The Feeling Listless Soundtrack 1.0: How Do You Talk To An Angel?

Written by Stephanie Tyrell, Barry Coffing & Steve Tyrell

Music When I first moved into my tower block, the council had installed a communal BSB Squarial on the roof. At first it picked up their Sport Channel, but when Sky absorbed the fledging satellite company this was changed to Sky One. Which meant that during the early nineties I could enjoy the Johnny Depp series ’21 Jump Street’ and the other US imports the main channels at the time wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. ‘The Heights’ was one of these shows, Aaron Spelling's attempt to transfer ‘Melrose Place’ to Seattle and set it around a rock band. And each episode would end with the band singing a new song. It sounds awful, but it was actually very very good, partly helped by the quality of the writing, but also the unknown performers. In one episode the drummer finally managed get the girl of his dreams into the bedroom – and she fell in love with him because he was the one who wanted to wear the condom. OK – perhaps it was in the playing.

In the first episode, the band was looking for a new lead singer and stumbled upon Jamie Waters. In the show he had fallen for a backing vocalist and wrote her a poem, which eventually became ‘How Do You Talk To An Angel’. The spin-off single did great business in the US (I believe it went to number one) but tanked here. No one watched on either side of the atlantic and the show was cancelled (what is it with me and cancelled shows?). Waters tried to go on and get a career on the back of this single but that never really happened either (the album, which I found in a second hand shop in Birmingham is very bad). But here is the single for you to enjoy. It’s a bit dated (a bit?), but the words work quite well. Expect Travis to cover it next Glastonbury. [Originally written over twelve years ago]

[Commentary: On the upside it was memorable enough for Buzzfeed to write about it last year. What I didn't mention above is that I ended up owning three copies of the song. On vinyl single, on a cassette of the soundtrack and a cd single. The b-side was Natalie, man.]