Songs for the apocalypse: Toad the Wet Sprocket “Something’s Always Wrong”

In what feels like another lifetime ago these days, I lived in Sydney for a year after I left school, and one night after coming home from a late shift at the restaurant I worked in (as an appalling waiter) a band called Toad the Wet Sprocket named after a Monty Python sketch appeared on TV and I was spellbound. Thus began a three decades love affair with this Californian act which continued when I returned to the UK thanks to Bob Harris, and they remain one of the few “artists to see before I die” still on my list. Whenever I introduce them to friends (not literally), the track ‘Something’s Always Wrong’ is always the first track I reach for. 23 years on from its original release on the ‘Dulcinea’ album, and with all its magnificent chord changes and the arrangement, this still ranks as one of my favourite songs of all time.