Before his Top 10 hit “You’re Gorgeous” knocked him off course, Stephen “Baby Bird” Jones had written and recorded over 400 demos on cheap keyboards and guitar. The limited edition, DIY albums he released between 1988 and 1994 (I Was Born A Man, Bad Shave, Fatherhood, The Happiest Man Alive, Dying Happy) consistently topped the indie charts in their day and constitute a cycle of forlorn, heartfelt bedroom symphonies that chronicle unemployed outsider Jones’ passage into adulthood. Prolific and poignant, this is how a chart-less Jarvis might have sounded.
Advertisement