"Under the Milky Way" / The Church

Sometimes (not always) Spotify delivers on the promise. I don't think I'd ever heard this song until the algorithm threw it at me as an option for an 80s Grab Bag playlist -- but the minute I heard it, I knew it had to be in the mix.

But who is The Church? They're from Australia, so right away I ask myself, why do we not hear more about Aussie bands? Think of it: Beyond Men at Work, AC/DC, Crowded House, and INXS, who is there? Olivia Newton-John, Kylie Minogue, the BeeGees? Please. 

But I digress. Just listen to this track (which did in fact apparently crack the U.S. Top 40 in 1988) and what's not to love?

 

That folky acoustic opening draws us in, with its almost incantatory melody, but that's just the tease. It builds ominously from there, with spangly guitar flourishes and layers of synths (do I hear a wheeze of bagpipes?); all those minor and suspended chords keep us uneasy, while the drumbeat drives mercilessly ahead. Songwriter/bassist/frontman Steve Kilbey's languid vocals drip with insinuation ("Wish I knew what you were looking for / Might have known what you would find..."), and I'm hooked on the allusion and confusion. What could be more Eighties than that?

(I know, I know, I used to say that the Eighties were the decade that ruined music, but then I realized that about half of the music I most love to listen to is from the Eighties, so sue me. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) 

Anyway, it's a hooky, haunting pop song, and we just don't have enough of those.  

Wikipedia (because I trust it a whole lot more than Grokipedia) tells me that The Church are still touring and recording: Steve Kilbey is the only original member left, but I gather he's pretty much the driving force of the band anyway. I've listened to several of their other tracks and they're all tasty. Why has their music heretofore flown so far under my radar?

Then again, it's nice to know that there are frontiers yet to be explored . . . 

 

   

 

 

 

 

   

"Oliver's Army" / Elvis Costello


This song just popped into my head around noonish today, Eastern Standard Time.  Seems as good a song to post as anything.

I was a huge Costello fan in 1979, when this song came out on EC's third album, Armed Forces. Well, I still am a huge Costello fan, but I was particularly keen in those years; I couldn't wait for this album to arrive. This track is still the biggest hit single Elvis ever had in the UK, though of course he wasn't primarily a singles artist. But you can see why it hit a nerve in Britain that year, in the dawn of the Thatcher years.

I originally assumed "Oliver" referred to Oliver Cromwell. In the Catholic schools young Declan/Elvis attended, Cromwell -- the harsh Puritan general who wrested power from the Catholic-favoring Stuart monarchy -- must have been painted as a villain.

However, I've later heard that Elvis also meant for Oliver to refer to Oliver Lyttelton, a Churchill crony who helped well-connected men avoid conscription in World War II because of their "usefulness to trade," thus throwing the burden of fighting onto poor unskilled men -- "the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne," all disadvantaged areas at the time.

Either way, it's an anti-war, anti-racism, anti-oppression anthem, inspired, Elvis says, by a visit to Belfast, where he saw in horror raw young boys patrolling the war-torn streets with automatic rifles on their shoulders.  "They always get a working-class boy to do the killing," as Elvis has put it. There's that startling line, "One more widow, one less white nigger" (a "white nigger" was a common term used by Belfast Prods to describe Belfast Catholics) and the couplet "But it's no laughing party / When you've been on the murder mile," Murder Mile being a slang term for a particular violent section of Falls Road in Belfast.

Of course, the song doesn't stop with Belfast.  That would be too particular. No, he wants us to see a bigger pattern, where this sort of thing also happens in Berlin, Korea, Hong Kong, Palestine, South Africa.  Mercenaries, gunfights, and retribution everywhere, while the politicians ordering the killing sit in their luxury office towers miles away, dictating memos and going out to steak lunches. Or, like Elvis and the Attractions in the video, on a tropical beach, being serving umbrella cocktails.

The genius stroke of it all?  Pairing these angry, cynical, allusion-crammed lyrics with a supremely catchy, jaunty radio-ready tune --a real ear-worm -- underlaid with Steve Nieve's sparkling keyboards, drenched in ABBA-like pop chords and arpeggios. You can't help singing along to a song like this -- and maybe shouting the lyrics a little more fiercely when you realize what it's all about. Speaking truth to power.

Today that refrain is haunting me: "And I would rather be anywhere else / Than here / Today."

Sigh.

T Is For...

26 artists, A to Z. Could be anybody, right? But when push comes to shove...

 Talking Heads / "Once in a Lifetime"

These are the questions I ask myself every day.

By the time this track came out -- it was the lead-off track of Side 2 on 1980's Remain in Light LP -- the Talking Heads had evolved from the herky-jerky nerds I first saw a year earlier at the Mudd Club and Central Park. Yes, the lyrics were still cryptic and not a little weird; yes, the production values were still stripped-down. But a world-music polyphonic groove had been added to the mix, and David Byrne's half-strangulated vocals now floated over a quite serious groove.

What makes this a great track -- and it is a truly great track -- is how these brainy New Wavers captured the seismic generational shift going on. Byrne, in an almost robotic monotone, marvels "And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile / And you may find yourself in a beautiful house / With a beautiful wife." Yeah, for an earlier generation that was the dream, but for our generation that was so explicitly NOT the dream. And yet and yet and yet...

"And you may ask yourself / Well...how did I get here?" HOW INDEED?

In contrast the choruses are legato, deeply grooved, and copasetic. He's "letting the days go by," with water flowing underground, erasing all contradictions. That sinuous rhythm ticks on, lifting everything, like the water dissolving whatever stands in its path. Overlapping motifs interweave, keeping it all blessedly fluid.

But questions and conflicts remain. In verse 2 he's still stressed out, questioning "How do I work this?" and denying the very existence of his supposed assets -- that beautiful house, that beautiful wife.

There we were, my generation, committed to doing things differently and yet now seduced by the trappings of material comfort. It wasn't a choice we could easily resolve, which is why the song rattles on and on, the water flowing underground. But in the long run, the line that hammers home is "Same as it ever was / Same as it ever was / Same as it ever was..." Because we baby boomers thought we'd changed the world, and yet -- did we?

And here were these art-school nerds, calling our bluff.

"Whip It" / Devo
Back in 1980, a new cable channel called MTV desperately needed music videos -- that's how a crudely produced film snippet by this oddball Cleveland-area cult band got such heavy airtime. That Marlboro Man rancher, lashing the clothes off of his frontier wife -- was that kinky or what?

Some folks would say that MTV "made" Devo's career; on the contrary, I think Devo was responsible for making a whole generation want our MTV. You absolutely HAD to get wired for cable, because where else on 80's TV could you see stuff like this?

Normally I don't go for high-concept bands, but I bought Devo's package one hundred percent. Devo stood for "de-evolution," synonymous with mindless conformity, which we Devo fans were supposed to combat by being free-thinking individuals. How hard is it to get 20-somethings to buy into an agenda like that?

And Devo carried it off in perfect deadpan style, dressed in hazmat coveralls with industrial goggles and inverted flowerpots strapped to their heads. Their robotic stage movements matched those jerky synthesized arrangements (only Devo could cover "Satisfaction" and "Working In A Coal Mine" with all the blues drained out of them). Everything, down to the album covers, was executed with retro flair. Devo was post-modern long before it became a hipster cliche.

At the time, Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale were happy to let their audiences think "Whip It" was all about S&M (either that or whacking off).  Casale now says he wrote those lyrics to imitate the parody poems Thomas Pynchon scattered throughout Gravity's Rainbow. And it's true, the song is packed with a rousing Horatio Alger/Dale Carnegie can-do spirit -- "Now whip it / Into shape / Shape it up / Get straight / Go forward / Move ahead / Try to detect it / It's not too late / To whip it / Whip it good." Yessirree!

