Miss Maggie May - The Garage Flowers - a Playlist by musicto

Music to Navigate A Life

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Wake up Maggie. I think I’ve got something to say to you.

A brand-new micawberish version of a Rod Stewart classic?

Nope... definitely not !

Anyone with the temerity to send us a song with MAGGIE MAY in the title is most likely looking to get a good journalistic kicking imho. Either that or they’re so precociously talented that they seriously don’t give a damn.

And, Stepping boldly onto this hallowed ground, like some raggedy trousered philanthropists, like some vogue adjective for new bohemian romanticism, come London rockers The Garage Flowers. With their Carnaby Street dress sense, scumbag swagger, and explosively anarchic live gigs... they could be the Darwinian solution to that big hole that The Libertines Used to fill.

"It won't be long before this Camden lot take over the world" says Gigslutz.

This bands persona. This band’s back story. The trek from Bristol to London. The between-gig sleeping, squashed into their crappy old car. All of that! It paints a picture in my mind of the struggling artists in the garrets of Puccini’s La Boheme! But, life shouldn’t be confused with art. Or should it? Some people’s lives are like landscapes, aren’t they?

Ok, let’s talk about the song. Miss Maggie May is a banging, barnstormer of a break-up song, yet it speaks more to a post-break-up scenario than the break-up itself. The disintegration, the picking oneself up, the dusting down, the starting again. And we can all identify with that. It’s such a universal experience. ‘I’ve been sleeping with the memories we made’ is a beautifully understated reflection on the aftermath of a broken relationship.

There’s a sing-along, feel-good, err… feel, to the acoustic version that’s sort of armageddonised in the original drunken guitar pop offering, and this allows the gorgeous refrain ‘this is your time, so reach for the stars, don't let it pass you by’ to wend its way from break-up oblivion to righteous redemption.

The song was the band’s debut release back in 2017. However, they’ve just put out an acoustic version of it, and I’m getting into both renderings now; so much so that I’ve decided to include both of them on the playlist this week.

One last thing! That band name! How do such a wild, punky, bunch of art rockers reach the decision to name themselves after an unimaginatively styled bouquet of, typically, half dead blossoms?. Well people, the answer is actually rather poetic. It’s a metaphor for hopeless romanticism. It’s grabbing those last minute flowers from the all night service station. It’s this band of West Country hopefuls living their rock star dream from that beat up old car.

It’s hopeless romanticism - with added anarchy!

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