"Edinburgh, Galway, Nashville, Ulladulla / Breakin' my heart / In four places." That's quite a trip even for a group that has toured the world, climbed the heights and survived the trials that playing in a rock'n'roll band can bring.
The lines are from The Waterboy, the magnificent opening track to You Am I's 11th studio album, The Lives of Others. You Am I fans know how many great songs Tim Rogers has written since the band released their debut album Sound As Ever in 1993.
Many of these songs were written on a 2019 trip to the New South Wales south coast, where the band would rehearse when they were starting out in late 1989.
Anyone who loves classic You Am I albums like Hi Fi Way, Hourly, Daily, #4 Record and Dress Me Slowly will recognise the spirit in these tracks as well as the care and craft behind the songwriting and recording. The songs range wide, from questions about what it means to be a man (Manliness) to avoiding opinion overload (Readers' Comments). And the delights of Lookalikes, which will be the only song you hear this year to find a link between George Orwell, Mackenzie Phillips and Bette Davis.
The Lives of Others is a sonic as well as emotional ride, from the psych outro of DRB Hudson to the unmissable hooks and walking-in-Paris lope of The Third Level and the rush of Rosedale Redux, where Russell Hopkinson and Andy Kent set the scene for electric guitars that are as beautiful and brutal as anything from '93.
