SF0194 Beauty lies in the eye

Ian Forth
24 September 2025
Music Podcast

All eyes on this collection of tracks about watching, looking and seeing

Inalternative post punk

I had a few drafts when considering the title for this episode. There’s no shortage of decent quotations concerning eyes, and some really excellent ones, viz:-

When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.
Cathy Guiswite

“But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking out of the window at the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat.”
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“His eyes were the same colour as the sea in a postcard someone sends you when they love you, but not enough to stay.”
Warsan Shire

But perhaps the most apt for our purposes, the most fitting for our podcast, is the Grand Old Duke of Quotes himself:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
Albert Einstein

But in the end I went with, well, the title you can see above.

Lots to love, as there always is, in the episode. There’s a reminder how good musically and lyrically Magazine were, slightly thwarted by the limited vocal range of Howard Devoto. At the time of writing the Water From Your Eyes album from which “Playing Classics” is taken had just been released, and is, in my opinion, one of the albums of 2025 thus far (‘Thus far’ being September 24). And talking of playing classics, we finish on an olde time classic, ‘Pale Blue Eyes’.

And if you are reading this before the end of 2025, don’t forget to vote in our All-Time Listeners Poll. Choose your favourite 10 songs that have been played on the show, put them in order if you have time (#1 being your very favourite), and send them to iandeekerforth@gmail.com.

Thanks!