Lost Gem: "Your Dictionary" - XTC (1999)


"So let's close the book
and let the day begin
and our marriage be undone."
~ XTC ~


Seven years had disappeared before XTC went back into the studio to record..."Apple Venus Volume 1" (1999)...and it was jaw-dropping brilliant.

Unfortunately, numerous management problems and personal differences were causing friction at around the same time this record dropped...and history has proven this is rarely a good thing.

Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, Dave Gregory

Critics loved XTC's alternative-psych-rock sound, but lack of solid promo in the states buried this nugget in the racks.

Lost Gem:--> "Your Dictionary"...is a bitter acoustic kiss-off to the ghosts of a broken relationship.   So bitter...yet Partridge pulls it off.

The surprising Beatlesque arrangement near the end offers 'hope' that closure will be found for all of us.

Have you heard this Gem?


H-A-T-E
Is that how you spell love in your dictionary
K-I-C-K
Pronounced as kind
F-U-C-K
Is that how you spell friend in your dictionary
Black on black
A guidebook for the blind

Well now that I can see my eyes won't weep
Now that I can hear your song sounds cheap
Now that I can talk all your corn I'll reap
I'm not so sure that Joey wed a Virgin Mary
There are no words for me inside your dictionary

S-L-A-P
Is that how you spell kiss in your dictionary
C-O-L-D
Pronounced as care
S-H-I-T
Is that how you spelt me in your dictionary
Four-eyed fool
You led 'round everywhere

Now that I can see it's the queens new clothes
Now that I can hear all your poison prose
Now that I can talk with my tongue unfroze
I'm not so sure of Santa or the buck-tooth fairy
There are no words for me inside your dictionary

Now your laughter has a hollow ring
But the hollow ring has no finger in
So let's close the book and let the day begin
And our marriage be undone.

Good stuff.


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