Mystery song

May 21, 2008 11:19 PM

I'm looking for a single that was popular on college radio during 1987 or 1988. The refrain was "I'm still waiting for you to realise that I'm alive," sung by a young female voice

This single was wildly popular on WZBC, Boston College's radio station. It may have been an English band. There was scratchy fiddle in the background, if I remember correctly.

posted by freshwater_pr0n to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

There were at least 1 band that I remember being in heavy rotation on WZBC around that time that sound like this. One is The Vaselines, but I can't remember hearing that specific lyric. I know there are others, but my memory is rusty right now. But I'm gonna ask some friends that were dj's at zbc and mbr at that time and see if they remember.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:26 AM on May 22, 2008

seconding the vaselines. i will add that the first seven tracks on this best of album are the seven songs they released in 1987 and 1988. i'm not sure if the 20 second clips are long enough to identify the songs but they might help.
posted by phil at 9:09 AM on May 22, 2008

I'll just throw in that I spent a fair bit of time searching for permutations on the lyrics you provide, and I don't think that they're terribly accurate. At least, I couldn't turn up any likely candidates. I suppose it could be a song that's not been transcribed, but that's increasingly unlikely in this era of mymp3ringtonelyrics4u.ru, etc. Are you sure about that refrain?
posted by mumkin at 9:46 AM on May 22, 2008

Could also have been Young Marble Giants or the Pretenders, based on the time and sex of the singer. I think my best guess, though, is Cocteau Twins.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 12:00 PM on May 22, 2008

Response by poster: Most def. not any of those bands. And as far as my memory serves me, those are the exact lyrics, so it's possible that the lyrics have never been transcribed!
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 7:43 PM on May 22, 2008

I don't know the song, but I'll throw out a couple UK bands that could (or could not) be the band you're looking for. Since this song was around 1987-88, it could be a C86 era UK band, and enough of them had female vocals and twee lyrics like the one you remember. Some of the bands that I attempted to look up (via Twee.net's band directory: The Chesterf!elds (oddly, a few lyrics here), The Flatmates (I couldn't find any lyrics for them), The Pastels (a few lyrics here), The Primitives (only a few lyrics there), The Shop Assistants (I couldn't find any lyrics for them), Talulah Gosh (only a few lyrics there). I thought of some other bands that sounded like good possibilities but miss your time frame by just a year or two. Erm.. overall, I guess that was a pointless exercise, but I DID give it a try! It's entirely possible that the lyrics weren't transcribed. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but you could have a look through the band directory linked above.. maybe something would ring a bell.
posted by Mael Oui at 12:01 AM on May 23, 2008

Response by poster: I may never find my song, but I've got a lot of great, long-forgotten music on my ipod this week, so it was well worth the asking!

Thanks, everyone.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 8:24 PM on May 23, 2008