Lux Lisbon are a English 4-piece who do harmony laden indiepoprock songs made with tag-team-boy-girl vocals, under the influence of Dog is Dead, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Bloc Party, Simon and
Garfunkel, Billy Bragg, Florence and Manics lyrics.
In 2016, they will play their biggest show to date, self-promoting at Scala in London on April 21st. This follows on from an exciting 2015, in which they sold out London Bush Hall in June, again completely under their own steam, which itself followed on from 3 sold out nights at London Lexington.
Lux Lisbon is a 100% DIY proposition, no label, manager, booking agent, publicist, or outside funding – absolutely everything is all handled by songwriter Stuart “Stu” Rook, a laptop, and savings from the day job.
According to Stu, “We’re just gearing up for rehearsal for our April UK tour and dusting off the old harmonies on ‘Get Some Scars’ – so I thought I’d write this week a little about the idea behind what is probably our most popular song. I’ve included the artwork/lyric sheet at the bottom here, but basically the chorus goes:
“Oh while we’re young yeah, let’s go out and get some scars, cos when we’re older, we’ll need them to tell us apart”.
So it does touch upon a pretty simple premise, something not far off ‘keep on keeping on’ or something similar.
This theme is of course already incredibly familiar in the rock/pop vernacular, in fact, it’s so well served, that even 20 years ago, Chumbawumba were able to easily hijack the sentiment of ‘I Will Survive’ in order to turn tunelessly shrieking “I get knocked down but I get up again” into a mid 90’s English national pastime. That was fun wasn’t it eh!? No. It wasn’t. But I digress.
Anyway, I very deliberately say that ‘Get Some Scars’ ‘touches upon’ this idea – because I didn’t want it to be another one of ‘those’ songs.
You know, one of ‘those songs’ – which seem to have an intellectually passive protagonist, struggling to keep afloat whilst being battered by the waves of a sea not of their choosing, and having things “just happen” to them.
Many of these songs seem to me (unwittingly perhaps) to frame failure as something to be endured (and therefore by extension, to be avoided). This is a shame, when there is so much evidence that suggests that perhaps this isn’t a useful attitude.
‘Get Some Scars’ is a song that loves failure, and this I hope, changes the focus slightly, accepting that both failure and hurt are an almost inevitable part of doing anything properly and meaningfully, as just a cursory glance at the story of anyone, in any walk of life that you admire will tell you. I love doing that. Just reading that stuff. Actually read about what your heroes did before they did the stuff that you now know them for. They failed. A lot. They were useless. They tried a lot of different stuff. That should be enough to tell us that failure is not something to be frightened of.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better” – Samuel Beckett*
Anyway, that is why the line is ‘let’s go out and get some scars’ – it’s this idea of taking a bit of control back, and to actively go chasing that inevitable initial failure, as it will be a precursor to learning something that will help you further down the line.
Or…. maybe all of that is all a load of self-sophistry and I just wrote it because I was remembering my mate George’s** 2003 T-shirt that read “Chicks Dig Scars”. I did always feel that that there must be a more elegant way of rendering that particular sentiment. I hope it wasn’t. Nah, it wasn’t that.
Either way, to muddy the waters further, I’ve slipped in lyrical nods to Daniel Kitson, an Amy Winehouse interview, Winston Churchill, The Who Live at Leeds, Helter Skelter and my favorite Weiss Beer. See if you can spot them all!
The Video
We tried (in vain) to make the video a homage to a non-specific Wes Anderson film. We’re all fans, Charlotte especially, and Tom has just got a massive ‘Life Aquatic’ tattoo. It’s a whole lot of Bill Murray. The video has Stu enduring various types of failure and disappointment – highlights include finding an unsafe lift than closed on his face and a man in the street lending us a vintage Morris Minor (that wouldn’t start).
Event Tickets are as follows;
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Please visit the band at: http://luxlisbon.com/
Want free music? (Who doesn’t?!): http://luxlisbon.com/freedownload
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