#305 ‘Let’s Get Out Of Here’ by Les Savy Fav (19 July)

Album: Root for Ruin, 2010

Justification: It’s my birthday today, so I’m going to be even more self-indulgent than usual.

OK, it’s been out for a bit over six months but I was expecting this to be the crossover hit for one of my favourite bands and it appears that it wasn’t. Furthermore, I can’t for the life of me work out why. While LSF have no shortage of amazing songs this one is actually stick-in-your-head catchy, begs to be bellowed along with, currently is their closing song of choice for live sets and there’s a desperate joy to it that’s at once jubilant and terribly sad that cuts me to the quick every time I hear it.

Part of it is its chorus being – let’s be kind here – something of a “tribute” to the Pixies ‘Velouria’, which soundtracked one of my deepest unrequited loves in my moody teenage years, and part of it is that it reminds me of the Animals’ ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’, which my father used to sing in hospital when we passed the point that we all knew that he wasn’t getting out alive.

On a significantly more cheerful note, and a damn sight more directly, this song reminds me of the earlyish days of the rather wonderful relationship I’m in now. Specifically when my beautiful girlfriend turned to me at Laneway Festival in January this year having never seen the Fav live, gazed into my eyes and breathed “they are fucking amazing.” Which, to be fair, they were. This is definitely a significant track on the mixtape that is AHC and APS.

All this is, admittedly, a pretty heavy emotional load to put on a three-and-a-half-minute song that’s pretty baldly about wanting to get one’s freak on, but ‘Let’s Get Out Of Here’ can bear it. It’s not too late for it to change the world, you know.

THIS TIME IN 2010: I was being self-indulgent, of course, with another shoulda-been-huge hit by a favourite band: ‘Showgirl’ by the Auteurs.