This track's got an absolutely driven drumbeat, an obsessive-compulsive guitar riff, and a completely daffy synth motif; it's so tight, so uptempo, it sounds just like it came off an assembly line -- and that's the point. "Crack! That! Whip!" is followed by slapping whip cracks, calibrated precisely to a millisecond behind the beat. And I love those lock-step twinned vocals, finishing each other's sentences in the verses: "Step on a crack / Break your momma's back" or "When a problem comes along / You must whip it" or "No one gets away / Until you whip it."

Irony?  Satire?  Tongue-in-cheek?  So old hat. Devo was way ahead of the curve, daring you to suggest that they were anything other than the factory-produced artifacts they claimed to be. Next to them, the Talking Heads looked like art-school posers and the B-52s were simply a party band. Best of all, they were unabashedly American in an era when the U.K. seemed to OWN New Wave music. I adored all those British acts, but I was glad we had at least one band from our side of the ocean, and a lunatic bunch of Midwestern nerds at that.

"Private Idaho" / The B-52s

Why this song now?

I DON'T KNOW. Isn't that the whole point of this blog, to bypass the "should" and dive straight for the "why not"?

Okay, let's get the Wikipedia part of the show out of the way. Track 5 of Wild Planet, 1980, released as a single that hit #74 (#5 on the Hot Dance Play chart) and spawned a 1991 Gus Van Sant movie starring the late great River Phoenix as well as the delectable Keanu Reeves, he who shall ever be in my mind Ted from the beloved classic Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

But really, for those of us who were 100% invested in the B-52s brand of sneakily brainy ironic dance-party New Wave rock -- the question is really more like "Why do you ask?"

 

This song came to me as I was (no joke) walking through a corridor in the undercroft of an Episcopalian church listening to Upper East Side New Yorkers blag on about the minutiae of their ever-so-important Manhattan lives. So there I was, vested in my choir robe (because I do love to sing from time to time) and all I could think is, "You're what?!!" (A close cousin to the "Love Shack" response, "Tin roof! ... Rusted!"

Because, come on, let's get real -- has there ever been a better song about our American tendency to live in gated communities, isolated from the rough-and-tumble of other people's lives, and paranoid about the consequences of  actually having contact with other human beings?

Or, as Fred Schneider intones, singing over that ominous undergroove, "You're living in your own Private Idaho / Living in your own Private Idaho." And Kate (or is it Cindy?) adds, "Underground like a wild potato." (The one and only actual Idaho reference in the song.)

"Don't go on the patio," Fred warns, and Cindy (or is it Kate?) adds, in a tone of semi-hysteria, "Beware of the pool, / Blue bottomless pool." Such beautiful promise, and all it leads to is Fred's "It leads you straight / Right through the gate  / That opens on the pool." And for all these years, here I've been such a chump, thinking that a beautiful blue swimming pool was a GOOD thing.

But Fred doesn't stop there. Oh, no. "Keep off the path, beware of the gate, / Watch out for signs that say 'hidden driveways'/ Don't let the chlorine in your eyes / Blind you to the awful surprise / That's waitin' for you at / The bottom of the bottomless blue blue blue pool." Danger alert!

And so consider me officially freaked out. Because this is what it means to be a privileged American (in 2014 as much as it was in 1980, or even more). It's all about anticipating disaster, and smugly being ahead of the game. "The lawn may be green / But you better not be seen / Walkin' through the gate that leads you down, / Down to a pool fraught with danger / Is a pool full of strangers." Is this a way to live your life?

And yet -- when all is said and done -- do we not love that surf guitar riff? (God bless you, Ricky Wilson, and R.I.P. -- this is one of the AIDS deaths I will never entirely get over....)

"Always Greener" / Graham Parker

As promised. This new Graham Parker CD, Imaginary Television, is such a sneaky little surprise. The sound is so bright and bouncy, so incontrovertibly POP, that it's easy to pass it off as a lightweight effort by an aging rocker trying to stay relevant. But oh, that would be missing the point.

According to the advance press, the germ of this album was a theme song that Parker wrote for a projected TV show. Though the song was never used, the effort set Parker's juices flowing. He wound up writing an entire album of songs that could have been used as TV theme songs, if those shows had ever existed. Snappy little numbers, most of them -- as TV theme songs tend to be -- but as set-ups for the shows, they turn out to be dark and slightly twisted. Yesssss -- the kind of shows I wish TV had more of.



Currently this is my favorite track on the album: "Always Greener." The sound so perfectly evokes your classic perky TV theme melody, it's a kick when you realize that its characters are deep in mid-midlife crisis, and probably heading for splitsville. (Add this to that Dial D for Divorce playlist, along with the Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime," Nick Lowe's "People Change," and Dr. Feelgood's "Don't Wait Up.") The tune promises zany, madcap adventures week after week, but then you listen to the words and -- ouch.

One of the things I loved most about the Rumour's 1979 album Squeezing Out Sparks -- to my mind still one of the finest albums of that New Wave era -- was Parker's ability to see both sides of an emotional crisis. Here too, he sympathetically portrays these people and their frustration, their fear that life has passed them by. ("Three kids, two cars, a wife / I guess that defines him . . . ") Yet he doesn't let them off the hook. He's not judging them exactly, but he isn't buying their excuses either.

Listen to that bridge, where he slips into metaphor: "I know there's cherries and a pear / So I will pull that handle / Pull that handle, pull that handle, pull that handle . . ." (as the tempo slows meaningfully, like the slot machine's wheels whirring to a stop). Should they be gambling with their lives like this? Is life only a game of chance? Somehow I don't think Graham Parker wants us to pull that handle -- but how subtly he casts his aspersions.

Earworm? Yes indeedy -- I found myself irresistibly chirping along with the refrain, "The grass is always greener / The grass is always greener / Always greener / Always greener." I swear, I even did that thing where you tip your head gaily from side to side. There's a real black comedy to this ironic juxtaposition. The very carelessness of that tune and tempo makes a pretty snarky statement about how careless we've become with our commitments -- and yes, we're all complicit, the minute we start singing along.

I don't remember Graham Parker being this wickedly funny back in the old days with Graham Parker and the Rumour -- but hey, I suspect anybody who used to hang out with the Nick Lowe-Stiff crowd had to have a great sense of humor. Granted, the great bluesy rasp in Parker's voice -- and oh, what a voice it was -- has degenerated into a sort of mellow but crochety wheeze these days. But with songwriting this sharp, it's a fair trade-off.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 21-25

My second British Invasion -- those enchanted years at the end of the 70s and dawn of the 80s, when punk and New Wave were busy duking it out for musical supremacy. This was music that just crackled with fresh energy; every Tuesday held the promise of some new amazing LP that would blow my mind.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

21. "Pump It Up" / Elvis Costello (1978)
By the time Elvis Costello burst onto the scene, I had become an album buyer, not a singles buyer, and hardly ever listened to the radio; MTV hadn't yet materialized to propel singles with catchy videos to the top of the charts. But I need at least one token Elvis Costello single -- he's such a musical hero of mine -- so I'll choose "Pump It Up" in honor of his second album, This Year's Model, the LP that first introduced me to his spiky charms. In general I'm a deep-tracks album fan when it comes to Elvis,* but "Pump It Up" was widely played in the fall of 1978, at least in the bars I frequented; some clubs even played this primitive video. As a newly-minted Elvis* fanatic I was proud to watch him storm the shores of America. What a tight little rocker this is! It starts out emphatically, with brisk drums and bass, then layers on Telstar twangs of guitar, a barrage of funhouse organ, and finally Elvis's* vocals, a nonstop assault of aggression and malice. We couldn't decipher everything he spat out, I'll admit -- many evenings were spent with ears patiently bent to the stereo speakers, trying to work it all out. (New Wavers would never do anything so retro as print lyrics on album covers.) But certain phrases came through loud and clear: "She said that's that / I don't want to chitter-chat"; "There's nothing underhand / She wouldn't understand" ; or "She's been a bad girl / She's like a chemical / Though you try to stop it, / She's like a narcotic." (Watch out ladies, the skinny nerd in the glasses sees right through you.) Melody was replaced with a terse morse code of repeated notes and thrusting jabs of drums, bass, and guitar. When all else failed, we could certainly join in the head-banging chorus: "PUMP IT UP! when you don't really need it/ PUMP IT UP! until you can feel it." I didn't know what I was singing about -- drugs? sex? -- but I knew it had to be sung loud. Maybe not a feel-good singalong, but exhilarating? You bet.

