History Music / MyLifeStory

* MohsScaleOfLyricalHardness - Generally around 6 or 7. A lot of the characters in the songs are jerks, and love, when not merely illusory, is usually just a prelude to adultery and recrimination.

* LondonTown[=/=]UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground - "The Lady Is A Tramp", "Angel" (as in Angel, Islington), and a few others. Also the title of the album ''Mornington Crescent'', supposedly a concept album about Jake moving to London, though it's not exactly obvious.

* CoverVersion - "Outdoor Miner" (Wire), "Mr Boyd" (Roger Hodgson), "Duchess" (TheStranglers).

* UpperClassTwit - The eponymous protagonist of "Sir Richard Steele".

London-based orchestral indiepop band active through TheNineties. Very much a vehicle for frontman Jake Shillingford, whose songs tended to express a very cynical view of modern (and particularly London) life.

By the time orchestral arrangements in pop came back into fashion in the mid-1990s, My Life Story had already been plugging away for several years and were well-placed to take advantage of the trend. Their second album ''The Golden Mile'' brought them moderate success but they never had quite the same critical cachet or popular success as Music/TheDivineComedy. After being dropped by Creator/ParlophoneRecords, a third album, ''Joined Up Talking'', attempted to reposition them as a traditional guitar-bass-drums-keybaords quartet, albeit still with orchestral backing.

By the time orchestral arrangements in pop came back into fashion in the mid-1990s, My Life Story had already been plugging away for several years and were well-placed to take advantage of the trend. Their second album ''The Golden Mile'' brought them moderate success but they never had quite the same critical cachet or popular success as The Divine Comedy, and after being dropped by Parlophone, a third album ''Joined Up Talking'' attempted to reposition them as a traditional guitar-bass-drums-keybaords quartet, albeit still with orchestral backing.

* LotsAndLotsOfCharacters - at one point they had 17 official members.

* LondonTown / TheLondonUnderground - "The Lady Is A Tramp", "Angel" (as in Angel, Islington), and a few others. Also the title of the album ''Mornington Crescent'', supposedly a concept album about Jake moving to London, though it's not exactly obvious.

* {{Music/Instrumentals}} - Only one straight instrumental, "Florence's Theme", though there are also instrumental versions of "Sparkle" (two of which are solo piano interpretations by Danny Turner with no other performers appearing, even Jake himself).

* LongTitle - "There's Nothing For Nobody And Everybody Wants To Be Someone"

* AttentionWhore - the target of many of Jake's lyrical [[TakeThat Take Thats] (which see).

* {{Instrumentals}} - Only one straight instrumental, "Florence's Theme", though there are also instrumental versions of "Sparkle" (two of which are solo piano interpretations by Danny Turner with no other performers appearing, even Jake himself).

* Bowdlerise - "The King Of Kissingdom", in its radio edit, was bowdlerised to remove a drug reference, "The King of Kissingdom made a decree / Go to work on an E" became "...on an ego".

* Instrumentals - Only one straight instrumental, "Florence's Theme", though there are also instrumental versions of "Sparkle" (two of which are solo piano interpretations by Danny Turner with no other performers appearing, even Jake himself).

* CoveredUp - Did this to the obscure 1969 oddity "Mr Boyd", written by future Music/Supertramp man Roger Hodgson.

* LondonTown - "The Lady Is A Tramp", "Angel" (as in Angel, Islington), and a few others. Also the title of the album ''Mornington Crescent'', supposedly a concept album about Jake moving to London, though it's not exactly obvious.

* TakeThat - Jake doesn't like posers and devotes a significant chunk of his repertoire to songs mocking them.

* ExactWords - The Enhanced [=CD=] of ''The Golden Mile'' included a game in which reaching the target score would reward you with a picture of Jake in the nude. If you beat it, you did indeed get to see a nude photo of Jake... as a baby.

* AntiLoveSong - Debuted with one, "Girl A, Boy B, Boy C", and returned to the theme constantly.

* SillyLoveSongs - Surprisingly few as Jake is normally on the cynical end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism, but "I Don't Believe In Love" is a rare example, and for bonus points pulls the same BaitAndSwitch as the trope namer.

* AlwaysSecondBest - to TheDivineComedy. So much so that when The Divine Comedy's contract with their indie label expired, Parlophone ''dropped'' My Life Story and signed them instead.

* IdiosyncraticAlbumArt - A picture on a single-colour background, with the group name beneath. Carried through the first two albums and their attendant singles, and revived for Jake's solo album.
* LeastRhymableWord - discussed in "Emerald Green".