Talk:Rest Awhile

One of the great lost hit singles

How this ended up on an odds and sods collection and was never released as the lead single of a major album I will never know. This tune is in my Top 10 Giants songs, and is pretty much perfect. Musically, the drums and Maby bass really power up the Giants and it's one of those songs that sticks to a 60s dynamic of less is more clocking in below 3 mins with ease. The song always reminds me of Michael Landy, an artist who destroyed every possession he had (he's well worth looking up) and shows Linnell at his most John Lennonesque, as from the starting point of throwing away his clothes, getting a killer sunburn he still manages a car crash and perhaps the only chess feud recorded in popular song. It's a surreal tune that Lennon would have been proud of and Linnell, as our manic unreliable narrator maintains a kind of warped empathy that keeps us hooked in following this lunatic around. The fact that it's got an amazing riff and deranged chorus helps. I like to play it to people who've only heard Birdhouse and Istanbul and have the band labeled as light early 90s pop. A great song. (Mr Tuck) 18:30, April 5, 2015

It's clear to me that TMBG hasn't always released singles with the same ideas as most other bands intent on popular success. You've alluded to this with your various comments on the Apollo 18-era choice of singles, but in actuality I don't think TMBG would have been able to sustain their early success no matter what they released, mainly because of the dominance of grunge and boy bands, and the tail-end of new jack swing in the first half of the '90s. (Their grunge-like attempt, such as it was, wasn't going to do it.) They could have released "Rest Awhile" in the late '90s--the alternative radio stations of the time here in the US were playing stuff like Cake, Marcy Playground, and Soul Coughing, so I'm surprised TMBG didn't find a solid toehold there. Anyway, this is quite the rocking tune, and only a tiny part of it lets me down personally: the lack of a different word to rhyme with "fell" in the second verse. And I can't think of many chess feuds in popular music either, unless you want to include "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'"^[1], or maybe the musical Chess, or the song "Your Move" by Yes. :-) --MisterMe (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (EST)