22. "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" / "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" / Ian Dury and the Blockheads (1978)
My first couple of years in New York was a charmed era, musically speaking; riding the crest of the New Wave, we had so many clever, catchy bands to listen to. But I was always seduced by the wordsmiths, and there were some days when even Elvis* took a back seat to the razor-sharp wit of Mr. Ian Dury.

23. " A Message to You Rudy" / The Specials (1979)
With Elvis* as their godfather, the Specials got a shortcut onto my playlist in 1979. But it wasn't just the Elvis Connection; one listen to this track and we had to love this band, with their slappy ska rhythm, punk attitude, and pointed social commentary. How much had changed in the 10 years since The Foundations broke onto the charts; by 1979, all the cool bands rallied to the Rock Against Racism agenda, and times were ripe for a ska revival. What better trailblazers than this black-and-white band from Coventry, with their pork-pie hats and mohair suits? For at least a month after we discovered this album, my office mate Susan Roberts and I would drop this onto the turntable the minute we got home from work. That intro accordion would start its lazy wheeze, and we'd kick off the work heels and collapse gratefully onto my sway-backed sofa. I had no idea who "Rudy" was -- only later would I learn it was short for "rude boy," the 60s Jamaican equivalent of a hip-hop gangsta. The context made it clear, though: "Stop your messing around / Better think of your future / Time you straightened right out / Creating problems in town." (I could just picture a scene from that Jimmy Cliff movie The Harder They Come.) Despite a snappy horn section, the Specials' version sounded just amateur enough to be a credible voice from the slums. Terry Hall and Lynval Golding sing the lead together, but not quite together, and lay on the rude boy accent; the backing singers sound like they're way across the alley, kicking at cans; then the whole joint swings when the trombonist lays into his solo in the middle eight. (That would be guest star Rico Rodriguez, who played the same bit on Dandy Livingstone's 1967 original.) Yeah, yeah, the politics were there -- two years later when Brixton burst into riot, I instantly thought of this song. But who am I fooling? What I really loved about this track was simply that ska beat. That happy-go-lucky looseness was the best thing about this track -- how brilliant of producer Elvis* to just say no to slickness.

24. "Rock the Casbah" / The Clash (1982)
In theory, yes, I thought punk music was a great liberating force for popular music. In reality, most punk bands were too crude for my taste. (I'm thinking of a Stranglers show at the Roundhouse in 1977 . . . ) But I always had to make an exception for the Clash.

25. "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" / Dusty Springfield (1964)
Okay, so Dusty had nothing to do with New Wave or punk -- but then, she wasn't really British Invasion either, not in the classic sense. She was just one of the greatest girl singers ever, her voice pure Motown housed by accident in a nice Irish Catholic convent girl. For years, there was a funny sort of competition going on between Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, and Dionne Warwick to see who could be the foremost interpreter of Burt Bacharach/Hal David songs. (Later even Elvis* would give it a shot.) To me, though, there's no question that Dusty won that competition hands down. Memorable as their melodies may be, the point of a Bacharach/David song is always the tortured emotions -- break-ups, separations, dissolving marriages, stealthy lust. And come on, nobody did tortured emotions like Dusty did. The scenario here is all too familiar: Dusty's moping around the house after losing her lover. (Pair this with Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight" if you're really in the mood for self-pity.) "I just don't know what to do with myself," she sighs. " I'm so used to doing everything with you / Planning everything for two / And now that we're through . . . " I love how the lines get progressively shorter, until the final line weakly peters out; it perfectly mirrors how her life is closing in on itself. Even that little trumpet riff that punctuates the verse is a compressed version of that same melodic phrase. Yet she flings her voice into the crest of each line as if there's no tomorrow. "Going to the movies always makes me sad," she wails, "Parties make me feel as bad." She's out there, trying, but it's no use. And now, verse three, here comes the kicker, and it's quintessentially Dusty: "Baby, if your new love ever turns you down / Come on back, I will be around / Just waiting for you . . . " Only Dusty can make crawling back such a noble romantic gesture. The production is exquisite, with just enough strings and backing vocals to underscore the operatic shimmer of Dusty's voice. Oh, and that flagellating kick-drum! This is no time for half-emotions, my friends. Pull out all the stops.

* NOTE: On this blog, the single name "Elvis" will ALWAYS refer to Costello, not Presley.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 36-40

By coincidence, all of today's songs were from late 70s or early 80s New Wave. I had just moved to New York, I had money to go to clubs and concerts, and I proceeded to do so with total abandon. These aren't just singles for me -- I bought the artists' albums too, I saw them perform live, and my associations run a lot deeper than the Obvious Hits.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

36. "Steppin' Out" / Joe Jackson (1982)
Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe. We'd heard his earlier hits, pleasing pop tracks like "Is She Really Going Out With Him?", but when Night and Day came out, I realized we were in the presence of An Important Artist.

37. "Psycho Killer" / The Talking Heads (1977)
Having moved to Manhattan, I settled into a pack of music-loving friends -- all editorial peons at various magazines in Midtown -- who'd meet up after work on summer evenings and head for Central Park and the Dr. Pepper Music Festival at Wollman Rink. On August 16, 1979, we were dying to see the Talking Heads perform their geeky brand of art-school rock. More Songs About Buildings and Food had just dropped; we were mad for it, especially their herky-jerky cover of Al Green's "Take Me To the River." That night, however, it was this song -- their 1977 debut single -- that really riveted me (the Summer of Sam was only two years past; it still touched a nerve). Though there were three other band members on stage -- Chris on drums, Jerry on organ, waiflike Tina on bass -- you really couldn't tear your gaze away from David Byrne, like a stick-figure in brown trousers and short-sleeved plaid shirt. It wasn't so much that he had stage presence; it was more the utter lack of stage presence, as he clutched the mike stand, stared at the crowd with his enormous Seth Brundle eyes, scrubbed a few harsh notes out of his guitar, and yelped these strange lyrics in a strangulated voice. "Psycho killer!" he gasped, "qu'est-ce que c'est?" (I'd be lying if I said that David Byrne's French was as enticing as Paul McCartney's in "Michelle"). Then, over nothing but persistent drum thuds, he stammered like Otis Redding on angel dust, "Fa-fa-fa fa fa-fa fa-fa-fa fa, better / Run run run run run run run away." Who had any idea what it meant? But that didn't stop us from singing along like mad, and flinging our heads up and down in ritual New Wave spastic dance jerks.

