There’s a shimmer in the heatwave haze of brit pop’s golden age, and in 1995, that shimmer had a name:
‘Girl From Mars‘. Ash, the teenage trio from Northern Ireland, dropped this interstellar indie pop blast when frontman Tim Wheeler was just 18 years old—a fact that feels almost unfair considering how sticky and timeless this tune remains.
Built on bright, fuzzed-up guitar hooks, sugar-rush melodies, and a dash of sci-fi innocence, ‘Girl From Mars’ plays like a postcard from a dream you had in your teens—only you can’t remember if you kissed her or if she melted into stardust. It’s got that slacker romanticism that sat somewhere between the buzzsaw tones of early Teenage Fanclub and the pop-smart wistfulness of The Auteurs—but way less self-conscious.
The lyrics are adorably naïve: “She doesn’t know if Earth is really worth it.” But that’s the magic. Wheeler and co. weren’t trying to be clever—just cool in that effortless, indie-accidental way. There’s a gleam in the tune that suggests this was never about impressing critics—just about getting the girl, or maybe losing her, or maybe imagining her entirely.
Rolling Craze, Toasting Indie 