Bruce Springsteen - "I'm on Fire" 45

Bruce Springsteen – “I’m on Fire” 7” Single

CBS, 1985

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011

Price: $.50

Bruce Springsteen is best known for his big, soaring rock anthems (and having his name tattooed in a crude scrawl on a girl who stayed with us a few years ago but that’s neither here nor there) but I’m more of a fan of his quieter, sensitive stuff a la Nebraska and Tunnel of Love. Born in the USA is sandwiched between those two aforementioned records in his discography, and it’s probably his most famous (at least most famous for having its title track misappropriated by conservative politicians who don’t understand that it’s highly critical of their agenda). It’s at least his most famous cover, featuring Bruce’s all-universe butt in front of an American Flag. It’s got “Born in the USA” and “Dancing in the Dark,” and in the middle it has “I’m on Fire.” There are no chanting background vocals or handclaps or booming guitars. On this track it’s just Bruce, a sweetly sad little synthesizer, a minimal drumbeat, a delicately plucked guitar riff, and some sultry vocals about American Love (“At night I wake up with sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head/ Only you can cool my desire/ I’m on fire”). It’s simple, short, and sweet, and almost infinitely replayable. There’s no repeating the chorus five times here. The line “I’m on fire” serves as a refrain that is uttered three times before the song ends and you reset the needle. I don’t know if I’ve ever admired the Boss as a songwriter more than at this moment, listening to this song ten times in a row on a Monday morning. It’s a track that’s so good that it can even make those dated synths sound relevant. I’m a believer. B-Side “Johnny Bye Bye” is a short, low key reimagining of Chuck Berry’s “Bye Bye Johnny” that replaces the departure of Johnny B Goode with the death of Elvis Presley. It’s an exemplary b-side: it’s soulful and stands on its own and would make the album from whose sessions it was culled falter a little bit. This is an excellent single for staying up late and flipping through records with your beloved. Sometimes Jenny and I will do that. We’ll hang out up in the loft, she’ll say “what’s this?” and I’ll play a track. For me, that’s the point of owning records. It’s the thrill of discovering what you own, the songs you keep because they’re just that goddamn good and it’s the only way you know how to truly appreciate outstanding music.

The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & the Lash

The Pogues – Rum Sodomy & the Lash

Stiff Records, 1985

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2014

Price: $7.50

You know the Pogues are probably pleased as piss that their music is the best possible thing anyone could ever play in a bar. If you close your eyes you can see it. A busy night, some roughnecks going toe to toe, and “Sally Maclennane” comes on the jukebox and there is peace, love, and understanding. How could you not raise a pint to that song? Or this album? I’m a big fan of highlighting my shortcomings as a professed music lover, and never truly paying the Pogues any mind is sinful. There are a few of their tracks I’ve heard over the years and enjoyed, of course (I’m human, after all), but listening to Rum Sodomy & the Lash in its entirety on a Tuesday morning has scarred me irreparably in the best possible way. You can practically feel Shane MacGowan stumbling down the road in these songs, turning out one of the most compelling vocal performances of all time. I mean, you think it’s all fun and games, let’s go down to the pub and drink and be merry and then you get to “And the Band Played Waltzing Matlida” and this unsentimental and woozy war story breaks your heart into a million little pieces. It makes me deeply long for a day when the Pogues succeed U2 as the Band of Ireland.

"Sally Maclennane"

The Replacements - Tim

The Replacements – Tim

Sire, 1985

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013

Price: $4

 

It’s hard to remember that I spent the last year and a half living in Minneapolis. As a younger man, Minneapolis was this mythical sort of place: An unearthed gem of the Midwest with a secret power. Somehow, this seemingly barren tundra had produced Prince, the Replacements, Husker Du, Dillinger Four, and a slew of other bands I loved and respected. We went to see Guided by Voices at First Avenue in the fall of 2010 and I was sold. A year and a half later we moved and it was absolutely necessary. Even though we moved back, living somewhere outside of Kansas was immensely important to my wellbeing. It’s strange how quickly it has become this displaced part of my life, because I had a great time in the Twin Cities. KC is fine, but it’s not as connected. Even though I hated our apartment (mostly due to our shitty neighbors on all but one front in our fourplex) our location in South Minneapolis was close to EVERYTHING. Never have I eaten better in my life (assuming better means stuffing my face with the best bar food you’re likely to find anywhere. Jucy Lucy’s > All Burgers Ever) and never have I tasted finer local brews. Indeed and Surly are sorely missed. Putting on Tim three months after leaving Minneapolis is bringing up a backwash of weird nostalgia. When Jenny worked at the Wedge, I used to bike up there and go grocery shopping. I’d hop off the Midtown Greenway at Bryant because riding on Lyndale was an absolute deathwish (it must be known, Minneapolis has the absolute worst, most obscenely atrocious drivers I have ever encountered. The people are largely rude too, but most of that can be attributed to typical Scandinavian standoffishness and while I met some real fucking shitheads, I met plenty of exceedingly fine and gracious folks). I didn’t know it, but every time I rode up Bryant to the Wedge I was riding past the Stinson house from the Let it Be cover. I loved how Minneapolis worshipped its musical heritage, and that I could drive in any direction and come across something referenced in Hold Steady/Lifter Puller song. Minneapolis is great because people have it good and they love their city. People thought I was insane for moving there, and I tried to constantly let them know how good they had it. Jucy Lucys and musical heritage and a hundred new microbreweries are not things one should take for granted.

