It’s midnight o’clock round Threehundredsongs’ house, and that can mean only one thing: miserable music.

Kieran Scragg formed Buffseeds in Devon in 1999, just 23 years after your author was formed, also in Devon. Something about their breakout single Sparkle Me always hit home on an emotional level. Yet when you read the lyrics now, they’re a bit odd and don’t make a great deal of sense:

Suzy was a winner
At every end of year dinner
Drinking the sea and then laughing loudly
Her eyes were made of sequins
They lined up just like penguins
To flap their wings and then kiss her feet

It isn’t clear who Suzy is, but we assume her to be terribly annoying. A lady named Alice later puts in in appearance:

Alice was a poser
The kind who’d take her clothes off
And sit in a room full of frozen faces
I heard she went to find God
In the Indian sub-continent

Usually, Threehundredsongs would fall instantly in love with anyone named Alice. Especially if she’s naked. But this one sounds pretty annoying too. Kieran is clearly a sucker for punishment.

Still, he later went on to become Iko and make even more beautiful music. We’ll be hearing more from them in these pages in due course. In the meantime:

Fall on me
Smash the TV
Rip out the stupid phone, we need a conversation

Quite correct, Kieran. But the redemption:

Your eyes they always sparkle me with love

And, most importantly:

Shake the world alive

Regardless, the album from whence this song originates—The Picture Show—is a thing of beauty from start to finish.

Artist:	Buffseeds
Album:	The Picture Show
Writer:	Kieran Scragg
Producer:	Ian Caple
Released:	2003; Fantastic Plastic/Sanctuary Records