Alan Gregg is a native Kiwi transplanted to North London with a spotty resumé to his credit. Not intending to be impolite, but prospective employers might be taken aback, curious as to what he has been up to since putting out a sugary concoction of a record under the name Marshmallow back in 2003. Save for a short Mutton Birds reunion a dozen years ago, it has been crickets for Gregg since, that is until the self-released Please Go Wild (a tongue-in-cheek reference to how MCs sometimes introduce an artist) showed up in 2024 under the nominative sobriquet, Polite Company, a definite improvement in the naming department over another band he played in during the early ‘90s, the Dribbling Darts of Love, Shakespearean reference notwithstanding.
On the album, Gregg asserts he is back in circulation on the first track – the aptly named Circulation – singing “I’ve been out of the loop too long”. Indeed, that is a shame, but if woodshedding is what it takes to issue a superior record, well, who are we to disagree. There is little doubt Gregg has been keenly observant of the human condition and its tenuous interrelation to the world at large. His album is filled with deadpan, witty and incisive commentaries cloaked in hook-laden power pop, no, powerful pop on par with noted purveyors like Squeeze or Crowded House.
The music is a veritable bouillabaisse of styles and topics. Perfectly Good Explanation is a standout, as Gregg digs into the celebrity gossip and scandal culture of TMZ and similar sites, offering an “unvarnished” approach to news. He delves into the dichotomy of fascination and revulsion on Barefoot Billionaire, which seems as if it could have been a perfect sync into the IPO world of the TV series Silicon Valley. An entrepreneur is “Flying to Hawaii on a Gulf Stream jet, even though he hasn’t made a profit yet”. The brilliance is in the lyrics across the album as Gregg immerses himself in quick-witted conversational wanderings but eschews settling for the banal and clichéd. He leaves ample space for listeners to decode meanings from each song, all while luring you in with sonics that are non-negotiable in their vibrancy.
Gregg and his Dribbling Dart bandmates may have leaned on the old 17th-century rocker Willie Shakes and his comedy, Measure for Measure, for inspiration, but AUK asked him to take us on a tour of Please Go Wild, from 1-12, track by track, and enlighten us as to what’s going on behind the songs.
Circulation – As we were coming out of lockdown from Covid, I kept hearing people talking about getting back into circulation, and one day the chorus just appeared in my head. I had no other lyrics for ages, until one day I read an interview with Joe Strummer where he said that The Clash always operated on instinct rather than intellect. With that in mind, I sat down and scribbled out three verses, and I never changed a word. Somehow, that Joe Strummer quote unlocked the song. I should have it pinned to my wall.
No Time Like Tomorrow – Once again, I had a title for ages and no song. Then one day I started playing those Randy Newman-esque piano chords, and before I knew it, the verses had emerged. It sounds like a love song, but it actually was about a friend of mine who had a job where he traveled a lot, and he was worried that he was missing out on significant events for his young son. The Herb Alpert trumpet in the choruses was added at the last minute. I secretly hope Michael Bublé will record it one day and make it a hit.
Perfectly Good Explanation – I was watching an interview with a UK politician, and he kept saying that things were “perfectly fine.” It occurred to me that usually when people use the word “perfectly,” it’s a good indicator that they don’t mean what they’re saying. The first verse was inspired by the British Health Secretary, who got caught in his office with a woman and ended up resigning. The English tabloids always use the term “love rat” for anyone who cheats on their wife, so that went in there. I’d been reading about how tech companies steal your data, and how Mark Zuckerberg famously said, “privacy is no longer a social norm,” so that fed into the third verse. The final verse was influenced by the videos I kept seeing of people getting punched in the head at Trump rallies. That’s a lot to get into one song, and I was worried that it would sound a little preachy. Musically, it was an attempt to emulate the song American Landfill Kings by Sam Phillips, which I think is an amazing tune. But it didn’t end up sounding like that song at all.
Barefoot Billionaire – I read a book called Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman, which is about Adam Neumann, who started the company WeWork. Pretty much everything in the song really happened to Adam Neumann. He’s a charismatic guy who created this huge company before having a spectacular fall from grace. In the final days before he was ousted as head of the company, he was photographed barefoot, making panicked phone calls on the streets of Manhattan. I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan at the time, and I think I was attempting to write a Donald Fagen-type lyric. I was very happy to get the phrase “ultra-high net worth individual” into a song.