38. "Love Shack" / The B-52s (1989)
I always associate these two bands, though on the surface they were total opposites -- uptight arty intellectuals (Talking Heads) versus giddy drama queens (the B-52's). Maybe it's because we saw them both in the same week in 1980, again at the Dr. Pepper Festival in Central Park (and me with a completely different boyfriend). One thing you have to say for the B-52s, they're always fun to watch, with Fred Schneider doing his lounge lizard act in front, beehived Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson bouncing around madly on either side. I always felt somehow that they were my friends, kindred spirits, like so many of us outsiders who came to New York to have fun as much as to make good. I too grieved in 1985, when Cindy's brother Ricky Wilson -- whose dynamic guitar work supplied most of the band's instrumentals -- died of AIDS-related illness. The B-52s could have packed it in after that; they'd pretty much done the novelty act to death. But wonder of wonders, they didn't; Keith Strickland just moved from drums to guitar and the carnival kept on going. Instead of high-concept songs about outer space, novelty dances, and crustaceans, they just relaxed into their Southern dance groove. Although the album Cosmic Thing came along much later, to me it's the fullest expression of who my friends the B-52s really are. In "Deadbeat Club" we joined the girls as they danced in the garden in torn sheets in the rain; in "Love Shack" we jumped in the back of Fred's car ("Hop in my Chrysler, it's as big as a whale / And it's about to set sail!") and cruised down some back country Georgia road to a dilapidated juke joint. There's no story, just impressionistic details flung around (if this were a film, it'd be shot with a handheld camera) -- there's a line outside, a secret knock at the door, and everybody inside is peeling off their clothes and dancing with total abandon. A tinny surf guitar jangles, and there's party glitter everywhere -- mattress, highway, front porch, hallway. Fred, Kate, and Cindy hand the vocal duties back and forth, their overlapping phrases really more percussion than anything. "The whole shack shimmies!" Fred exclaims; "Everybody's movin', everybody's groovin' baby," Kate and Cindy croon in harmony; "funky little shack, FUNK-y little shack," Fred raps out. They begin to tap quietly on the door, but the tom-toms build and build, and they're knocking louder and louder ("bang, bang, bang, on the door baby"), until Fred cries, "You're WHAT" and Cindy sasses back, "Tin RROOOFF, rusted!" And no, that phrase didn't mean she was pregnant -- Cindy claims she just made it up, picturing the rusty roof of the original cabin. It's all delirious nonsense, but sung with deep affection. "Love Shack" turned out to be their one big mainstream hit. But even in 1980, the band we saw in Central Park was the same whacked-out crew of kids from the love shack, cruising north in the Chrysler. The party still hasn't stopped.

39. "Whip It" / Devo (1980)
The term "novelty song" should have applied to this out-of-left-field 1980s hit -- but we New Wave insiders knew that its high-concept kitsch was the Next Big Thing.

40. "Roadrunner (Once)" / Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (1976)
Funny that I had to go all the way to England to hear this eccentric, magical record by Boston's own Jonathan Richman. The nascent New Wave scene in London went mad for this single in 1977; being the only person in the room who'd actually driven on Route 128 and gone to the Stop and Shop gave me major cachet. It was like some eerie late-night connection . . . .

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 91-95

Quite a mixed bag in today's installment -- most of these artists are here for their general importance in my musical life, not because of these specific singles. But for various reasons, each of them simply HAS to be on the list somewhere, so here they are . . .

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

91. "Cruel to Be Kind" / Nick Lowe (1979) Ah, c'mon, you KNOW I love Nick. But he was never very lucky when it came to singles; this was his only hit, a power-pop gem that still never tempted me to buy his albums. It would be years before I saw the light.

92. "Hungry" / Paul Revere and the Raiders (1966)
Throughout the mid-60s, I was a stubborn Anglophile, watching the nighttime music revues Shingdig! and Hullaballoo only to catch the latest British bands. But I had a secret. Every day when I came home from school, I'd turn on Where the Action Is to watch Paul Revere and the Raiders cavort on a SoCal beach in their full trademark regalia of ponytails, breeches, and tricorn hats. My crush on lead singer Mark Lindsay was a deep dark secret (secret, that is, from my true love Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits). Only years later did I realize that the Raiders were in fact a tight, energetic dance band, with songs that were hardly inane fluff. The costumes, the gimmick, were just the price of fame. "Hungry" -- which, like their other big hit "Kicks," was by veteran songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill -- simply seethes with sexual appetite, underlaid with Revere's thrusting keyboards and a prowling deep bassline. Lindsay's bluesy voice was like America's answer to Eric Burdon -- those cajoling, intimate verses just exploded into the frenzied chant of the chorus: "Hungry for those good things, baby / Hungry through and through." The segue into verse two is devastating, as Lindsay sucks in his breath, then groans, "I can almost taste it, babe . . . " And me on the sofa with my 6th grade homework, the little fangirl storing it all up.

93. "For Your Love" / The Yardbirds (1965) I say I was infatuated with the British Invasion -- and yet of its Big Six bands (Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, Who, Yardbirds) I only liked the first four. I was way too young to "get" the heady guitar-driven sound of the Yardbirds back in 1965. My loss . . .

94. "I Can See For Miles" / The Who (1967)
The other major British Invasion band I couldn't quite love at first. I didn't like the Who because they'd copied their sound from the Kinks. I didn't like the Who because they busted up their instruments. I didn't like the Who because somehow, instinctively, I felt they were perves. (Come on, Tommy was just creepy.) But for a little period there, just as British rock headed into psychedelia, the Who won me over. Ostensibly a song about catching his girlfriend cheating, to me "I Can See For Miles" was always really about getting high, about the illusion of expanded consciousness. The spookiness of this track haunted me, with those clanging windmill guitar strums, Daltrey's echo-chambered vocals ("I know you deceived me, now here's the surprise / I know that you did 'cos there's magic in my eyes"), and best of all, the slow-mo progression of dissonant chords on "miles and miles and miles and MILES and MILES and m i l e s." The Who's lyrics never really held up, and they weren't much for melody, but for hooks and riffs they couldn't be beat. With this song, they added texture, playing metal against muffle, dark against glitter, and showmanship against sincerity; it was like they'd gone 3-D. The rest of this album, The Who Sell Out, baffled me, but this song? It made me forgive the Who. It's their Get Out of Jail Free card as far as I'm concerned.

95. "Heart of Glass" / Blondie (1979)
I moved to New York City in 1979 and immediately plunged into the New Wave scene, along with all the other recent college grads with nice entry jobs and tiny Manhattan apartments, privileged kids who didn't dare be associated with the punk scene down on St. Mark's Place. Blondie -- or more precisely, Blondie's lead singer, Debbie Harry -- reigned as Queen of that New Wave scene, but as I recall it, her power was not unquestioned. All the men I knew were infatuated with her ex-Playboy Bunny pout and fishnet-covered legs; most women I knew resented her for exactly the same qualities. Compared to the other New Wave ladies -- Kate and Cindy of the B-52s, Tina of the Talking Heads -- why did we need a vamp like Debbie Harry, even if she did have a killer singing voice? Nevertheless, Blondie's slightly edgy but catchy power-pop was deliriously fun to dance to, with great singalong hooks, and it'll always remind me of those glory days, when the downtown music clubs hadn't yet given way to disco. "Heart of Glass" was already heading in that direction -- just listen to that metronomic rhythm track, the syncopated synths, the robotic high flutter of Debbie's voice on "Once I had a love, it was a blast." It was Blondie's 3rd hit single from their breakout album Parallel Lines; when "Heart of Glass" hit #1, I remember finally dismissing Blondie as a mainstream sellout band. Now, of course, when this song comes on the radio I'm hit by waves of fond nostalgia. Go figure.

"Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"
/ "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards"
Ian Dury & the Blockheads

THE BEST A + B SIDES

Uncle E called it -- there were bound to be some Stiff records on my 100 Best Singles list. But in 1979, when this record came out, I'd stopped buying singles -- the only reason I possess this 7" bit of vinyl is because it was a bonus demo thrown into the Blockheads' LP Do It Yourself.

I have no idea what possessed me to buy that album. I'd like to say it was the Barney Bubbles cover, which looked like it was covered with a leftover bit of wallpaper from your Aunt Maude's remodeled lounge. But I suspect it was just an impulse lunch hour buy at Crazy Eddie's, in that brief period when I knew anything released on the Stiff label was likely to be worth listening to. In this case, I couldn't have been more right.

New Wave was a convenient catch-all label for music that wasn't quite punk, wasn't quite rock, wasn't quite pop. But in the case of Ian Dury and the Blockheads, the term was more of a stretch than with other artists. The Blockheads' sound was a funky stew of jazz, reggae, and music-hall cabaret, quite the opposite of the back-to-basics sound most Stiff artists favored. (Compliments of house producer Nick "Basher" Lowe.) You couldn't ignore the brilliance of Ian Dury's subversive lyrics, delivered in a flagrant Cockney accent, but let's not forget, there was a tight, complex, sophisticated instrumental track beneath those lyrics that never got sufficient credit.

