This was the second session that Come recorded for Peel in the space of 9 months. I heard their first session when it was repeated on his programme from 19 June 1992, but I didn’t include any of it here. I will always be eternally grateful for Peel playing Smile On Your Face by Dangerous Birds as a lead-in track to that session. The link being that the 1982 record had been his first exposure to Come’s lead singer, Thalia Zedek. However, I am all over this session, despite it seeming to mark a turning point in Peel’s support for the band.
The opening track, City of Fun is a cover of a track from the debut album by The Only Ones. Peel followed up Come’s version by playing a live version from The Only Ones Live in London album. Given how deliberate and specific Come’s playing tends to be, it’s nice to hear Zedek and Chris Brokaw, who takes the lead vocal here, cutting loose and letting their inner-Ramone out. A look at the lyrics shows why Come might have been moved to cover it. A theme of the material in this session is of people being overwhelmed and crushed by the big city, and City of Fun reflects that, though it does at least feature the narrator reaching out to help those who are losing their way - and finding themself taken advantage of in the process!
Wrong Side sees Come channelling Sticky Fingers-era Stones to superb effect. My own take is that the protagonist of the song moves from prostitution to drugs to illness to the hospice and finally back to prostitution over the course of four increasingly bleak minutes. All the way along, they’re accompanied by advice - Don’t you worry - which sounds increasingly hollow as the track progresses. The only escape from this hellhole is death - I don’t believe that heading south refers to going to Texas in this case, rather to someplace much hotter. The final image of saints getting under tables and opening their skirts shows things going full circle. Death may be approaching and this poor unfortunate, and all those on this side of town, will be fucked on the way out.
The mood doesn’t get any brighter on Mercury Falls, which starts big with allusions to the end of the world - the taping up of windows implies preparations for a nuclear winter - before narrowing its focus to consider all those who are isolated and alone at winter time. There are references to friends and acquaintances disappearing and dying off, both in an actual and literal sense as relationships wither and die as people lose touch. For some reason, this always feels more devastating during the winter time and the song particularly conveys those left feeling alone, sick and disassociated from others during Christmas time. This was a new Come song, perhaps they had gone through a particularly lousy Christmas in 1992? Whether it’s personal or universal, it nails the mood perfectly.
The only track from the session which I didn’t particularly care for was Sharon Vs. Karen, which in 2024 could be retitled Democrats Vs. Republicans, but back then was little more than a simple everyday tale of schizophrenia and suicide.
This is an interesting Peel Session in that it saw Come use it to do all of the things that Peel most enjoyed seeing artists do in a session; namely using it to showcase new or unexpected material. Unlike the previous session, which had seen Come play material exclusively from their Eleven : Eleven album, this session saw them showcase three new songs, at least a year in advance of anyone hearing them on a record , and a cover. So why did it mark a turning point in John Peel’s relationship with them? Well, according to the John Peel wiki, when this session was repeated on 28 May 1993 (a show I’ve just listened to as it happens), it marked the last time any content by Come featured on his programme. Now, if that’s true, it’s quite the cold shoulder considering that they released three further albums and several singles between 1994 & 1998. It could be that their label, Matador Records, didn’t send them on. Perhaps, there was some perceived slight or awkward interaction at a festival which irritated Peel into striking them from his playlists. Or maybe by the time Come released Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in ‘94, things had moved on to the extent that there just wasn’t a place for them on the Peel Show anymore. It’s John’s show and John’s rules, but on the evidence of this session, his listeners were the ones missing out.
Videos courtesy of Fire Records.
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