When experience XTC, it’s okay to sample ‘Grass’

Here's guest blogger Dr. Dim with his latest post:

Never Found in the 80s' XTC Week continues and we return to the almost perfect album Skylarking from 1987. Today, we examine the album's first single – Grass. On the album, Grass plays directly out of the opening track, Summer's Cauldron, as part of the linking of songs idea that producer Todd Rundgren had developed for the album.

The song bursts to life with a crash of cymbals and strings and then settles into a lush and lovely ode to young lovers and the things they did on grass. As in lawn, I don't think Colin Moulding, who wrote and sings lead on the song, was making a reference to any illegal substances.

Watch the video here.

When recording the lead vocal, Rundgren insisted Moulding not sing too deeply, otherwise he might come off sounding a bit too villainous.

– Jim "Dr. Dim" Fitzsimons