Lounging There Trying (original) (raw)
Hatfield & The North performing at the Rainbow Theatre, London supporting Soft Machine 1973
Phil wrote Lounging There Trying in 1974 during the 2 years that Hatfield & The North existed.
It made its first documented appearance in the band’s setlist in October 1974, and remained on the Hatfield’s setlist til the end. Initially it followed another tune of Phil’s Aigrette, in the set, but following their appearance as tracks 1 and 2 of The Rotters’ Club, it followed Share It.
Jonathan Coe author of the novel: The Rotters’ Club writes:
“As a guitarist, and as a composer, Phil Miller was truly unique. The first music of his that I ever heard was the tune ‘Lounging There Trying’ from Hatfield’s album The Rotters’ Club. Those three minutes were enough to make me a lifelong fan. They sent me back to his earlier work, with Delivery and Matching Mole, and made me a loyal follower of his playing with National Health and on all the solo and In Cahoots albums. I never really got to know Phil in person, but I feel that I knew him intimately through his wonderful music. All the contradictions are there, and are reconciled: savage energy, combined with breathtaking tenderness; great intelligence and complexity of thought, combined with stunning emotional depths. I believe he was a genius, not to put too fine a point on it. To me, he was always in that small, select group of artists who got it exactly right, and for that reason his work became a kind of beacon, a guiding light, and a profound influence on my own writing. In particular Dada Soul (the only thing Phil and Herm wrote together?) was a direct inspiration for my novel What a Carve Up, as I said when I played it on the Stuart Maconie show some years back”.
When his novel The Rotters’ Club was first published, Jonathan sent Phil a copy with this letter:
9th Feb 2001
Dear Phil Miller,
I thought you might like to see a copy of a new novel of mine, which is about to hit the bookshops in a couple of weeks. As you can see I have pinched the title from a record with which you were closely involved, and which was very important to me as a teenager.
I contacted Pip Pyle and obtained permission to quote from his lyrics at the end of the book. I’d also like to send copies to Dave Stewart and Richard Sinclair but I don’t have addresses for them. If you could let me know how to contact them I’d be more than grateful.
Many thanks for that and for all the great music you’ve written which has rebounded inside my head for the last twenty-five years or so.
Sincerely,
Jonathan C
The Rotters’ Club is a 2001 novel by British author Jonathan Coe.[1][2] It is set in Birmingham during the 1970s, and inspired by the author’s experiences at King Edward’s School, Birmingham. The title is taken from the album The Rotters’ Club by experimental rock band Hatfield and the North.[3
Coe has published two sequels to the book. The Closed Circle picked up the characters’ lives at the very end of the 1990s. Middle England opens in 2010 and addresses issues such as Brexit and climate change.
Scores
Audio files
1974 Hatfield &The North: Phil Miller gtrs, Pip Pyle drums, Richard Sinclair bass, Dave Stewart organ & electric piano.
1. Lounging There Trying