All of This and Nothing: You Cross My Path

"All of This and Nothing" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year, Portions For Foxes, or Better Things series. It alternates between Obscure and Famous songs; feel free to argue either way if you're so inclined. See the introduction for more.

We swing back to Obscure this week with a song from The Charlatans from 2008. (This is the modern UK-based Charlatans, sometimes referred to as Charlatans UK; there was a US band with the same name in the '60s. This UK band of Charlatans, I'm happy to see, is still out there.)

They'd been putting out records for almost twenty years, and had some up-and-down fame - I think more in the UK than the US, but bands are quirky and have odd careers, so maybe they were massive hits in Poland or Thailand somewhere along the way, too.

You Cross My Path was the title song of that record, and it's just a great rocking song, in the old "you don't want to mess with me" genre.

It's not entirely clear who the singer is aiming the song at, or why, but he makes his intentions clear:

You cross my path I'll take you down

Or, to be even more pointed that than refrain, slightly later in the song he tells us

I will rise again and I'll take you down like that
You will die up there alone, I'll take you down like that

Given that this was a band well into their career, there's a non-zero chance that it's "about" a DJ or rival band - I'm deliberately not doing any research because I don't want to find out if that's the case. I like this song in part because I can fill in the blanks - I suggest you listen to it with the same openness.

But do listen: it's a barn-burner, full of energy and emotion and life. And do not piss off that singer, if you know what's good for you.