Shiny & New Turns 2: #5 "Number 1" - Goldfrapp

“You’re my favourite moment / You’re my Saturday”

Ah, Goldfrapp. I am yet to completely penetrate their back catalogue to the point where I feel I am passionate about their music. I eagerly download their new music, I listen to their old music fairly regularly but they have never really clicked with me to the point where I would list them as one of my favourite acts. Saying that, their last album Head First is possibly my second personal favourite, but more importantly, I can say with complete certainty that "Number 1" is one of my favourite songs. Ever. See what I mean? We have a dysfunctional relationship do me and Will & Alison.

This song transports me back to the summer of 2008 when after spending a weekend – sometimes even a day – in the company of the first person to make me feel intoxicated and heady just by being with them, I would make the journey back from Oxford to Coventry. The railway was having engineering works or something between Leamington Spa and Coventry, so I would take a replacement coach from Leamington home. This happened for a few weeks, and each time I spent that dull coach journey listening to whatever new music my boyfriend had given me. “Number 1” was the very first song by Goldfrapp I listened to on my iPod that I hadn’t heard before (I knew stuff like “Strict Machine” and “Ooh La La”), and all I remember is listening in this awe-struck daze, under a pink and yellow early evening sky in a stuffy coach, exhausted and drunk on love.

I haven’t quite worked out the canine references in the song (or the video) but I think it’s easy to understand that the most important point the song makes is the person Alison drawls on about is the most important person in her world, the one person her entire universe revolves around, the one person she thinks about night and day, the one person she isn’t really herself with out. I can relate to that.