I loved the album so much, it was ages before I listened to the single. In fact, I didn't even know it was in there for weeks, until it slipped out by accident. I'll bet my work mate Susan Roberts was there with me. She didn't last long at Scholastic Publishing, but those few months coincided with the height of my Stiff Records infatuation. Every evening after work we'd repair to her apartment or mine to get high, crank up the tunes, and celebrate the end of the work day. So just imagine our delight when this extra pair of tunes literally fell into our laps.

What a great surprise "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" was! The lyrics -- half-spoken, half-sung, in Dury's raspy con-man style -- are like a travel brochure of exotic destinations around the world ("From deserts of Sudan / To the gardens of Japan / From Milan to Yucatan"), interspersed with the punchy refrain "Hit me with your rhythm stick! Hit me! Hit me!" and ecstatic responses in various languages ("Das ist gut! C'est fantastique!"). Dury claimed this was an anti-violence song, but the sado-masochistic subtext can't be denied. Okay, the rhythm stick could just be a drumstick, but that implicit leer in Dury's voice always the dirtiest possible interpretations spring to mind. We coast along on the copasetic groove of the backing track (god love Norman Watt-Roy's bass) in the verses, until stabbing keyboards and emphatic percussion underscore the "hit me's." And when Davey Payne's sax lets loose its wail of protest -- well, no one emerges without a bruise or two.

"There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards," on the other hand, goes for pure music-hall patter -- just the thing for an old Kinks fan like me. Listen to Dury croon his way through those cheeky verses, with typical Cockney understatement praising a string of history's geniuses. My favorite verse: "Van Gogh did some eyeball pleasers. / He must have been a pencil squeezer. / He didn't do the Mona Lisa, / That was an Italian geezer." The farther-fetched the rhymes are, the funnier this is (and you cannot tell me that a "pencil squeezer" isn't a wanker of some kind). "There ain't half been some clever bastards," Dury croaks approvingly, while the Blockheads chant "Lucky bleeders! Lucky bleeders!" (later in the song they scoff "probably had help from their mums"). And oh, those debonair keyboards (Mickey Gallagher? Chas Jankel?) trading off with the suave alto sax. It's a right charmer.

Though this was the B-side, it was always my favorite. In fact, it may be my favorite Ian Dury song ever, and that's going some. I know it's not for everyone -- how many 100 Best Singles list would include this single? But in 1979 -- in the first flush of being a writer in New York, armed with a cool friend who had the same deviant sense of humor -- this was exactly what I needed. I'll always be grateful to Ian Dury for this record.

PS Check out Will Birch's new biography of Ian Dury!

“Love Gets You Twisted” / Graham Parker

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

My blog buddy Betty over at And So Forth got me started recently, thinking again about Graham Parker’s Squeezing Out Sparks. I’m not sure I’d call it a perfect album, but for sure it’s one of the most solid LPs ever, with nearly every track a winner. When this baby came out in 1979, as I recall, punk and New Wave were still duking it out, with power pop waiting in the wings. Graham Parker pulled off a hat trick here, combining all three, mixing anti-romantic sentiments and clever word play with irresistible hooks.

Even though this is one of the slower songs on the album, you could hardly call it a ballad – there’s no crooning, no storytelling, just a moan of frustration. Between the emphatic drum track and those clangy guitar riffs, there’s not a trace of softness or sweetness, and Parker’s gritty vocals attack the lyrics with outright hostility. (Those micro-lags behind the beat, the sarcastic little quavers on key words -- genius.)

The title tells you straight off that his outlook is jaundiced, and Parker works that title phrase relentlessly, repeating it thirteen times and matching it with such rhyming phrases as “the hearts are enlisted” and “I knew that it existed.” We get hardly any details -- no who, what, where, or when – it’s just like he’s visiting the Love Doctor and describing his symptoms, probing every wound. Graham means “twisted” not as in “sick” (“that is just so twisted”), but literally, physically twisted, with your guts in a knot and your spine hunched and your neck kinked up from too many anxious glances over your shoulder. “I try to straighten out, but I’m too wrapped up to see” he complains, and “When she’s in my arms I get tangled up, it’s true.” He's not blaming her -- why should he? It's the inevitable consequence of this thing called love.

So does Graham Parker have any solution? In the bridge, he prescribes his own medicine: “Screw yourself up / Screw yourself up / Screw yourself, screw yourself up.” The way he slides into that “scrrreeew” makes the double meaning painfully clear – screwing up your courage is one thing, but in the process you just get screwed up even further. It’s a losing battle.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately -- about how the music you listen to at certain ages can scuttle your love life. My generation was spoon-fed the true love dreams of Ricky Nelson and Stevie Wonder, and even (god love him) Paul McCartney -- but then some of us in our twenties veered off and developed a taste for the bitterer brew of Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and Graham Parker. (The Kinks addiction should have been a warning sign, I see in retrospect.) It satisfied some inner craving, I'm sure, but I'm still hung up, oscillating between that and my stubborn longing for happily-ever-after. Which is gonna win out? I still have no idea.

Love Gets You Twisted sample

"Dance This Mess Around" /
The B-52s

Good news, America -- the B-52s will be releasing a new album on March 25th, their first in 16 years. I take that as a sign that, despite all signs to the contrary, life on Planet Earth will prevail. You know, when you think about it, they first surfaced in the late 70s and early 80s, another crummy era in American history -- maybe there's some correlation. Alls I know is, we need the B-52s' special brand of F-U-N now more than ever.

Nowadays, if a band this wacky appeared on the scene (yes, Panic! at the Disco, I'm looking at you), you'd suspect they were crafted and market-tested. But when I first saw the B-52s pony out onto the stage in Central Park in 1979, it never crossed my mind that they were anybody's shrewd invention. Those beehive wigs on Kate and Cindy, Fred with his lounge-lizard slink, and above all that strange spaceage-retrobop sound -- it worked because they themselves were having more fun than anybody else at the concert. Sure, there was a big wink to everything they did, but it was never a smirk. Anybody who wanted to jump up and do all 16 dances along with them was welcome into the tribe.

Their debut album started out with four songs that were just killers: "Planet Claire," "52 Girls," "Dance This Mess Around," and then "Rock Lobster," each one a little weirder than the one before it. It was a whole party on one convenient black vinyl disc -- indeed, every party I went to in those days started and ended with it. Even now, I have a hard time hearing one track without expecting the next one to follow.

On one level, "Dance This Mess Around" is just another catchy jukebox filler, the bratty younger sibling to "Land of a Thousand Dances." Mentioning all those outmoded dances was a no-brainer, given their 60s-style visual look. For the record, here are all the dances they list: the Shu-ga-loo, the Shy Tuna, the Camel Walk, the Hip-o-crit, the Coo-ca-choo, the Aqua-velva, the Dirty Dog, the Escalator...even if you throw in the Hippy-Hippy-Shake and the Shake-Bake from the chorus, that's not 16. But who's counting? They could have made them up for all I know, or care. But they sure looked great on stage.

There's a completely phony haze of nostalgia laid on for good measure -- "Remember when you held my hand / Remember when you were my man / Walk talk in the name of love / Before you break my heart" -- classic girl-group crap. But there's no wall of sound here, just a spare surf-guitar line and lockstep drumming and occasional snaking around on the keyboards (this song had electronica down way before anybody gave it a name) and Cindy's stylized screams -- Ronnie Spector would never have done that to her voice. And Fred Schneider's, um, singing -- yeah, that was something new, all right.

Somewhere halfway through, there's a long section -- this song does seem longer than it is, but in a good way -- where Cindy keeps repeating "Why don't you dance with me? / I'm not no limberger!" For the longest time, I couldn't believe she was singing about smelly cheese; I assumed she was singing, "I'm not a limber girl." But of course, limberger was exactly what Cindy felt like, so why not?

