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Happy Birthday Maria

from First album by The Shrieking Violets

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about

Maria Barrett-Smith was the first girl I ever fell in love with. She was arty, musical, rebellious. She was in the year below me at school. Her mum owned a chalet at a holiday park in Camber Sands; we went and stayed one weekend and trawled the car boot fairs and junk sales of East Sussex, where I bought my favourite ever pair of vintage wool trousers (grey with lime checks and turn-ups), a '60s-patterned green handbag I still own to this day and a De La Soul 7". When the Polyphonic Spree played in Folkestone her mum sewed us white, Polyphonic Spree-style gowns for the occasion. I carved 'I ♥ MBS' onto the desk during one of my exams; someone had carved 'I ♥ NRB' next time I sat there. Her birthday was in August. During the long summer after my GCSEs I wrote this song for her and played it down the phone, in what I thought was a romantic/creative gesture. We lost touch years ago.

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from First album, released October 1, 2003

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The Shrieking Violets Manchester, UK

When I was at school I didn't say very much, but wrote copiously. My ambitions were to be editor of the Times, a rock 'n' roll music journalist or on Top of the Pops. I felt like if you weren't loud you were ignored, but my year 9 English teacher, Mr Hodgkins, noticed that I did have things to say. He once said he knew that I was 'no shrinking violet' so I decided to be a 'Shrieking Violet'. ... more

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