Great, Great Songs #12 - Wire - Outdoor Miner

Wire. Looking good...

This short-but-sweet classic from the legendary Brit post-punkers Wire doesn't really sound like anything else the band did but it is in my humble opinion, their best song. The sweet singing, melodies and pop sensibility of the tune leave you hankering for more of Colin Newman's undoubted song writing genius. The lyrics read like an acid trip scrawled on a napkin and perhaps that is what helps to make it a great song. Check this version, far more recent than the photo above, of Newman and co performing the song on ukelele. And here's the lyrics in full:

No blind spots in the leopard's eyes
Can only help to jeopardize
The lives of lambs, the shepherd cries
An afterlife for a silverfish
Eternal dust less ticklish
Than the clean room, a houseguest's wish
He lies on his side, is he trying to hide?
In fact it's the earth, which
he's known since birth
Face worker, a serpentine miner
A roof falls, an underliner
Of leaf structure, the egg timer