It was funny how bad XTC was reamed for “Dear God”. Although the song is anti-God, having a little kid start the song really cheesed people off but if you listen to it, it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
I have their whole catalog on my MP3 player.
I pretty much skip the first two albums and most of “Drums and Wires”, but everything from Black Sea on (with the exception of “Melt the Guns”) is top notch....And I just listened again the other night to The Dukes of Stratosphear, amazing how they paid tribute to that era, but still made them work on their own.
Probably my all-time favorite Partridge composition is “Ladybird” from “Mummer”.
The biggest problem with Dear God, is that it totally went against the feel of the entire Skylarking album, it just didn’t fit....The song it replaced, “Mermaid Smiled” fit much better into the concept.
Funny how over time, Andy actually finally admitted that Todd Rundgren did a pretty bang up job producing Skylarking.
XTC was way underrated, but "Skylarking" was masterful, BTW, produced by Todd Rundgren.
Mark