"Back of a Car" / Big Star

R.I.P. Alex Chilton 1950-2010

I'm pretty good at resisting the knee-jerk commemoration posts (how long did it take me to get something up on Michael Jackson?). But fer chrissakes, this is Alex Chilton we're talking about. Only a few days ago, I anointed his first hit single, "The Letter," as my favorite 45 of all time. And now he's dead of a heart attack, at age 59. I'm in shock, and I see most of my fellow bloggers are as well.

I've certainly given Alex his due here. Besides gushing over "The Letter," I've written about another Box Tops number, "Sweet Cream Ladies," as well as one song by his second band, Big Star -- "I'm In Love With a Girl". But in this hour of mourning, let me offer one more Alex Chilton gem: Another Big Star track, also from their second album, Radio City.



Part of Alex Chilton's genius -- whether he had any control over it or not -- was the raw emotion of his voice, a perfect vehicle for expressing the inchoate passion of teenagers in love (or at least in lust). Has there ever been a teenage necking song so steamy as "Back of a Car"? He gets it exactly right, all the surging hormones and messed-up feelings. Without bothering with an intro, he launches right into things: "Sitting in the back of a car / Music so loud, can't tell a thing" -- and indeed, the metallic tangle of guitars creates an immediate wall of sound. (I'll bet the windows are fogged up too.) There's no scene setting, no pretty description, no romantic speeches -- he can't tell the girl what he feels because he doesn't know himself. "Thinkin' 'bout what to say / And I can't find the lines . . . ."

There's no doubt he wants sex -- that's written all over those woozy swoops of melody, the churning chord changes, the swelling crescendos of volume -- but he does love her, or at least he thinks he does, as he declares in the second verse. Yet he's afraid, and indecisive, and, well, all mixed-up. After all, there's the future to consider ("waiting for a brighter day") and he's longing to escape ("trying to get away / From everything").

As the song morphs on, though, I get the idea that desire is going to win the day. Listen to the earnest, yearning harmonies of that bridge -- "I'll go on and on with you / Like to fall and lie with you / I'd love you too" -- it's almost as if he's talking himself into it, never mind convincing the girl.

So do they or don't they? The last verse isn't at all clear: "Why don't you take me home / It's gone too far inside this car / I know I'll feel a whole lot more / When I get alone." Maybe that's the girl talking, wanting to flee back to her pink bedroom to sort out her emotions. But surely a boy can feel that way too. (Exhibit A: Brian Wilson singing "In My Room.")

Of course it's murky. Teenage love is always murky. In less than three minutes, we've been pulled so deep inside this heavy petting, we don't know where we are either. That's some songwriting, eh?

“I’m in Love With a Girl” /

Big Star

Lurid red hearts in store windows, guilt-inducing jewelry ads in newspapers, the overwhelming scent of cheap chocolate in the air—yes, Valentine’s Season is upon us, with all its baggage of disappointment and regret. So here’s my project for the month of February: 28 days, 28 songs that talk about love.

Let’s start off with some Happy in Love songs (believe me, I’ll run out of them soon). For pure unreflective pop, you can’t miss with Big Star, the early 70s Memphis-based band led by Chris Bell and Alex Chilton. In the space of just three albums they laid down a mess of uncluttered, charged-up guitar-pop tracks that influenced everyone from Teenage Fanclub and the Replacements to R.E.M. and Wilco. This one’s from their 1973 LP Radio City, a neglected-at-the-time gem that is now acknowledged (by Rolling Stone, among other authorities) as one of the great rock albums of all time.

It doesn’t get much simpler and more straightforward than this. “I’m in Love With A Girl” lasts a whopping one minute and 48 seconds, and there’s not a drop of emotional complication in it. “I’m in love / with a girl” he starts out, all cheery and chipper, his high voice lilting over a strummed acoustic guitar. The way Alex Chilton sings it, I picture a kid skipping down the street, with only one thing on his mind. Uncritical doesn’t even begin to describe it: “Finest girl in the world,” he declares, fervently – and he believes it. “I didn’t know I could feel this way,” he muses, in curious wonder.

“Think about her all the time,” he adds in verse two, “Always on my mind.” We’re not talking sexual torment here, though – we’re not in “All Day and All of the Night” territory. As we know from Alex Chilton’s early hit with the Box Tops, “The Letter,” he can do sexual torment, but that’s not where he is now. “I didn’t know about love,” he finishes the verse; it's as simple as that. Three lines to a verse, a few vague half-rhymes – this isn’t slick songwriting. It sounds raw and amateur and unaffected, and therefore totally convincing. It’s the epitome of less-is-more songwriting; it takes a master to work without a net like this.

Verse three is . . . well, it’s verse one all over again. The only difference is that the last line, “I didn’t know I could feel this way,” has been changed to “I didn’t know this could happen to me.” Yeah, it’s all about him – but adolescent love is always self-involved, isn’t it? It’s amazing, how Alex Chilton could tap so effortlessly into the teen mindset. But then, isn’t that what pop is all about?

I'm In Love With A Girl sample