That big Why Not? -- that was the essence of the B-52s. I always had the idea that they knew they were a novelty act, and never wanted to be anything else. The first time I saw them they shared the bill with the Talking Heads, who were still in their art-school geek phase, and both acts were smart and post-modern and extremely danceable. Then David Byrne had to turn himself into a Serious Artiste . . . well, I'm forever grateful to the B-52s for sticking to their dance-pop guns. The idea that they're still around, still turning every concert into a big goofy party, makes me very happy indeed.

Now doesn't that make you feel a lot better? (What you say?) I'm just askin'!

Dance This Mess Around sample

"This Year's Girl" / Elvis Costello

My New Year's resolution: Stop worrying about whether I write too often about the same few artists, and 'fess up to the truth--most of the time the songs in my head are just an endless loop of Nick Lowe, the Kinks, and Elvis Costello. Not that I'm complaining.

Elvis' 1978 album This Year's Model was, is, and always will be one of the Great Albums of My Life. I distinctly remember the first time I heard it, the afternoon when my friend Craig sat me down on the futon in his sublet on East 12th Street and told me he had found a new artist I really had to listen to. I can still hear the needle being set down on the vinyl, the hiss of the stereo before it found the groove. Then, wham! Elvis' frantic half-whispered "I don't wanna kiss you, I don't wannna touch" and an abrupt crash of drums, guitar, and assertive organ, and we were off to the races.

"This Year's Girl"--it's sort of the title track, sorta not. After his out-of-nowhere debut My Aim Is True, on this album Elvis was dealing with his new celebrity, and his violent ambivalence about the ultra-trendy scene. (Violent ambivalence--is that a contradiction in terms? Not with Elvis. Back then Elvis could muster violent feelings about anything.)

"This Year's Girl" gets right to the heart of it, to his disgusted fascination with some It Girl or other. I always imagine her like Julie Christie in that devastating 1960s film Darling: bopping down a London street, her blond hair perfectly bouffant, swinging a tiny purse by a long strap. No matter how horrible she's been to Dirk Bogarde, I still want to be her. Same thing with Elvis' love-hate object: On one level I despise her as much as he wants me to, but there's another side of me that still desires her It-ness. And Elvis does too; he just can't shake it. He hates himself for it. Face it: Who doesn't want to be, or be with, This Year's Girl?

She's the girl you can't get away from -- "See her picture in a thousand places / 'Cause she's this year's girl. / You think you all own little pieces of this year's girl." Elvis, the master of clever almost-rhymes nobody ever used before, scornfully declares: "Forget your fancy manners / Forget your English grammar, / 'Cause you don't really give a damn / About this year's girl." Oh, yeah? Who doesn't give a damn? He may not use the first person, but it's pretty hard not to connect the singer himself with leering images like "You want her broken with her mouth wide open" or "You see yourself rolling on the carpet / With this year's girl." Jeez, with fantasies that vivid, who needs to actually make it with this babe?

He knows there's no there there. "Never knowing it's a real attraction, / All these promises of satisfaction, / While she's being bored to distraction / Being this year's girl." Can't you just see her sullen mouth and vacant eyes? It might be Bebe Buell, might be Paris Hilton; it doesn't really matter who she is. In the bridge, he tries to imagine her perspective --"Time's running out / She's not happy with the cost" -- but he can't identify, not like he can with the sick longings of her admirers. The jerky punk rhythms, those bashing drumbeats, Elvis's stabbing staccato vocal gulps--this goes way past social satire, into self-flagellation. At the end, he spits out rhyme upon rhyme, image after desperate image: "Those disco synthesizers, Those daily tranquilizers, / Those body building prizes, Those bedroom alibis, /All this, but no surprises for this year's girl." And whirling around it all are Steve Nieve's minor-key organ riffs, a funhouse sound that tips from cheesiness into cruelty.

When I first fell in love with Elvis, I was an eager 20-something, freshly moved to the Big City, ready to make my mark on the scene. I wanted to be This Year's Girl, not to see her put down by a skinny English punk in nerdy glasses. But then, I'm an absolute sucker for snarky lyrics and biting wit; how could I resist Elvis Costello?

This Year's Girl sample

"Whip It" / Devo

Back in 1980, a new cable channel called MTV desperately needed music videos -- that's the only explanation why a crudely produced film snippet by this oddball Cleveland-area cult band got such heavy airtime. That Marlboro Man rancher, lashing the clothes off of his frontier wife -- was that kinky or what? Some folks would say that MTV "made" Devo's career; on the contrary, I think Devo was responsible for making a whole generation want our MTV. You absolutely HAD to get wired for cable, because where else on 80's TV could you see stuff like that?

Normally I don't go for high-concept bands, but I bought Devo's package one hundred percent. Devo stood for "de-evolution," synonymous with mindless conformity, which we Devo fans were supposed to combat by being free-thinking individuals. How hard is it to get 20-somethings to buy into an agenda like that? And Devo carried it off in perfect deadpan style, dressed in hazmat coveralls with industrial goggles and inverted flowerpots strapped to their heads; their robotic stage movements matched those jerky synthesized arrangements (only Devo could cover "Satisfaction" and "Working In A Coal Mine" with all the blues drained out of them). Everything, down to the album covers, was executed with retro flair; Devo was post-modern long before it became a hipster cliche.

At the time, Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale were perfectly happy to let their audiences think "Whip It" was all about S&M (either that or whacking off). But Casale now says he wrote those lyrics to imitate the parody poems Thomas Pynchon scattered throughout Gravity's Rainbow. (Since I'm currently slogging through Pynchon's most recent novel, Against the Day, I have to giggle over that info.) And it's true, the song is packed with a rousing Horatio Alger/Dale Carnegie can-do spirit -- consider the jerky phrases of the chorus: "Now whip it / Into shape / Shape it up / Get straight / Go forward / Move ahead / Try to detect it / It's not too late / To whip it / Whip it good." Yessirree!

Mark Mothersbaugh has a real gift for aural texture (no wonder he's done so well as a soundtrack composer -- his work on Rugrats alone proves his genius). This track's got an absolutely driven drumbeat, an obsessive-compulsive guitar riff, and a completely daffy synth motif; it's so tight, so uptempo, it sounds just like it came off an assembly line -- and that's the point. I love those twin vocals, finishing each other's sentences in the verses: "Step on a crack / Break your momma's back" or "When a problem comes along / You must whip it" or "No one gets away / Until they whip it" -- god forbid anyone should try to think for himself. No, we're in group-think mode here. "Crack! That! Whip!" (followed by those slapping whip cracks, calibrated precisely to a millisecond behind the beat).

Unfortunately, "Whip It"'s MTV-fuelled success so outstripped the rest of the Devo oeuvre, they're often called a "one-hit wonder." Those of us who were there at the time know better. Devo was unabashedly American in an era when the U.K. seemed to OWN New Wave music; I adored all those British acts, but I was glad we had at least one band from our side of the ocean -- and a lunatic bunch of Midwestern nerds at that.

Whip It video

"Steppin' Out" / Joe Jackson

Night and Day was the first Joe Jackson album I fell in love with, and I mean IN LOVE -- I played it night and day, indeed. The Cole Porter reference in the title always seemed particularly appropriate; there's a certain champagne-cocktail sophistication here that was new for a Joe Jackson album. I had just moved to New York and I loved the downtown elegance of this record, a quirky thing in 1982 when all the other New Wave types were going for downtown grit and squalor. Yes, it does have that techno-synth pulsing like traffic in the rhythm track -- a very 80s touch -- but it feels totally different here; it just makes the tone sparkle even more. And that vibraphone chattering away, like street lights glinting off chrome taxi bumpers -- perfect.

Joe Jackson must have absolutely huge hands; these are big chords he's playing here, pounding out octave spans in rapid-fire succession. All those key shifts make me think of a car shifting gears, or perhaps the way a synchronized series of traffic lights down the avenues change color in tandem (the electric piano makes this even more metallic and glittery). It gives this song a sweep and majesty that's truly thrilling.

