THE FT TOP 100 SONGS 90. The Only Ones - “Another Girl Another Planet”
THE FT TOP 100 SONGS
90. The Only Ones - “Another Girl Another Planet”
I cannot remember how, or why I had tickets to see The One, Peter Perrett’s mid-nineties bands playing on the fact that The Only Ones were no longer the only ones. Maybe they were supporting some no-mark Brit-pop new wave band who were trying to claim some post-punk lineage. Whatever. They were terrible and I vacillated between ignoring them and taking the piss. What a lovely audience I must have been. It was almost certainly the beginning of my disillusionment with live music, and if I don’t blame The One completely for falling out of love with live music, they had a hand in it.
They did however show the power of “the one good song”. After six or seven of these slidgy guitar based crawls, Perrett shouted something along the lines of “we know what you’re really here for” (the answer surely being the headline act). And The One ripped into “Another Girl Another Planet”. I stopped moaning, I stopped ignoring. I might even have jumped about a bit.
Sci-fi love songs are nearly always greee-eeat. Perhaps it is because they often have funny electronic noises in them, making them novelty hits sonically (I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper?). Lyrically the astronaut love story will be stuffed with references to ray-guns and zipping through space (cf the theme to Fireball XL-5). So even if The Only Ones missed out on the bleeps, and were about as direct as you can get lyrically, they were still writing a sci-fi song.
Another girl - one of pops perennial obsessions. Another planet - this is stupid sci-fi new wave fun. Set your pop phasers to stunning.
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fivelongdays on September 10th, 2006
Peter Perrett was always Wreckless Eric, had Wreckless Eric had some music lessons and a guitar problem.
What I’m trying to say here is: “Whole Wide World” had better be in here, somewhere.
Mike Swift on February 27th, 2007
Another Girl, Another Planet is one of those rare, perfectly executed pieces of ‘pop’ music. Peter’s adanoidal vocals, the other Peter’s soaring guitar solo make it a classic. Although the group disbanded in 1982 it’s noteworthy that CBS have not deleted any of their music & continue to sell substantial numbers of their recordings.
Ninnis on April 19th, 2007
Mate Another girl another planet is not a song about sci fi space travel its about tripping on drugs and gurnin into different worlds. Its a song written under the influence. Not about actual spaceship travel you tuppy.
FT's CarsmileSteve on April 19th, 2007
haha, laff at the funny man. “about druqs” indeed…
Ashley Knowles on May 2nd, 2007
No, really, it is about drugs.
Pete on May 3rd, 2007
So why is it called “Another Girl Another Planet” then. Why isn’t it just called “Another Drug Another Drug”? Eh?
Some people want to see drug refernces in everything.
FT's jonnygg on July 28th, 2007
First off Pete Baran is talking crap when he says The Only Ones had ‘one good song’. They had loads. The bands’ first three albums are genuine classics packed with Peter Perrett’s twisted and nililistic love songs. In fact, considering they never bothered the charts, The Only Ones are probably one of the most underrated bands of all time. Better than much lionised acts like Big Star or The Saints and a huge influence on the likes of Primal Scream, Echo & the Bunnymen, BRMC etc etc. And yes ‘AGAP’ is about drugs. When you take as much H as Peter Perrett did all songs are about drugs. But its also about love and all that stuff.