Day 42 · Sunday, August 16, 2026
Someone To Drive You Home by The Long Blondes album cover
indie rock · 2006

Someone To Drive You Home

The Long Blondes

Why it matters

The Long Blondes turned kitchen-sink drama into pop, casting Kate Jackson as the older woman, the femme fatale, the woman watching a younger rival with narrowed eyes.

"Once & Never Again" is a pep talk to a nineteen-year-old delivered with something close to envy, and that unease is what separates the band from its post-punk revival peers — the words know too much for the age of the singer. Dorian Cox writes guitar lines that scissor and jangle at once, and "Giddy Stratospheres" rides them into pure adrenaline while the lyric stays cold-eyed about ambition. The whole record works this seam between the thrill of a great chorus and the sourness of what it's actually saying. Few debuts sound this glamorous while trusting you to notice the resentment underneath.

Listen

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Tracklist

  1. 01Lust in the Movies (2021 Remaster)3:05
  2. 02Five Ways To End It6:07
  3. 03Once & Never Again (2021 Remaster)3:00
  4. 04Fulwood Babylon4:05
  5. 05Only Lovers Left Alive (2021 Remaster)3:59
  6. 06The Whippet Fancier3:47
  7. 07Giddy Stratospheres (2021 Remaster)5:08
  8. 08Who Are You To Her4:30
  9. 09In the Company of Women (2021 Remaster)2:41
  10. 10Never To Be Repeated3:43
  11. 11Heaven Help the New Girl (2021 Remaster)3:55
  12. 12All Bar One Girls4:10
  13. 13Separated by Motorways (2021 Remaster)2:20
  14. 14I'm Coping3:14
  15. 15You Could Have Both (2021 Remaster)4:48
  16. 16Last Night On Northgate Street2:54
  17. 17Swallow Tattoo (2021 Remaster)2:31
  18. 18Platitudes3:18
  19. 19Weekend Without Makeup (2021 Remaster)4:11
  20. 20Melville Farr1:37
  21. 21Madame Ray (2021 Remaster)3:32
  22. 22The Unbearable Lightness of Buildings5:42
  23. 23A Knife for the Girls (2021 Remaster)5:06