XTC took on English society even as they retreated from it and touring with this pivotal pastoral double album. Andy Partridge remembers: "We’d spent the best part of a decade developing quite a thumping sound, one best exemplified on our previous album, 'Black Sea'. With 'English Settlement', I wanted to move in a more pastoral, more acoustic direction. I remember taking some time off, locked away in a flat above a shop in Swindon, to work on how to capture this. Although I’d been writing in a certain way and style for years it actually came quite naturally... I had a new guitar, (I’d given away my old one on swap shop) so there was a touch of new gear syndrome. But more than anything else I wanted to produce a sound less geared to touring, which the muscular sound that we had developed was perfect for. The problem for me was that I was beginning to absolutely hate touring. I wasn’t a young man anymore and my body was starting to rebel against the lifestyle. We’d been doing it pretty much non-stop for nearly a decade and I was sick of it all: the crap food, the hours stuck on a bus with the same faces and the general soul-destroying tediousness of it. I got it into my head that if I wrote an album with a sound less geared towards touring then maybe there would be less pressure to tour."
They recorded 'English Settlement' with Hugh Padgham at The Manor in Oxfordshire. Partridge says: "The time felt right for a bit of a change anyway and I think this was a feeling shared by the other members of the band. The recording experience was actually one of the best I ever had. We did it in this massive manor house that Virgin had bought out in the Oxfordshire countryside, all four-poster beds and roaring fires. I remember that we spent a bit too much of our time there playing conkers when we should have been recording. That just shows you the heady excesses of our ‘rock & roll’ lifestyle."
The record company released the album in the US with four tracks omitted and pushed the band to tour despite their resistance. For Partridge, touring was a tumultuous and traumatic experience: "We were bullied back onto the road and that really started to wind me up. I’d be there onstage thinking: ‘I hate doing this.' The anger towards being made to tour and the mental stress it was causing me began to manifest itself in stage fright, which I’d never had in my life. It didn’t help that my mental state was being exacerbated by the impact of Valium withdrawal, which I’d been on since my early teens. It all came to a head on our US tour. I managed to get through the first show, but it was an awful experience. I was onstage and couldn't remember how to play the guitar properly. I was in terrible pain and my nervous system was just going wild, like somebody had just run me over in a car. Then on the second night, this was in LA, I cracked-up completely. I really believed that I was going to die, it was that bad. I just had to get off the stage. And that was the end for me and touring. I just couldn’t do it anymore."
'English Settlement' reached forty-eight in the US, forty-one in New Zealand, twenty-three in Sweden, and peaked at number five in the UK.
'Ball and Chain' was a Moulding composition. The single peaked at number fifty-eight in the UK.
"Must we live in fear,
From those who shed no tears?
Our one and only shelter,
Your games, your helter skelter.
Motorways and office blocks,
They're standing on the spot
Where stood a home,
Crushing on the memories of people,
Who have since turned to stone.
(Ahh)
They've turned to stone,
(Ahh)
They've turned to stone.
Save us from the ball and chain"
'Senses Working Overtime' was XTC's biggest hit, reaching number ten on the UK pop chart.
"Hey hey, night fights day,
There's food for the thinkers
And the innocents can all live slowly
All live slowly
My, my the sky will cry
Jewels for the thirsty and the guilty ones can
All die slowly all die slowly.
And all the world is biscuit shaped,
It's just for me to feed my face
And I can see,hear, smell, touch, taste"
'Jason and the Argonauts'
"There may be no golden fleece,
But human riches I'll release
I was in a land where men force women to hide their facial features,
And here in the west it's just the same but they're using make-up veils.
I've seen acts of every shade of terrible crime from man-like creatures,
And I've had the breath of liars blowing me off course in my sails."
The single for 'No Thugs in Our House' never charted.
"The young policeman who just can't grow a mustache will open up his book,
And spoil their breakfast with reports of Asians who have been so badly kicked,
Is this your son's wallet I've got here?
He must have dropped it after too much beer.
Oh, officer, we can't believe our little angel is the one you've picked. and
And all the while Graham slept on,
Dreaming of a world where he could do just what he wanted to.
No thugs in our house, are there dear?
We made that clear,
We made little Graham promise us he'd be a good boy."
'Yacht Dance'
"And how they'll be jealous of both of us
In our yacht dance
We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails
Upon the tops of the seas
Made of people stained with scorn who never see the light of real love
In our yacht dance"
'All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)'
"All of a sudden,
We find that we've lost love,
So please don't push or shove because,
It's too late,
It's too late,
In all your hurry you've accidentally locked the gate
Love's not a product you can hoard or pack a suitcase with,
It's more a way you have to give."
'Melt the Guns'
"Programs of violence,
As entertainment,
Brings the disease into your room.
We know the germ,
Which is man-made in metal,
Is really a key to your own tomb.
Prevention is better than cure,
Bad apples affecting the pure,
You'll gather your senses I'm sure
Then agree to,
Melt the guns,
Melt the guns,
Melt the guns,
And never more to fire them."
'English Settlement'
full album:
All songs written by Andy Partridge, except where noted.
Side 1
1. "Runaways" Colin Moulding 4:34
2. "Ball and Chain" Colin Moulding 4:32
3. "Senses Working Overtime" 4:50
4. "Jason and the Argonauts" 6:07
Side 2
1. "No Thugs in Our House" 5:09
2. "Yacht Dance" 3:56
3. "All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)" 5:21
Side 3
1. "Melt the Guns" 6:34
2. "Leisure" 5:02
3. "It's Nearly Africa" 3:55
4. "Knuckle Down" 4:28
Side 4
1. "Fly on the Wall" Colin Moulding 3:19
2. "Down in the Cockpit" 5:27
3. "English Roundabout" Colin Moulding 3:59
4. "Snowman" 5:03
live Rockpalast
Respectable Street
Towers of London
Runaways
Jason and the Argonauts
Burning With Optimism's Flames
Snowman
Ball And Chain
Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)
No Thugs In Our House
Senses Working Overtime
Making Plans For Nigel
Living Through Another Cuba
Generals and Majors
Real By Reel
Life Begins At The Hop
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