A Head Full of Wishes

A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.

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Categories: galaxie 500 my record collection

My record collection
[282] Galaxie 500 - This Is Our Music (Video Arts Japan CD)

And so to the NINTH copy of Galaxie 500’s This Is Our Music, this is the last in the set of four CDs released by Video Arts Japan in 2008 in lovely card sleeves.

Galaxie 500 - This Is Our Music (Video Arts Japan CD)
Galaxie 500 - This Is Our Music (Video Arts Japan CD)

As with the other releases (Today, On Fire, and Copenhagen) this was sent to me by Dean around the time of release, and he had signed each on the OBI strip,

The sleeve notes were once again written by Ryuichi Kanagawa and tells this story about Galaxie 500’s cover of Yoko Ono’s Listen, The Snow is Falling (translated by Google so apologies if it’s not 100% accurate)

... apparently Naomi was booed when she sang it on stage during her UK tour. Apparently some UK fans still had the impression at the time that Yoko Ono was "the woman who stole John Lennon," so the heartless booing from the audience was quite a shock to Naomi.

Extract from This Is Our Music sleeve notes by Ryuichi Kanagawa

I only saw Galaxie 500 play the song once, at ULU in 1990, and I can assure you that nobody there booed the song, I also have a recording of them playing it in Glasgow earlier that month, and… nobody booed the song there either. I do find it rather hard to believe that people in the UK booed the song - and if they did it was likely just one or two drunkards and not any reflection on the wider audience. The evidence of recordings of two shows is obviously far from conclusive, but I’ll throw in a couple of my own suppositions:

  • Most Galaxie 500 fans were probably, like me, only six or seven when The Beatles broke up so, like me, were unlikely to have particularly strong negative opinions about Yoko Ono.
  • This Is Our Music had been well reviewed in the UK inkies, and Listen, The Snow is Falling was picked out as a highlight - “Naomi’s celestial voice and the crackle of Damon sifting sea-shells through his fingers” (SELECT, November 1990)
  • John Peel had played Listen, The Snow is Falling on his show.
  • Galaxie 500 were headlining the tour, people knew the band, knew the album. and knew what to expect.

Here they are playing it at that ULU show in November 1990 - no booing, just some applause, and encouragement, and some very enthusiastic cheering at the end. This was at the end of Galaxie 500’s last UK tour, so I hope by then that Naomi left the country with a better impression of us.

Galaxie 500 - Listen, The Snow is Falling (London, 1990) (play on YouTube)

Previously in my record collection: