Gene - I Can't Help Myself
You have to go all the way back to Gene’s début single Be My Light, Be My Guide for today’s selection. Dropped in as a b-side to that excellent single, I Can’t Help Myself later appeared on the b-sides etc compilation To See The Lights in 1996. The song exists in two equally strong forms: the studio version is a full-band affair, while live or as a session track it was often stripped back to a piano-only track, sounding like a very distant foreshadowing of lead singer Martin Rossiter’s 2012 solo album The Defenestration of St Martin.
Despite being a compilation, and not a studio album proper, To See The Lights is considered so highly by the fans that when Gene’s albums were recently remastered, rather than take its b-sides and other tracks and use them to make expanded 2CD versions of each of the studio albums, To See The Lights was itself given the deluxe treatment, with a second CD consisting of some added session tracks and a live set from the short-lived Phoenix festival in 1996.