Mork n Mindy

Album: Spare Ribs (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Mork & Mindy is a American sitcom that ran from 1978-1982 starring Robin Williams as an alien on Earth. This grim look back at an '80s childhood finds Sleaford Mods vocalist Jason Williamson recalling his early teenage years living on a concreted estate.

    I looked out on the throw outside of my window
    Outside there wasn't anything nice to see
    I wanted things to smell, like meadows not like hell
    Dying dandelions and bumble bees


    Williamson told Mojo he based on this song on when he was about 14 after his mother re-married a professional builder from Grantham, Lincolnshire. "He'd got this business up and running in Grantham and got a lot of work, so he'd built himself this new house and we moved in," the singer said. "It was a really big house, but he'd built it in the middle of an estate we lived on anyway. So you'd look out of your lovely double-glazed window with your Tudor lead design on it and there'd be the next-door neighbors at the back door arguing. It was just the boredom of it, and the isolation."
  • Sleaford Mods recorded this song for their 11th album, Spare Ribs. The record includes their first guest vocalist spots: Billy Nomates on this song and Amy Taylor from Amyl and the Sniffers on "Nudge It."
  • Bedroom producer and singer-songwriter Tor Maries, aka Billy Nomates, is a veteran of two bands. Maries first took inspiration for a solo venture when she attended a Sleaford Mods gig in Southampton in 2018. She identified strongly with the bands cathartic rawness: "I thought, why wouldn't I have a go at that?" she told Mojo. After sending out demos, Maries got an enthusiastic reply from Sleaford Mods multi-instrumentalist Andrew Fearn, as well as Jason Williamson's wife Claire, who became her manager.
  • Sleaford Mods released this as their lead single from Spare Ribs on October 30, 2020. It topped the UK's Official Vinyl Singles Chart spending a week at #1 but didn't enter the main multi-format tally.
  • Filmmaker Ben Wheatley directed the accompanying music video which features the two band members and Billy Nomates performing the song. Wheatley has won multiple awards for his films, including the Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for Comedy for Sightseers (2012) and the Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award for Free Fire (2016). He also directed Editors' music clip for their 2013 song, "Formaldehyde."
  • Spare Ribs became Sleaford Mods most commercially successful album to date peaking at #4 in the UK. It also was their first record to reach the top 10 in Germany and top 50 in Australia.

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