XTC Play “The Wheel and the Maypole”
Listen to this track by legendary Swindonian progressive pop music heroes XTC. It’s “The Wheel and the Maypole”, the final track on the band’s final record, 2000’s Wasp Star (Apple Venus, Vol. 2). That record was the follow up to 1999’s Apple Venus Vol. 1 of course. Both records were originally meant to be two parts of a double album. But things didn’t go according to plan on that front and on a few others besides that. This wasn’t anything new for XTC even by 1999 and into 2000.
The production budget fell short of the band’s ambitions for their planned double album. That meant having to make some compromises. One of those was the decision to put out two separate volumes instead of a double and also instead of producing a single disc made up of the best of the two batches of songs they planned to record. The single-disc option was put forward by guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger Dave Gregory. But primary XTC writer and singer Andy Partridge’s idea was not to “mix the flavours”. If not as two parts of a double record, he wanted to present the songs in the way they were originally conceived as two distinct packages; “orch-oustic” songs on one disc, and clanging guitar pop on the other.
Recording sessions for the first volume were fussy affairs. Due to disputes and personal conflicts coming to a head during the sessions, the band suffered a significant loss when Dave Gregory left the group, having been a member since 1979. This left the band’s principal songwriters Partridge and bassist-singer Colin Moulding as XTC’s sole members. As good as the material is on Wasp Star even without Gregory’s involvement – this is still XTC we’re talking about here, after all – they were heading toward the end of their road together. But even so, they still had plenty to say as a band that fit in very well with potent sets of themes that listeners can trace throughout the Apple Venus material and in their catalogue as a whole.
“The Wheel and the Maypole” reflects many of the things the band had been writing about since 1986’s landmark Skylarking album at least. It’s a latter day quintessential XTC track that connects the concepts of love, mortality, and the cycles of nature together into a single statement. Not a bad way to cap off what turned out to be their final album. As an arrangement, the song melds the two approaches on each of the volumes, with jangly guitar-based rock that marks the second volume meeting the delicate strings and woodwinds of the first.
Andy Partridge of XTC, performing with the band in Toronto, February 1980. image:Jean-Luc Ourlin.
“The Wheel and the Maypole” emerged out of two ideas for songs Partridge was tinkering with that turned out to fit very well together. Like the two sets of songs for their respective volumes, the combination contains a vital duality. One section concerns the metaphorical earthen pot to hold the love between two people, complete with rural and earthy sexual imagery; plows and furrows, rabbits and burrows, seeds and valleys, and sticks with Aunt Sally’s head. The latter is a reference to a casual game played in rural English pubs and gardens. This section is about building things up, building them bigger all around to hold the things we make as we strive toward whatever earthly goals we’ve got in mind for ourselves.
The other section of the song is decidedly more cosmic in scale. It has less to do with building up and more to do with the exact opposite, with stars and planets falling apart, feeding each other, and then being reborn into new heavenly bodies over eons of time. The contrast between the earthbound first section and the more celestial second section is striking. Yet, both these expressions of nature are related. “The Wheel and the Maypole” is about how the universe unfolds in relation to our lives, our world, and everything we experience through our limited perception filters that make everything around us seem so fixed and permanent to us.
“The Wheel and the Maypole” makes the point that, when we realize how limited our perceptions are, knowledge of the finite nature of our lives and of everything we know can be a source of enlightenment, not despair:
Yes, everything decays
Forest tumbles down to make the soil
Planets fall apart
Just to feed the stars and stuff their larders
And what made me think we’re any better
And what made me think we’d last forever
Was I so naive?
Of course it all unweaves …
~ “The Wheel and the Maypole” by XTC
As the maypole dance of life continues, the ties that bind us to the world will eventually unwind until all is undone, and the wheel turns to start the dance all over again. This is not good or bad. It’s just something that is. The question is: what do we do with ourselves in the interim? Given that everything decays, ends, and becomes transformed, why not consider what that means and what we can do before everything unfolds and unwinds? How do we make our lives as meaningful as we can, use our time as well as we can, and make our world as safe and welcoming to as many people as we can?
Because, what else is there?
Besides the powerful existential takeaways in this song, “The Wheel and the Maypole” also feels like a retroactive comment on the band that put it out as the last song on their last album. Of course things fall apart over time, even after having gone through the fire together as a band. The fact that this song is so celebratory, so characteristic, so joyous, so rocking, makes the prospect of things coming to an end for XTC to be less a sad occasion, and more an expression of contented resignation, ownership, and pride over what they made together. What better way to end a unique and valuable run as a group who always stayed true to their artistic vision despite resistance and to the delight of fans from all over the world?
XTC broke up quietly but officially in 2006.
Andy Partridge is an active songwriter and label owner today, lending his talents to various projects over the years in collaboration with other artists. You can learn more about his recent activities and buy official XTC releases and merch at ape.uk.net. To learn more about his songwriting process, and to get a great sense of him as a raconteur as well as a pop writer, check out the Andy Partridge interview on Sodajerker.
After a period away from the music business, Colin Moulding put out two new releases with former XTC drummer Terry Chambers under the name TC & I; 2017’s 4-track EP Great Aspirations and 2019’s live document Naked Flames. The duo recorded the latter in their hometown of Swindon and included several XTC gems in their set list. You can learn about how they came together in this interview on Billboard.com.
If it’s more XTC music you crave, you can always review this list of 20 great XTC songs, also written by your humble host.
Finally, if you haven’t checked out the excellent 2017 XTC documentary This is Pop, do yourself a favour. You can watch the trailer for the movie right here.
Enjoy!
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