Singles going steady | page 1, 2
6. "Tom Courtenay," Yo La Tengo
Appearing at about the same
time as the release of the Beatles' "Anthology" CDs and the massive
video retrospective, this song by Hoboken trio Yo La Tengo indirectly
addressed (as the brilliant and heartbreaking accompanying video did
directly) the way people turn to the past to recapture their lost youth.
With the first line invoking Julie
Christie, the song recalls the way some of us obsessed over
everything British because it all seemed the epitome of the cool lives
we wanted to lead. Ira Kaplan's dreamy, introverted voice caresses every
familiar name as if it were a talisman, a fetish object. A memory of
seeing "Help!" -- "I spent so much time dreamin' 'bout Eleanor Bron/In
my room with the curtains drawn/Seein' her in the arms of Paul/Sayin' 'I
can say no more'" -- couldn't be more poignant if he were singing about
people he actually knew.
But in a way he is. Taking for granted the way our idols become part of
our lives, the song collapses the distance between fantasy and reality,
between memory and the present only to have both fantasy and memory recede.
The song trails out on the increasingly hazy line "thinkin' 'bout the
Beatles" and a "ba-ba-ba" refrain repeated as if the perfect pop hook
had become both Fountain of Youth and the Grail.
7. "There She Goes," The La's
This song from a British group
that appeared out of nowhere and promptly returned there after one album
might be what Yo La Tengo is reaching for in "Tom Courtenay." Possibly
the most beatific pop song since "She Loves You" (though not in the same
league -- what is?) and surely the simplest. The chiming guitars and
ethereal harmonies that open are as much a signal from an earthly
paradise as is the image of the pealing church bells in "Bredon Hill"
by the British poet A.E. Housman. The protagonist of Housman's poem is
exiled from that paradise. Whoever heard "There She Goes" was luckier.
The perfect pop hook becomes both Fountain of Youth and the Grail.
8. "Are You That Somebody?," Aaliyah
I found no better proof
of the "don't know, don't care" divisions in the rock audience than the
night (while this song was ruling the radio and MTV) I went to see a
show by the Spinanes, who covered it without anyone in the white
indie-rock crowd showing any sign of recognition. With a stumbling,
stuttering beat and the strangest hook of the decade (a baby's sampled
gurgle), this Timbaland-produced number was a highlight in a decade of
strong R&B singles. Aaliyah's cool is the spiciest imaginable, like
Tabasco sauce fresh out of the fridge.
9. "Rebel Girl"/"New Radio," Bikini Kill
Riot Grrrl at its
fiercest and most joyous. In "New Radio" -- a lesbian rrrewrite of Eddie
Cochran's "C'mon Everybody"-- the party thrown while mom and dad are
away has just two attendees, and Cochran's great, carefree rejection of
consequences, "Who cares?" is replaced by the declaration, "Let's wipe
our cum on my parents' bed/Come on!" "Rebel Girl" is a lesbian rrrewrite
of "Leader of the Pack," only more egalitarian: "I think I wanna take
you home/I wanna try on yr clothes." The decade's best version of rock
'n' roll as huge, bracing, dumb, soul-stirring noise. When Kathleen
Hanna sings, "When she talks, I hear the revolution," she could have
been talking about this single.
10. "Some Jingle Jangle Morning (When I'm Straight)," Mary Lou
Lord
The first time I ever heard Mary Lou Lord playing in the
Boston subways she struck me as the perfect girl for those sensitive
guys still dreaming of finding a hippie-folkie chick of their own. Then
she sang an aching-voiced cover of Merle Haggard's "White Line Fever"
and I wiped the smirk off my face. On this song, rerecorded for her
major label debut with a guitar solo by Roger McGuinn but cited here in
the Kill Rock Stars vinyl 45 original, she refers to Nirvana's "About a
Girl," Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Jackson Browne's "These Days,"
as well as to her own indiscreet liaison with Kurt Cobain. As usual, the
weariness in Lord's breathy scratch of a voice overcomes any potential
preciousness in the delivery. This is a road song sung by someone too
tired to move, and an elegy for a community that was dissolving before
anyone knew it, a ragged wreath commemorating the brief moment in this
fading decade when the alterna-indie scene ruled rock.
salon.com | Jan. 3, 2000
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