As You Will

All 3 bonus songs of Heyday are more like sketches for the soon-to-happen solo careers of the 3 writers. The View is clean jangly guitar pop by Marty, Trance Ending is a dense, brooding and slightly oriental oddity by Steve and As You Will by Peter is quite simple and driving guitar pop with a bit cheap sounding now dated keyboards. Later on all 3 went on to do their solo albums which had same kind of touches all over them.

I haven't really followed PK's solo career although I have all the albums. The first 2 or 3 albums still don't grab me and I always wonder why he wanted to have so much keyboards on his stuff when he is such a good guitar player. Only later on he did better albums that I have liked more. Water Rites, Simple Intent and Love Era/Irony are my favourites from PK. As You Will would have been more at home in PK's debut Manchild & Myth.

As I started to listen this song over and over again I had a feeling that I wouldn't like it that much. In No Certainty Attached-book PK says that the song was recorded in 30 minutes and he was never given a proper chance to make it better. Considering that it was recorded so hastily it sounds really good. I have spent way more than 30 minutes of my life listening to this song. At the first half of the song the guitars sound stylish and uncharacteristically compact for the church. I get annoyed by the cheapo keyboards but the beat keeps on driving. It gets even better from the 2:30 mark as the guitar solo starts the better half of the song. PK's guitar really takes off and shines here and it sounds damn good.

I don't usually remember much from PK's singing and there aren't any brilliant lines with multiple meanings. Hard comparisons to SK there for PK or for anyone. I don't feel that this song would have had any place in the finished LP even with plenty of polish. Although New Season fits to Starfish almost perfectly...Maybe after SK vocals and lyrics revamp this one might have been okay for the LP but that would be a different song. Still I'm entertained and I felt that I was able to play this song many times and I always admired PK's stylish guitars the most.

The View

"Polish your window, don't block out your view"

The View has always been my favourite from the 3 b-sides of Heyday. It's a giddy and optimistic classically constructed jangle pop song that is hard to resist. Later on Marty would do more of this kind of songs but this must be one of the first. Still this song feels very mature and ready despite it's place as a b-side. There is the intro with the determined little jangly riff, a heightened peak with stylish solos, angelic choirs in the end and lyrics that make you feel good and maybe they even offer advices how to tackle the adult life ahead and not just bounce around like an adult ball. There is everything! A little gem of a song. Very english tone and very much of it's time, 1985.

This song would have been right at home in the discography of mid-80's jangly wonders like Lloyd Cole & The Commotions or maybe House Of Love. I have no doubts that a songmeister like Lloyd would have been able to write this one, although he would have added a lot more literary and movie references. I like to read books about alternative realities, where settings and characters are real but the actions are imagined or just slightly different. I would have liked to see that somewhere in 1985 Marty was friends with the guys of House Of Love. Then Marty would have given this song to the band and it would have been their #1 hit. I mean, all the time when I mention at some website that my favourite band is the church, then it recommends me House Of Love. It's frustrating because any simpleton could have written the songs House Of Love had. "She, she, she shine on, shine, shine on". Yeah, it really took a genius to write that chorus?? What if Marty had given "The View" to the band, and now when I look the Spotify/whatever-page of the band, this song would be their most popular one? House Of Love would have at least one song of pure class, instead of songs that pretend to be something that was written by someone who had songwriting skills. Unfortunately in the real world this song The View is just something that the church dumped out of their album. That's just the sign of the best band in the world: their leftovers could have made whole careers for lesser talents.