Tim is effectively the Replacements’ high water mark, if only because it is smack dab in the middle of a discography with a distinct rise and a distinct decline. Its predecessor, Let it Be, has all the raw energy that made them lovable and its follow up, Pleased to Meet Me, highlighted how well the once grimy and ramshackle Replacements could clean up and make an album that was both shooting for the mainstream while simultaneously spitting on the ideals of mainstream music in general. While both of those albums are great and have some of the most amazing songs I’ve ever heard, Tim just has more hits. “Bastards of Young,” “Left of the Dial,” “Kiss Me on the Bus,” “Here Comes a Regular,” “Hold My Life.” Forget it, “Bastards of Young” on its own would be enough to tout this as the Replacements most complete album. That song, every time, every single time. You know what I mean? When a song so thoroughly gets it and turns you into a puddle every single time no matter how many times you’ve played it in the car in the headphones or on the stereo at top volume. Never was a band so successful at not giving a fuck about what anyone thought. No matter how uneven their albums were, they were great albums because the disjointed vision was precisely what made the Replacements so much fun. The lore of their shows going from mindbogglingly great to embarrassingly bad (often in the span of an hour) is all part of their grab bag aesthetic. Here is your Book of Genesis for grunge and alt-country and any modern genre you care about. Of course, you already love this album and I’m preaching to the choir, but give it another spin anyway because you’d have to try pretty goddamn hard to wear this record out.

"Bastards of Young"


"Here Comes a Regular"

The Go-Betweens - Metal and Shells

The Go-Betweens – Metal and Shells

PVC Records, 1985

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013

Price: $5

 

I’ve been on the hunt for Go-Betweens records since I fell in love with the band a few years back. I had literally never seen one til I was cleaning up the LP room at HPB St. Paul and stumbled across this best of, already priced and ready for me to take home. I just had to glance at the track list on the back to know this was exactly the Go-Betweens record I needed in my collection. Though this comp precedes my favorite Go-Betweens record—1988’s 16 Lovers Lane—it kicks off with two of my absolute favorite tracks: “Part Company” and “Bachelor Kisses.” I love “Part Company” so much I referenced it in the best song I ever wrote. “I know you heard that song by the Go-Betweens/The one that referenced ‘her handwriting’/I think you should have agreed to part company.” While I’m wholly embarrassed by most of the songs I wrote with the Kite Tails, I’m still really proud of that one. Probably because it was the only song that broke from the standard break-up fare and admitted my own faults (which of course is necessary for any good break-up song with any depth). It was a Trembling Blue Stars song that led me to “Part Company” that led me to Spring Hill Fair which is now a record I probably don’t need to own since this compilation features 7 of the 10 songs featured on that album (I’ll still buy it the first chance I get though, because of course I will). Metal and Shells also features their best known track “Cattle and Cane” which is pretty much one of thee landmarks for that magnificent period of Australian indie rock in the 80s and 90s. My love for Australian rock music from that period has been well documented on this blog, and as long as I keep digging up great records by the Go-Betweens and the Church and the like it’s honestly never going to stop. There’s something quirky about how they do it, I can’t ever put a finger on it but there’s something distinctly Australian and distinctly great about the Aussie rockers. The Go-Betweens not only carved out their own unique sound, but their lyrics were some of the best you’re going to find on any continent in the 80s. Lines like “That’s her handwriting/ That’s the way she writes/ From the first letter I got to this, her Bill of Rights” and “Don’t believe what you’ve heard/ Faithful’s not a bad word” have a poetry to them that inhabits the songs of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. Though the content is great, it’s the way the words flow and feel so at home in these songs that makes them great. Each song is a cohesive little unit that I could listen to a thousand times and, now that I have this record, probably will listen to a thousand times.

"Part Company"

"Bachelor Kisses"