I Don't Know Why You Say "Goodbye," I Say "Hello"

I will be on a bit of an hiatus until July 10, when hopefully my health is in check and school is under control.  So, please check back Tuesday, July 10 for one more song and why it's great.

Phone Is Ringing—Oh My God

“Get It Together,” Beastie Boys feat. Q-Tip

MCA’s passing shocked away the latent aspect of my devotion to one of the most approachably cool groups ever.  The Beastie Boys started off as jokey punkers in the early ’80s and now enjoy a place as one of hip-hop’s most formative and aspirational acts.  Working in a genre that often seems fueled by bravado, MCA, Mike D, and Ad-Rock came to temper their boasts with game-changing humility.  They exhibited a growth in both form and content that I can’t really say I’ve seen in another artist.  With an impressive capacity for innovation, the trio shrewdly mined the past to shape the future.  Their sound evolved to resist career-spanning definition, but is perhaps best characterized by an enduring playfulness that made irreverence weighty.  Who else has managed to be ever the same, yet continuously progress?

“Get It Together” is off the Beasties’ 1994 essential, Ill Communication, and will always be the track that is my fave of so many faves.  What other hip-hop joint references an antitrust lawsuit in such a cleverly impish way—“Ma Bell | Who’s that”?  The cut features A Tribe Called Quest legend Q-Tip, whose swaggery baritone is a satisfying counterpoint to the Boys’ cartoonish spitting.  

The splicing and dicing that created this song is so skillful that none of the samples slap you in the face.  Rather, they are integrated with a subtlety that makes you feel like you’re part of an inside joke.  James Brown and Biz Markie are along for the ride with cough-and-you’ll-miss-them snippets.  A two-line lift from Eugene McDaniel’s “Headless Heroes” is deftly transformed into an unlikely chorus.  Tip’s guttural harmonics frame the track, leading in and out of the beat that loops a taste of The Moog Machine’s “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In”.

I love this song because it has a little bit of everything that is best about the Beasties.  There are inspired borrows from other records.  There is a driving beat that propels, but doesn’t force, the heavy sonic layers.  There are memorable quips like Ad-Rock’s take on his then-wife (“She’s the cheese and I’m the macaroni”).  The raps snap.  And, of course, there is MCA.

Question:  My all-time favourite Beastie Boys lyric is probably “Educated—no, stupid—yes | And when I say stupid I mean really fresh”.  What’s yours?

And I Want To Shout Out Our Love To The World

“My Valuable Hunting Knife, ” Guided By Voices

“My Valuable Hunting Knife” is a standout from Guided By Voices’ 1995 release, Alien Lanes, a 52-track marathon of magic.  This compact gem opens with an unforgettable lyric: “I want to start a new life | With my valuable hunting knife.”  In creating on the cusp of violently destroying, this shedding of identity structures an intriguing relationship between person and object.  The narrator views the hunting knife as a romantic partner, for, “She will shine like a new girl | And I want to shout out our love to the world.”  In this new life, romance is enduring; the knife will not become rusty, nor “lose its appeal over years”.

Why might anyone want to start a new life?  Disappointment.  Failure.  Loss.  Beginning anew, armed only with a hunting knife conjures the familiar fantasy of placing oneself into some self-sufficient existence where potentially painful attachments to others are avoided.  Some people cut their hair, some people want to try something a little more extreme.  The impetus is the same remains the same—distancing oneself from what went wrong; reinventing oneself as someone new, someone improved, someone who won’t be on the losing end again.

Robert Pollard’s vocals aren’t particularly commanding, in fact they are secondary to the instrumentals. The song begins with drums and a guitar, then, halfway through, another guitar is added to further obscure the vox.  It is almost a struggle to pick out the vocal line—perhaps the words Pollard sings are intentionally underpowered because they are private and personal; a secret to be intimated, not bellowed.  The inertia of the competing instruments adds to the chaotic, disordered sentiment of the track.

This is a breakup song, but the narrator still thinks of the knife as his girl.  It sounds as though he’s getting over love lost, so he’s transferring his feelings to another—something else to go through life with.  It almost alternates between the past relationship and what he’s looking for in the future: “Everything I think about think about | Everything I talk about talk about with you | But you don’t know | I don’t know | You don’t know | I’ll never know.”  The dissolution of a relationship is difficult to process—after resentment and longing pass, confusion lingers.  This song is an attempt to come to an elegiac understanding of what once was.  This occupation of two perspectives is fragmented, as if trying to have moments of conversation with someone who is no longer listening.


Question: “My Valuable Hunting Knife” feels less a greeting to a new life than a farewell to the old one.  What songs do you love that are more of a “goodbye” than an “hello”?

And As We Sit Here Alone

“Since Yesterday,” Strawberry Switchblade

It is rumored that when Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall formed as a duo, they called themselves Strawberry Switchblade after a song that their friend, James Kirk of Orange Juice, may have written.  This ambiguity feeds nicely into the flourishing mythos of rock music—details aren’t often exciting, but they can be when they’re not quite true.  Either way, Strawberry Switchblade is a killer name, and such a great identity for a girl group.

“Since Yesterday” was included on 1985’s Strawberry Switchblade, the only album the group ever released.  The single charted well in the UK, but was really the only big hit for the duo.  The song starts off with heavy horns (a Sibelius sample), but quickly settles into a new wave groove with a prominent band machine playing along to Bryson and McDowall’s very young-sounding voices.

