The Comedy of Errors: The Wedding Present - Softly Softly [Peel Session] (2 May 1992)

Buy this at Discogs

Even though The Wedding Present were releasing a single a month throughout 1992, they weren’t resting on their laurels.  2 years on from this session, Softly Softly would be released under the title Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah through Island Records with reworked verses and a Man from U.N.C.L.E inspired video.  Neither version breaks new ground in terms of its theme. David Gedge finds himself fielding a romantic offer that he is completely unable to refuse despite the fact that he and his lover will be cheating on another man.  The illicitness of their rendezvous simultaneously torturing and thrilling him as in so many Wedding Present and Cinerama tracks.

Peel never passed up an opportunity to lavish praise on Gedge and friends heads and this session was no exception.  Describing them as “an excellent band” because, “you know straightaway that it’s them and they are always trying to move forward”.  The session allowed him to pass pronouncement on the state of contemporary British music at that time, and in common with every time I heard him do so in recordings from the early 1990s, he found it wanting.  It was either too in hock to music from the 70s or hung up on what was doing well in America.  I can’t wait to hear his feelings him once we reach 1994-96.

Video courtesy of lalaland.