It was a very difficult choice between this track and another, later Fits single, "Down In Splendour." "Splendour" is one of the most perfect pop songs I can think of, easily the equal of Badfinger's best downer-clouded bliss. (You can hear it on their excellent 2nd LP, Melt.) However, I chose this one because about 2 months before that ChooChoo Train single, my life raft was the debut Straitjacket Fits EP "Life In One Chord." That record marked the first appearance of "Sparkle," but it wasn't plucked as a single until the issue of the band's first full-length LP, Hail. It's a good one too, sort of like the early Smiths if Morrissey had been content to sing along with the music rather than across it.

Straitjacket Fits boasted two great songwriters: Shayne Carter (Bored Games, Doublehappys) and Andrew Brough (The Orange). Have you ever known one of those two-songwriter bands where one guy is perceived as the artistic visionary who spearheads the band, and the other guy is allotted a few songs per set/record out of deference or persistence or underlying threats? It can create plenty of inter-band resentment if everybody hates the other guy's songs. But perhaps even worse in terms of souring band politics is when everybody likes the other guy's songs better than the visionary's. I wonder if that isn't what happened here. Andrew Brough has 5 songwriter credits between the bands first two albums, but also two of their three singles from the same period; while some of Carter's material is absolutely brilliant, he just never had the easy way with a pop hook that Brough does. I wonder if this is why Andrew Brough left the band just as they signed to Arista in the US. Certainly his absence didn't help their lackluster third LP, Blow, which is a terrible name for a record. You should never hit hack rock critics a lob like that.

Brough is currently in the highly recommended Bike. Carter is doing a Straitjacket Fits reunion tour in New Zealand, in which Brough has elected not to participate. The video for "Down In Splendour" can be seen on Second Season: Flying Nun DVD II.