The background: I am a big Nick Lowe fan. And I'm also a bit of a completist. Nick's first band was Kippington Lodge, which he joined in 1967. The Lodge eventually changed its name to Brinsley Schwarz.*
Back in the days of vinyl -- and remember that this was also before ebay, Amazon and the like -- I got my hands on a single of "Shy Boy" and "Lady on a Bicycle." Both songs kind of sucked. Over the years I've managed to get a couple other Kippington Lodge tracks on various Brinsley Schwarz compilations and Nick Lowe bootlegs. None of them really impressed me. So, when I saw a Kippington Lodge compilation available on Amazon I didn't exactly rush to order it.
But curiosity and my obsessive nature eventually got the better of me, so I ordered it. Assuming you can trust the title, Shy Boy: The Complete Recordings, 1967-1969, the 15 tracks represent the totality of the band's recorded output. So, yeah, I got that down.
But my point -- and, yes, there is one. I listened to the album, and found 14 tracks to be uninteresting at best. But track 15, "I Can See Her Face," Is pretty good. Good enough that, when I was listening to it, I found myself marveling that it was the same band. Then I looked again at the packaging and noticed for the first time that that was the only song on the disc that Nick Lowe wrote.
So, yeah, I like Nick Lowe songs.
*As I understand it, the group's management decided that "Kippington Lodge" wasn't a marketable name. Yeah, "Brinsley Schwarz" was much better. /s
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