It's been more than 20 years since A Grand Don't Come For Free by The Streets came out, but I heard it again for the first time in ages recently, and it's still a banger of an album, with an emotional kick at the end that I've never felt from any other musical album - before or since.
It's in Empty Cans, the climactic track on Mike Skinner's rambling, beautiful album. The entire thing is a concept album, telling a whole story, and by the end, it's just the narrator alone with empty cans of beers, angry at the betrayal of his mates.
His TV isn't working, so he gets a repair man in, but they get into a dumb fight and then he's left alone, stewing in his anger, and still down a thousand quid.
And then he rewinds the tape and goes back, and gives his mate a chance to help him out, and he gets his thousand pounds back, and has a party and is surrounded by life and love.
Concept albums may have huge ambitions, but there is real power in the simple lesson of Empty Cans, and the wish fulfillment of getting a second chance to do things right. I don't find that in a Pink Floyd album, as magnificent as they are.
I have - to my great regret - sometimes been swallowed by own bitterness and refused to move on from something, but I have also sometimes found forgiveness so easy to grant, and have enjoyed the results.
It can happen to everybody, even if we don't all lose a wad of cash down the back of the telly.
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