If, as I said a fortnight ago, James's Seven was the soundtrack to things falling apart in 1999, then this (released after Seven) was the soundtrack to everything starting to come together six years earlier.
As I was going off James in the early nineties, I might not have gone to see them play live, had it not been for the fact that they were supporting Neil Young — in Finsbury Park on my 28th birthday. It was the first time they'd played songs from Laid live in England (the album had been recorded but not released at the time), and I loved them immediately. The chorus of Sometimes, in particular, stuck with me, and I was singing it to myself for weeks before the single came out. I sang it even more after that, walking back from M's bedsit late at night, and during the four weeks I took off in September to use my holiday allocation, reading William Gibson
I still think it's one of James's best songs: the nervous energy and the reappearance of a young man seeking danger — in this case wanting to be struck by lightning — to give him some meaning (as in the earlier song Johnny Yen). It should be corny to use the sea and a storm as metaphors for the energy that flows through us, but they pull it off brilliantly.
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