1982 Singles # 42 Split Enz

 

Another song that had the misfortume in coming out during the time of The Falklands War. Split Enz' Six Months in a Leaky Boat coincided with the occurrence of that still puzzling conflict, and equally puzzlingly was not deemed suitable for radio play because of the fact that it was happening. Perhaps someone can explain that to me. Oh I can guess what the surface level reason is, suspected veiled criticism of something that deserved to be criticised, but that still doesn't make the logic of the connection any clearer in my head.

Anyway, a shame, because this would have sounded great on the radio though I doubt somehow that it would have been played much regardless of what was going on in the South Atlantic at the time. Split Enz were altogether too smart for mass consumption .and appreciation. They had been a quirky and marginal  presence on the pop scene for a few years already now and Six Months and its parent album Time & Tide were pretty much their last throw of the dice before going their separate ways.

Six Months is a song about a nervous breakdown, namely that of the song's writer and singer Tim Finn. It is of course possible to get songs focussing on such bleak subject matter onto the radio and into the charts, take Bowie's Ashes to Ashes or any number of Bunnymen songs for starters. Six Months sugars the pill of its lyrical theme with a jaunty shanty melody, it's an easy listen,  but was still most generally acccepted and lauded in the band's homeland New Zealand at the time of it's release than anywhere else. It got to # 86 in the UK Singles charts.

It's much better than that. A truly beautiful song, full of swirling, nautical, literate wonder. Still sounds impossibly fresh every time I hear it. The album was an early marker for me and the personal tastes I was just beginning to develop. I bought it in 1982, despite the general indifference that greeted it when it came out. I'm not quite sure what made me find it and get it but I'm glad I did.  I went on from there in the next few years to Split Enz's Antipodean near contemporaries, The Go Betweens, The Chills, The Triffids and The Clean. They all spoke of a way of approaching and looking at things from a different and deeper level than was the general norm that appealed to me, and is still one of the most fruitful and productive turns I ever took in terms of my music tastes.