Playing against all of this comes the tender poetry of these lyrics: "Now -- the mist across the window hides the lines / But nothing hides the colour of the lights that shine / Electricity so fine / Look and dry your eyes." So there's been a fight, or some sort of upset, and this whole foray is meant to cheer her up -- how sweet. He coaxes her gently, "We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives / With no more angry words to say, can come alive, / Get into a car and drive / To the other side." Will they really get to the other side just by driving? Maybe not, but the way those chords keep fighting upward makes me root for them (for us) with all my heart.

"We are young but getting old before our time," he admits, and I love that rueful line, that world-weary note which makes the retro feel of this album so perfect. "We'll leave the TV and the radio behind / Don't you wonder what we'll find / Steppin' out tonight?" It's an adventure, and old as they feel, they CAN be young again: "You can dress in pink and blue just like a child / And in a yellow taxi turn to me and smile/ We'll be there in just a while / If you follow me." I think of John Hiatt's "Have A Little Faith In Me," which holds out its hand with the same sort of determined we-can-make-it trust. It's a transforming, life-affirming song with no false promises.

The chorus, with its soaring short phrases, says it all: "Me babe / Steppin' out / Into the night / Into the light / You babe / Steppin' out / Into the night / Into the light." Two people, heading into darkness, staking everything on finding something brighter and better.

In 1982 I wasn't much of a grown-up yet myself, but I could tell this was music for grown-ups -- I could tell it was a song I would never outgrow. Twenty-five years later, it sounds as fresh and modern as it did the day it was recorded. I knew then that Joe Jackson was the real deal . . . and that I'd just have to wait and see how he'd surprise me next.

"Fools In Love" / Joe Jackson

This coming Saturday, August 11, is Joe Jackson's birthday (he'll be 53), so I'm declaring the rest of this week Joe Jackson Week. And what a pleasure it will be to write about Joe Jackson; he's one of those wonderful artists I never listen to as much as I could. I forget how much I like him, until a song comes up on my shuffle and is just so glorious it stops me in my tracks.

Like this one, from his 1979 album Look Sharp! -- as soon as that slouching ska intro begins, I sit up and grin. That ska accent is a dead New Wave giveaway, but Joe was never a knee-jerk New Waver, and soon this song sidles into jazz territory, where Joe's pianistic skills can really shine. "Fools in love," he starts off, confidingly, as though shaking his head -- "Are there any other kind of lovers?" Dropping his voice lower, he rattles off a list of the annoying symptoms, in finger-wagging tempo: "Everything you do / Everywhere you go, now / Everything you touch, / Everything you feel / Everything you see, / Everything you know, now / Everything you do, you do it for your lady love / Your lady love, your lady love," repeated fiercely with big twanging strums on the guitar. Tsk-tsk. "Fools in love," he sings, returning to the verse, "are there any creatures more pathetic?" flinging off that last adjective with such fastidious scorn, you can't help but agree.

But in the chorus, a little more earnestness creeps into his voice and he rises to a higher register, almost yelping: "Fools in love, they think they're heroes / Cause they get to feel no pain / I say fools in love are zeroes / I should know" -- then, with a dramatic pause, he caustically turns the whole thing on its head. "I should know because this fool's in love." Just by sticking in an apostrophe, he changes the whole meaning of the title. Brilliant.

Self-hatred is an underexplored emotion in rock 'n' roll, and nobody expresses self-hatred with as much delicious flair as Joe Jackson. It sits very well on him -- tall, gawky, bony, pale, balding, he looks like a guy who just might have self-esteem issues. Whether he actually does or not is totally irrelevant; somebody in pop music needs to speak for the sensitive geeks among us. He never buys us off cheap by pretending it's going to be all right, either. And as he rips off that cathartic, elegant piano solo in the middle eight, he absolutely vindicates himself. Man, I'll listen to this fool in love any day.

Fools In Love sample

"Is That Love" / Squeeze

I'm all psyched because I've got tickets to go see Squeeze tonight!! Even better, the opening act is Fountains of Wayne; now that's a double bill I couldn't resist. I'm a little bummed that this Squeeze reunion tour doesn't include Paul Carrack -- I think the period when he was with them was their best -- but so long as both Chris Difford and Glenn Tillbrook are on stage, it counts as Squeeze.

I never really consider Squeeze a New Wave band -- they were always more fun and clever than serious New Wavers like the Talking Heads or even their pal Elvis Costello. I put them in a camp with Joe Jackson and XTC, irresistible popmeisters with a gift for hooks, riffs, and melodies you can't get out of your head. Just listen to the breathless energy of "Is That Love" -- it almost distracts you from the fact that this is one jaundiced view of the war between the sexes.

It's a pretty snarky catalog of domestic wrongs -- "You've left my ring by the soap...You cleaned me out, you could say broke...You won't get dressed, you walk about...A teasing glance has pushed me out" -- each one followed by the wistful complaint, "Now is that love?" But it seems like this guy is perfectly capable of fighting back, as he relates in the bridge: "Beat me up with your letters, your walk-out notes, / Funny how you still find me right here at home. / Legs up with a book and a drink / Now is that love that's making you think." I can just see him, coolly waiting for her return, acting like it's no big deal. (Why, I've pulled that one myself.) Nothing like taking the hot air out of a melodramatic scene to really piss off somebody.

So what is love? Hanging in there, forgiving, being patient -- "The better better better it gets / The more these girls forget / That that is love," or as he sings the third time around, "It's the cupid cupid cupid disguise / That more or less survived / Now that is love." But the brisk finger-wagging tempo doesn't exactly sound patient and loving, and the melody keeps taking testy dips into minor keys. There's plenty of edge to this track, just like I like it.

Difford and Tillbrook were often billed as "the next Lennon & McCartney" -- a pretty daunting label for anybody to live up to. The similarities are clear, given their bouncy melodies and deft wordplay. To me, though, they are just as much the heirs of Ray Davies; the best Squeeze songs are perfectly crafted little short stories, full of psychological complexity, just like the best Kinks songs. I get such a sense of this couple, the way they're gritting their teeth and taking sly swipes at one another. No one's throwing the telly through the window, at least not yet (just compare this to the marital warfare in Dr. Feelgood's "Don't Wait Up"). But hey, that could start any minute now -- fasten your seatbelts!

Is That Love sample

"You Can't Be Too Strong" / Graham Parker & the Rumour

There is a huge hole in my record collection, and it's called Squeezing Out Sparks. I didn't even realize this until this afternoon, when I laid down the book I was reading -- Will Birch's excellent No Sleep Till Canvey Island, the definitive history of British pub rock -- and went onto iTunes to check out early Graham Parker & the Rumour albums. After all, half of the Rumour were in Brinsley Schwarz with Nick Lowe, and Nick produced Parker's early albums . . . well, you get the idea; in my personal rock world, all roads lead to Nick Lowe. (Except for the roads that lead to Ray Davies.)

So there I sat, calling up samples from Squeezing Out Sparks, and track after track hit me with deeply familiar force. I've searched my stacks of vinyl and no, incredibly enough I never owned this record, but I'm guessing that my boyfriend at the time (this would have been 1979) must have had it. In fact, we must have listened to it non-stop -- that's the only way to explain why I know every bit of it by heart, AND why I resisting buying it after the break-up (those must have been some powerful associations). Weird how this slipped into some mental fissure until just now.

I've fixed the problem; I've just ordered my own shiny new copy from Amazon, and I should be getting it in 36 hours. Until then, I'll have to be satisfied with a couple of downloaded tracks. It's a toss-up which slays me more -- "You Can't Be Too Strong" or "Passion Is No Ordinary Word." But the nod goes to "You Can't Be Too Strong"; I can't think of another song about abortion that's so heart-breaking.



He launches straight into it: "Did they tear it out with talons of steel /And give you a shot so that you wouldn't feel /And wash it away as if it wasn't real?" Here's abortion from the perspective of the guy, who I guess wasn't consulted -- "It's just a mistake I won't have to face / Don't give it a name, don't give it a place / Don't give it a chance -- it's lucky in a way." Does he really thinks it lucky? He really doesn't yet know how he feels, and that ambivalence is what makes this song so goddam poignant.