Buzz Me In – I always loved the theme song to the TV sitcom Cheers, and this tune was an attempt to write a song in that style. Most songs begin on guitar for me, but this was always a piano song. Some people say that having a bridge or middle eight in a song is a dying art, but I still like to do it.
New Yacht – I was wandering around a marina in Turkey looking at these huge, expensive super yachts, and the first lines came into my head: “I need a new yacht / this one that I’ve already got”. Then I saw an article about oligarchs who own these mega yachts, but their security is so tight that they can’t come up onto the deck in case they’re seen and become a target. I thought it was amusing that you could have that much money but still not be able to enjoy the sun on your own super yacht. The music has a kind of home organ-and-drum machine vibe. I always liked the chintzy organ sounds that Jerry Dammers used on records by The Specials.
Second Chance Charity Store – This song is a good example of how song lyrics can be made up of lots of half-remembered things. I did see a real shop called “Second Chance Charity Store” years ago, and I always liked it as a title. Now I live across the road from a charity shop in London, and I often watch the people come and go. I saw a “Jesus is Lord” sticker on a lamp post, and it’s always good to get Jesus into a song if you possibly can. I read the book The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and she describes one character as having “small sidelong eyes which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac.” I loved that line, and I’ve never heard the word “bric-a-brac” in a song before, so in it went. I remember being very happy when the line “Some things are better when they’re not brand new” came along for the bridge. It seemed to kind of sum up the spirit of the song.
Otis Mace Guitar Ace – Otis Mace is a real singer-songwriter who lives in Auckland. He has loads of great songs; my personal favourite is one called Wipe Your Bum With A Kitten. Once I saw him play a show at The Twelve Bar Club in London, and as he was playing that song, people were talking. I wanted to tell them to shut up and listen to these great songs. Of course, I didn’t, but on the bus on the way home, I was thinking about it, and I had most of the lyrics before I got to my stop. The song could be about any ageing songwriter who doesn’t get the attention they deserve. We’ve all played to rooms full of people who are talking instead of listening to our works of genius. This song also contains the lyric which gave the album its title, Please Go Wild.
Peculiar Julia – The lyrics for this song and Shrinking Violet are actually poems written by James Brown, a friend of mine from Wellington. When I read his book Floods Another Chamber, I mentioned to him that these two poems seemed like song lyrics to me. So I wrote some music for them and recorded them just for fun, and that was the beginning of the Polite Company album. When I had recorded these two songs, I initially suggested to James that we release them under the name Not That James Brown or The Other James Brown. Thankfully, James talked me out of that.
Shrinking Violet – Writing music for lyrics written by someone else helps to get you out of the same old patterns of phrasing and rhyme that you would otherwise use. Also, James uses language in a way that I would never dream of: “She stopped wanting to have her say / Folded herself in half each in a way day / Until she was just two wide eyes / Her mouth a shrug, her shrug a sigh.” Initially, I wasn’t sure how the music for this song should go, so I took the beat from Can’t Take My Eyes Off You by Andy Williams and went on from there.
Empty Beach – I love jingly-jangly guitars, and on this song, I turned them up to ten. For the piano part, I was trying to channel Roy Bittan from the E Street Band. The song tells a simple story, and the verse lyrics don’t rhyme at all, which is unusual for me. I like the craft involved in songs where the words rhyme, but there is a freedom to lyrics when they don’t have to rhyme.
Tell Me When It’s Time – I’ve known a few people like the character in this song over the years, who are fun for a while, but they don’t know when they’ve outstayed their welcome. I may have even been that person on occasion. Once, a friend of mine came for dinner on Friday night and didn’t leave until Sunday evening. I think this tune was an attempt at a Tom Waits-style song, but when I heard it back, I realised it sounded more like Gilbert O’Sullivan, which is no bad thing at all. Initially, the solo was done on a cheap organ, which has a melancholy horn sound that I like. Someone suggested that it could be a Salvation Army band playing that section, so my friend Sean Read, who plays with Dexys, created that sound in his studio by playing all the brass parts himself.
