Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

That week i fell into bed all spun up every night. My head would hit the pillow and no sooner had i closed my eyes would they be blinking back sunlight on a new morning.

We spent every waking moment nursing hangovers and new songs and every evening out writing sessions devolved into another minor gathering. We were infamous amid our peers once again, and  there was no end to the random guests popping their head round our front door in the hopes of a joint or a ciggy and a drink. Our house felt alive again, an endless stream of creativity and creatives, writers and artists gathering and culminating around our kitchen table, or on our patio, arguing or coming together over another pop song.

Our songs were overplayed and every one of our parties outlived the last.

It was electrifying really, watching life soar and quell every morning and evening, every lazy afternoon soent harmonising with Kitty or drafting a setlist for Cardiff. We'd changed the lineup so many times, never really satisfied with the way it looked. The way each song flowed into the next. It was strange because it wasnt a big gig, it wasn't an important gig and yet to me at least it felt pivotal.

Every once in awhile in life you find yourself at a precipice. Balanacing along the knives edge. Some kind of seminal moment just around the riverbend. You know its coming and you know when you've reached it. You can taste it on your tongue in the moment. You know, from here on out everything will be different. For better or for worse. We'll never know life like this again.

To me that was Cardiff and this gig was our make or break.

We could come back from America having lost a member, having experienced some pretty strange things. And we could either embrace this unexpected eventuality we had wound up in or we coukd disintegrate into it. Could allow ourselves to weaken, give in and dissolve.

And when we were singing on Kittys bedroom floor recording demo after demo to send to Alex, to send to the lads, it didnt really feel like dissolving.

For the first time in a long time I was excited, even in the mornings when the comedowns hurt my head, even in the moments before i took a pill or did a line. I felt alive again, it wasn't that i knew what i was doing but that i knew i was doing something. Going somewhere.

Even going out with my sister and all her friends, some posh cocktail bar in Chelsea, didn't seem such a daunting task anymore. I didn't feel so much like the wayward child with no direction, hanging around with the big girls, nauseatingly desperate to replicate them.

"when is your sisters?" asked Saff her toothbrrush in her mouth, toothpaste dribbling down her chin as she hovered in the doorway.

I could tell she'd been taken over by it too. She'd always been a little brighter and lighter than me, a little more awake say, but now standing over the sink just brushing her teeth had become time wasted, now she couldn't ever settle for one task at a tine. Everything had to happen all at once.

"Tonight," i yawned wringing out my fresh from the shower hair, struggling to tie it up off my face, screwing my face up at the awkward reflection i caught. "I'm puttin on a fancy little black dress, posh spice eat your heart out," i shot her a smirk and she laughed because the little black dress wasn't a look id ever felt at home in before.

"well this i gotta see," she grinned, "can i tag along, I'll get a union jack dress, I'll be Gerry," at that i snorted the image in my head a little too amusing to hold in.

"i dont think Spice World is the aesthetic me sisters going for," i smiled as i wriggled into my dungarees and fixed my hair for the last time.

"What about Dexys Midnight Runners, how does she feel about them," she winked abandoning in exchange for her own wardrobe.