Pop Fact!
Unlike many Elastica songs, I don’t think that Blue was an obvious steal from Wire, The Stranglers, or The Fall. Maybe that’s why it’s my favourite?
(Not on Spotify)
LEAVE ALONE: Clinic – The Second Line
“come a come a come”
Another one of those immersive play the song on loop in my headphones poems. Much easier when none of the lyrics are real words, allows you to really feel the mood and rhythms and memories rather than just taking the easy route and writing to someone else’s words. The word “stop” in the poem is supposed to be read 0.36 when the song stops.
Pop Fact!
When this song got used for a Levis Twisted Jeans advert in 2000 it got re-released, and got to number one in the indie / alt chart on mp3 site Vitaminic. Until it got knocked off the top spot a week later by MY BAND, Jamie Fett, with our banger Girl From HMV hahahahaha!
MANIC PIXIE DREAM BOY: Salad – On A Leash
“how come you never called me your best friend? / you left me on the wall”
I’ve always struggled with making friends. I guess my inability to comprehend other people’s motives, intentions, desires has a little to do with what I’m waiting for a diagnosis of now, twenty odd years on. I’ve always been an all or nothing kind of person, and I realise now that this isn’t how friendships or relationships work.
Pop Fact!
I have a signed picture of Salad on my bedroom wall. I have no plans to rip it off, or put it on a leash.
PAVEMENT KENICKIE BEDSIT 99: Pavement – Cut Your Hair
“career, career, career, career, career”
I used to make a lot of lists. This was one of them. Things I needed to do when I realised I couldn’t rationally continue to live in the mess I’d made my life. Cut Your Hair was always on MTV Alternative Nation (hosted by Marijne from Salad!) and is one of those songs that is always on rotation in my mind. The other part of the poem title comes from the song Perfect Plan 9T6 by Kenickie. Because this was a perfect plan, and it was going to come true.
Pop Fact!
In 2001 Pavement singer Stephen Malkmus released a solo single. It knocked the mighty Girl From HMV by Jamie Fett off the number one spot in the Vitaminic indie / alternative charts. BOOO! (Seriously, we lived that dream for a good week. Amazing.)
THE OPPOSITE OF SPRING: Veruca Salt – Celebrate You
“I lost my innocence today / when I learned how to write this”
I’ve always thought this song was about a funeral. I have no idea if it is, but the poem definitely is. I borrowed the “patent leather shoes”. A funeral is the only time you’ll find me wearing proper shoes. No one wants to go to a funeral or talk about them or consider them because then they become real and tangible. But they absolutely should be a celebration of a life. Anything else is just organised misery.
Pop Fact!
I have never been to a Veruca Salt concert. I have all the records. I know all the words. This is one of the few regrets I have in life.
SLEEP: Ash – Petrol
“I quietly climb the stairs / I remember all the years”
Petrol always seems to evoke the evenings in my friend Charlie’s bedroom, the biggest room in our shared house. We’d turn the lights down, smoke, listen to punk, watch cult films, re-runs of The Sweeney, play PlayStation, play guitar. Outside cars and students would go by. I just want to cry when I hear this song now.
Pop Fact!
I’m in the video for early Ash single Kung Fu. Keen viewers will notice a kid with a bright tie-dye teeshirt shaking his beautiful long blonde hair down the front at the New Cross Venue. It’s me, hi. I’m the headbanger, it’s me.
LOST: Hole – Northern Star
“I cry and cry for you / ghosts that haunt you with their sorrow”
Courtney wrote this about Kurt. I wrote this poem, and Sleep, and The Opposite of Spring, and Beat-up Micra, and Swinging, and so many others about my friend Charlie. I still miss him very much, even if he did prefer Nirvana to Hole.
Pop Fact!
I prefer Hole to Nirvana. Live Through This is one of the best albums ever made. There will be no argument, as this is a Pop Fact! not a Pop Opinion!
Jamie Woods / Summer 2025
Jamie Woods '77 