2000 Great Songs #1341: Devotion

England's Glory only recorded one proper album, a collection of glam-ish rock shelved in 1973 and only seeing release many years later after frontman Peter Perrett received a little more attention with his post-punk/new wave act The Only Ones (of "Another Girl, Another Planet" fame). The band also included Perrett's brother-in-law, who went on to be the original bassist for Squeeze.

Album opener "Devotion" sounds like a bonus track from Lou Reed's Berlin (also from 1973). There's a deceptively jaunty, jangly guitar riff before it slips into darker territory, Perrett firmly in Reed mode (or maybe the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano on some of that band's darker songs), and then it pivots into something... strange, like an amateur off-off-Broadway production of a wacky glam musical, out-of-tune backing vocals and all. It's an odd little song, kinda off-putting and over before you know it, but there's something about its unvarnished dorkiness I find surprisingly haunting.

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