Once upon a time there was a band that made a record called Good Feeling; and on it was an early single: the dodgy, dodgy “U16 girls”. According to the wikip’s straightlaced attempt to describe the song:

The song is a tongue in cheek warning about the dangers of getting into a relationship with a girl who, despite looking much older, is under 16 years old (the legal age of consent in Travis’s native Scotland), hence the name “U16 Girls” meaning Under 16 Girls.

As with much of Good Feeling, there’s an incredible abundance of joy. “Tied to the 90’s”, “Good Feeling”, “All I wanna do is Rock”; all of these are energetic, and they’re exciting.  “U16 girls” sums up the 1997 Travis philosophy: have fun, just be careful doing it, kids (no really, careful now).

Personally, I’m not a fan of post-Good Feeling Travis. The records are amiable enough, but there’s nothing that really captures the fun of that first record and its handful of extravagant, extroverted songs. I don’t know if Travis are ashamed of their first dalliance with low-brow humour and questionable sentiments (the revisionist cover for the reissue seems to suggest this might be the case), but hey ho. We’re still left with that Good Feeling.