This CD includes our signature song, You Should Always Keep in Touch With Your Friends. Your wedding was the first one I'd been to where I had to buy a present (before that, I think there were only aunts' weddings, and my role there was just to stay out of trouble). I was still a student, so I went for one budget item and one token item. For the latter, I thought the one-line joke of giving you a record by The Wedding Present had a certain pathos to it, especially given the title of the song. As for the second-hand trifle set that I got in a shop in Sharrowvale Road (before it got gentrified to cater for the likes of me and my no-longer-a-student budget), well, I can imagine that was a disappointment. Sorry. I think the postcard I sent you and Maggie — you still didn't have a telephone then, your mother told me — might have taken a vaguely sarcastic or stroppy tone. Sorry x2..
After that single, I didn't own a version of You Should Always Keep in Touch With Your Friends myself until seventeen and a half years later: the day in 2004 (as described a few weeks ago) when I had a Fopp binge. This was probably the most expensive thing I bought that day, if you're measuring sheer weight: £5 for only 12 minutes of music. It must be the very first Peel Session by The Wedding Present, from early 1986, when we were both still in Cambridge. It has the original Strange Fruit Records, and you don't seem to be able to get this CD any more. Since you can get collections of all The Wedding Present's Peel sessions very cheaply, I can't imagine many people would want it (though I bet the original 12" version is a collectors' item).
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