Considering the load of regret and uncertainty this song carries, the arrangement is appropriately sober and simple, just an acoustic guitar, embroidered with a few delicate keyboard fillips from Bob Andrews. Behind all the male bluster -- "I ain't gonna cry, I'm gonna rejoice /And shout myself dry, and go see the boys /They'll laugh when I say, 'I left it overseas'" -- there's a haunting echo of desire in Parker's voice: "But everybody else is squeezing out a spark / That happened in the heat, somewhere in the dark." I love that little vocal echo he throws in, "in the dark," the voice of a helpless kid still trying to sort things out.

He can't help returning to that furtive surgery scene: "The doctor gets nervous, completing the service / He's all rubber gloves and no heart." As the song goes along, the title phrase loads up with irony -- maybe you CAN be too strong, too tough, too hard. The way he pauses, wondering, each time he sings "You can't be too strong" in the chorus -- surely that toughness is a double-edged sword here.

My favorite line has to be "It must have felt strange to find me inside you / I never intended to stay." That's so disturbingly sexy, which I think is the whole point of this song -- how sex turns complicated on people. This guy doesn't know how he feels about all this, or how he feels about the girl now. And he leaves it there, confused and numb and unresolved. Perfect.

This song reminds me of what might have happened if you could throw the earnest young Bruce Springsteen into a cocktail shaker with the rueful wit of Joe Jackson; that gritty soulfulness in Parker's voice lays on so much passion, but he can hold back and leave things unsaid. I'm still puzzling over this song, 25 years later. It's long past time to bring Graham Parker back onto my playlist. I can't wait for this CD to arrive.

You Can't Be Too Strong sample

"High Fidelity" / Elvis Costello & the Attractions

When the album Get Happy came out in 1980, Elvis Costello was no longer The Flavor of the Month, and this new musical direction -- a tribute to the sounds of Stax R&B and Philly soul -- baffled critics as well as many fans. But not me; I loved that album from Day One, couldn't get enough of it. It just may be my favorite Elvis Costello album ever.

So imagine how thrilled I was a few days ago when Elvis, performing with Allen Toussaint at at a jazz festival in Madrid, Spain, launched into this number from Get Happy. It was deep into the set and Elvis was definitely on a roll, emoting and pulling out all the stops. The only person in that crowd who was more thrilled than me was my friend Luis, who looked like he was having an out-of-body experience.

In typical Elvis Costello fashion, this song is based on a pun -- "high fidelity" could be either stereo sound or marital faithfulness, and Elvis constantly darts from one meaning to the other. The situation he paints is all clouded up with jealousy and irrational fury, but it seems that he's watching an ex-girlfriend/wife with her new man, which drives him into a passion (a complicated, neurotic passion, of course -- this IS Elvis Costello, after all). "Some things you never get used to / Even though you're feeling like another man" -- I tell you, nobody pins down these fleeting psychological states like Elvis does.

You can just hear the rancor boiling as he describes the couple -- "Lovers laughing in their amateur hour / Holding hands in the corridors of power." Isn't "amateur hour" a perfect phrase for the first stages of a new relationship? And as he writhes, watching them, they are surely in the "corridors of power." This is genius songwriting, no question about it. His voice faltering, he reminds himself, "Even though I'm with somebody else right now" -- yeah, he's with somebody else, and she may be totally hot, but it doesn't help. He's still savagely jealous and weak and angry. How HUMAN.

I love how Elvis's voice zooms down into the verse like a circling airplane, stuffing in the rapid-fire clever lyrics, throwing us right into the middle of a wrought-up situation (verse 2 pulls off the same trick -- "Even though you're nowhere near me / And I know you kiss him so sincerely now"). Then, when he swings into the chorus, how he draws out the "high" of "high fidelity," taking it through a few chord shifts and upping the volume, as if fiddling with a stereo set's knobs. He pushes his voice relentlessly into its gruff, staticky edges, pleading "Can you hear me? / Can you hear me? / Can you hear me?"

In the bridge, he reels off a series of radio/relationship double meanings: "There's a new kind of dedication / Maybe you'll find it down the tunnel / Maybe I got above my station / Maybe you're only changing channel" (for years I heard that last line as "Baby I'd like to change your channel" -- that's how palpable the threat in his voice is). Maybe it's just Elvis showing off his own virtuosity, but I don't care. I like Elvis's virtuosity.

Listen to those those minor-key piano chords hammering away so ominously (is Steve Nieve brilliant or what?). That night in Spain, the Crescent City Horns added to those syncopated chord progressions, making the whole thing swing even more. This is a timeless song, simply timeless. In 1980, when so many other bands were following the trendy call of disco and artsy New Wave and punk, Elvis Costello was going his own way, following his own quirky muse. I loved it then, and I love it still.

High Fidelity sample

“Roadrunner” /
Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers

I understand that Jonathan Richman may be an acquired taste. That tuneless, off-key voice isn’t for everyone; not everybody gets his peculiar sense of humor. But for sheer pop goofiness, it’s hard to outdo this classic road-trip song. Recorded in 1973 (but not released until 1976), it isn’t angry enough to be punk, or arty enough to be new wave -- but I can testify that you could not hear this band perform it without NEEDING to sing along and dance.

In criticspeak, we’d call the Modern Lovers’s vibe something like “affected artlessness” – it goes well beyond garage-band simplicity. Those lyrics sound like what a 15-year-old would sing to himself in the shower -- no rhymes, no plot, no deeper meaning. He even loses track during the traditional opening countdown – “one two three four five six …”

This song is as American as it can be – he’s just a kid with a driver’s license, that quintessential ticket to freedom in Metrosprawl USA. He’s driving past the Stop and Shop, going on Route 128, past factories and auto signs – anybody who knows Boston knows these places. He half-sings, half-speaks in jerky rhythms, floundering through repeated monotone melodic phrases: “I’m in love with Massachusetts / And the neon when it’s cold outside / And the highway when it’s late at night / Got the radio on.” I can picture the kid slapping his steering wheel as he tools around the Bosstown ‘burbs, just grooving on the fun of driving and listening to rock radio.

Richman does slip in a little poignance eventually: “I'm in love with the radio on / It helps me from being alone late at night / It helps me from being lonely late at night / I don't feel so bad now in the car / Don't feel so alone, got the radio on.” Being a teenager is hard, and Richman – singing in a voice sounds like any ordinary high-school dweeb – captures it perfectly. If all else fails, “The highway is your girlfriend as you go by quick / Suburban trees, suburban speed / And it smells like heaven.” Just don’t stop moving and everything will be all right.

Underneath it runs that unflagging instrumental, rock-steady drums and chugging guitars, pumping away with its own internal combustion engine. The sweet organ solo in the break is worth waiting for – I believe that’s Jerry Harrison, who’d soon after become a Talking Head. Sure, their sound was stripped-down, uncluttered, but they were tight, with a propulsive energy you couldn’t resist.

The backing vocalists sound just as hapless as Richman – I love the part where he calls them out, “O.K., now you sing, Modern Lovers!” Modern Lovers – what sort of a name is that for these callow geeks? But they’re gamely singing in the backseat, trading off their yelps of “Radio on!” with Richman’s rambling phrases “Got the car, got the AM…Got the rockin’ modern neon sound…I got the modern sounds of modern Massachusetts…” Whatever pops into his head.

I’m sure Richman was also alluding to the cartoon character Roadrunner. We all grew up watching those cartoons, with Roadrunner zipping mindlessly around the desert, defying the well-laid plots of Wile E. Coyote. But I love the fact that he doesn’t make a big literary deal out of it. He says “Roadrunner,” we picture Roadrunner, and then we’re back with our buddies in the cold late Massachusetts night, whizzing down Route 128, with the AM station blasting on the car radio. AM, you notice – no mellow-voiced djs and album-oriented rock, but Top Forty radio! All the hits all the time! Yeeessssssss!

Roadrunner (Once) sample