‘The song got us signed but I hated it’: how Haircut 100 made Fantastic Day

Nick Heyward, songwriter/vocals, guitar

If I’d been sitting down when I wrote Fantastic Day, it would have been a different song, but I was standing up in front of a chocolate-brown wall with the names of all my favourite punk bands scribbled on it. I was envisioning the future. It was 1978, and my family had moved across London to a place called the Ski Club of Great Britain where my parents ran the bar. We lived in the basement and I had a tiny room that was like a ship’s cabin.

I was drawn to bands with a guitarist who played and sang – my heroes were Andy Partridge of XTC and David Byrne of Talking Heads. I was learning to sing and play at the same time using my homemade mic stand and the only chords I knew then: D, C and G. I started singing “fantastic day” over the top, probably just because of the exuberance of being young. I thought: “I suppose this is a song, and I suppose it’s my song.” It seemed to come from this unconscious, magical realm. I also recall thinking: “Well, that’s obviously already been done.” But when I asked around, no one else could think of a song called Fantastic Day. Back then, it was hard to check.

The verses came together more consciously, while the lyrics evolved over time. Early on, I never wrote words down – as a child, I used to stammer and get stuck, so I’d learned to keep going by not trying too hard to remember something. I liked making things up on the spur of the moment, inspired by whatever was around me. I still do that now. The opening lines – “Well there’s a great amount of strain about getting on that train” – came quite late in the day, after I saw Sheena Easton performing her song 9 to 5 on TV series The Big Time.

I didn’t consciously make it a bittersweet song, but there is a sense of light and dark to it, of duality. I was working in commercial art in my late teens, in a room with no natural light, and it was driving me mad. All I wanted to do was music. I think that’s reflected in some parts of the song, like the spoken word bit: “I tried to shave myself / Be a happier guy.” I think that was only added when we were in the studio recording it. Bob Sargeant brought the same expertise producing the record as George Martin – he knew I was a Beatles nut and added the trumpet fanfare. I wanted to tip my hat to She Loves You. Bob understood how to do it musically, and that was by adding the jazzy G sixth chord.

The song goes right back to the birth of me having that vision of doing what I do now, of imagining it for so long and then finding myself actually doing it. I’ve taken that mayfly moment all around the world, and I’ve never got bored of singing Fantastic Day. Every time I do it I feel totally fresh, just like the first time.

Les Nemes, bass guitar

I hate Fantastic Day! I shouldn’t because it’s the song that got us signed. We did a showcase for Arista – I think we’d played two songs and we weren’t doing very well. I suddenly thought: “Well, why don’t we try that one I hate?” So we played Fantastic Day and they went: “Wow, we could have something here!” I mean, I guess it is a very strong chorus. It’s very catchy, isn’t it?

Most of the Pelican West album is quite funky, but some of the other poppy songs such as Snow Girl and Milk Film feel more interesting to me. Being inspired by what Nick was doing brought something else out in my basslines. I’d try not to go for the obvious. I’d think: “What would Ronnie Lane or Tina Weymouth play?” But because Fantastic Day was written at the beginning of our playing careers, before we really knew what we were doing, the chords in the verses just go from C to G, C to G and it was hard for me not to follow them – which is what I did.

In the early days, we hopped on every bandwagon going. We were a punk band, a ska band, a mod band. We tried everything, and Fantastic Day was always there, just performed in different styles. The original, when we were called Moving England, was quite urgent, more Talking Heads, and it even had an element of the Jam to it. I preferred it then, I’ve got to admit. It was raw. Then it developed into this teeny pop song, a little bit more polite.

I probably sound really down on it, but I’m not really – it led to some great moments. When we first toured the US, we stayed at a rock’n’roll hotel in California and Raf Ravenscroft, the guy who played sax on Baker Street, was sunning himself by the pool. We got chatting and invited him to our show and he stepped up and jammed on Fantastic Day.

When we finally went back to the States a couple of years ago, we’d meet people who were seeing the band for the first time, 42 years after becoming fans. They’d say things like: “That was the song that got me through cancer when I was 16.” I remember seeing a woman standing in the audience with her husband’s arms round her shoulders and when we started playing the intro to Fantastic Day tears began streaming down her face – we were filling up on stage, too. So although I have said, “If I was to choose one song to take out of the set, that would be it,” I do recognise what it means to people.