Steve Durban wrote...
>
> Graham Parker "Real Macaw" (Choice cuts: "life get's better", "you
> can't take love for granted", "passive resistance", anniversary").
> For my money this is his most underrated disc.  I wonder, could be
> wrong, if a happily married Graham Parker was not what people were
> wanting at that time. Not that it's all bliss on the disc but it sure
> has it's moments of love and contentment. Life get's better yeah...

So great to see GP's track "Life Gets Better" written about here. For my 
mind this is a fantastic pop single. I was working as a 16 year old junior 
at the then biggest radio station in Sydney when this came out, and they had 
it on high rotation, so i just loved hearing it, and what i didn't realise 
is that it was the beginning of my 'awakening' to this style of song 
writing. From there i bought the album, and though i didn't know much about 
Graham Parker before then (apart from the incredible 'Don't Ask Me 
Questions'), i really loved it. Haven't heard it for a long time, so i'll 
have to track a copy of the album down. I picked up the song Life Gets 
Better a few years ago on a GP comp, and when it came on, the memories of 
how important that song is came flooding back. IN fact, when reviews started 
hitting for my first few albums and they talked about my 'similarity' to 
Elvis Costello, what i really thought they were hearing was similarities to 
GP, particularly "Life Gets Better". It was definitely an important song for 
me..

Thanks for indulging my reminiscence..

MC