Oranges and Lemons

"Raincoats roll and tumble together just like fruit tipped from a tray". These next few albums fall in reverse chronological as well as alphabetical order



Oranges & Lemons was XTC's first album after their U.S. breakthrough with Skylarking, and sounds like they were trying hard to crack the mainstream. The album was recorded in L.A. with producer Paul Fox (who went on to over-produce Robyn Hitchcock's Perspex Island) and various session musicians (like the drummer from Mr. Mister).

Twenty years later, parts of Oranges & Lemons sound as dated as the Jimmy Swaggart reference in "Merely a Man", but most of the songs are strong enough to shine through the gloss. Just like Nonsuch the album suffers from being a few songs too long, but unlike Nonsuch there aren't any obvious weak songs on Oranges & Lemons.

Back when the album came out, I tried to pare it down to one side of a 90 minute tape, because most of my listening (car and Walkman) was on cassettes. The usual ways to do this are to play the album from the start and let it end where it ends (before track #12 "Hold Me My Daddy") or to cut the longest songs. On Oranges & Lemons the final song ("Chalkhills and Children") is also the longest and strongest (IMO), so my definitive O&L is the first ten songs plus "Chalkhills", which fits perfectly on one side of a C90.

Colin's four songs on Oranges & Lemons are all top drawer, including "King For A Day". Here's XTC's first, last, and only appearance on American network TV, performing the song on the David Letterman Show in June 1989.



I have this performance on a videotape which also has Andy, Colin & Dave on "Postmodern MTV", playing a few songs live, and snarkily making fun of all the videos (including their own videos). This performance is also on the youtube.