Despite the generally upbeat accompaniment, there is something off-kilter about the melodic lines.  The lyrics tell of an almost static existence; yesterday is depicted with tempered fondness, but today is flat: “And as we sit here alone | Looking for a reason to go on | It’s so clear that all we have now | Are our thoughts of yesterday.”  Nothing really happens in the course of the track; it is a tribute to the mundane.  Stagnancy is the rule, but the lyrics do not explore this as a burden.  Rather, being stuck in this state is not something to rail against, for it provides the impetus to write a pop song about relishing those moments, because, “When tomorrow comes you’ll wish | You had today.”

A couple of days ago, my sister told me to turn on BBC Radio 6 because Jim Reid, front man for The Jesus and Mary Chain, was hosting 6 Music Playlist.  The programme is a forum for artists to share the music they enjoy and find inspiring.  One of Reid’s picks came from a fellow Glaswegian band of the early 1980s, Strawberry Switchblade.  Recalling how he used to teasingly be referred to as a “Strawberry Switchblade groupie” because he was such an avid fan, Reid proudly declared that, even after all these years, “I love their music.”  Me too.

Question: “Since Yesterday” feels a bit like a daydream—a pleasant departure from the present.  What other songs do you think capture the fleeting quality of day-to-day life?

All Things Pass Into the Night

“Goodbye Horses,” Q Lazzarus

This track is often referred to as “The Buffalo Bill Song,” as it was featured in The Silence of the Lambs during the infamous “butterfly scene.”  Despite its association with the film, it also ranks well as a stand-alone song.  Listening to it induces a trance-like state.  The vocals beckon one to fall under the song’s siren spell.

Although Q Lazzarus is a woman, her voice is so throaty and deep that it would be easy to mistake her singing for a performance by a man.  This ambiguity serves the song well, for it widens its outlook from one that is gendered to one that is less finite in addressing its universal themes.

The lyrics of “Goodbye Horses” are extremely descriptive.  Like the best poetry, what’s not said is just as important as what is, and this recording’s real power exists in the allusions it conveys.  Longing and loss, acceptance and redemption are all thematically present, but not in the usual way.  Here, the struggle is internal rather than external.  Although there are two voices in conflict in the lyrics, the “He” and “I” are really two parts of the same person, connecting the stagnant past and its disappointments to the fluid present’s hope for the future.  With the lyric, “I must disagree, oh no sir, I must say you’re wrong | Won’t you listen to me?” the genderless present responds to the past’s omniscient claim that he has “seen it all before.”

The song is not joyous or uplifting, but it is not particularly brooding, either.  Rather, it is meditative.  The track examines the changes that occur when problems and worries cease to be constraints when viewed from another perspective.  Deeply-held beliefs can be just as helpful as they can be stifling, and searching the self for how these beliefs actually function can be both comforting and liberating.  Letting go of one’s mental and emotional chains is transformative in the song’s closing line: “Goodbye horses, I’m flying over you.”  Repeated multiple times, it is almost as if the repetition is out of disbelief and awe that this transcendent feat has finally been achieved.

Question: “Goobye Horses” is interesting because it depicts the conflict between two parts of the self, rather than between two people.  What other good songs are there that address this problem of being of two minds about an issue?

I’m in Distress, I Need a Caress

“What Do I Get?,” The Buzzcocks

After last week’s idealistic stroll down lover’s lane, it seems appropriate—particularly today—to present the exasperating side of romance.  “What Do I Get?” is strikingly upbeat for a track that is a depiction of failure.  This about someone who is down, but not out.  Instead of feeling hopeless, the voice of this song is more bewildered by a lack of romantic success.  The tone is almost playfully self-deprecating rather than resolutely bitter.

“What Do I Get?” can be found on the Buzzcocks’ must-have compilation, Singles Going Steady.  The sparse melodic line feels spontaneous and lends an authenticity to the confessional quality of the track.  The guitars are kinetic—a heart that is racing, but has no one to make it pound.  The energy of the record drives straight to the end, with a final cadence that is a punky, du-wop surprise. This song is an influential part of English punk, and presents a refreshing take on the dilemma of a lover with no one to love.

Question: This song is critical of love, but doesn’t dismiss it.  What are your favourite tracks about unsatisfied desire?

A Love for All My Life to Have and to Hold

“A Sunday Kind Of Love,” Etta James

On January 20^th we lost one of the best friends a song ever had.  Etta James had an unmistakable capacity for expression that made the songs she sang her own.  Although “A Sunday Kind Of Love” is considered a standard, the 1961 James recording represents the pinnacle of its possibility.

The opening line of this song is bewitching.  The way James’ voice draws you in is captivating—you can’t not listen to the rest of the story.  The sweeping string accompaniment provides a romantic setting that James matches with enthralling conviction.  James’ instrument has a richness that is befitting such a beautiful piece of music—the composition itself gives her a lot to work with, but she really makes everything come together.  There is something that is just so warm and comforting about her voice; it’s like an intimate embrace.

There are so many tired or trite ways to approach the subject of love, but calling it “a Sunday kind of love” is such an effective metaphor to communicate the elation of a settled match.  The song speaks of longing, but the tone is optimistic: “I’m hoping to discover | A certain kind of lover | Who will show me the way!”  This song is about all of your life finally coming together around that one person—that Sunday kind of love.

Question: This song has been recorded by many different artists.  What other standards are your favourites?

Every Way Love’s a Little Stronger

“Everyday,” Buddy Holly

This week marks the anniversary of The Day the Music Died.  On 03 February 1959, the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper crashed into the cold Iowa night.  With this one twist of fate, half a generation’s musical promise was lost, and it seems futile to fathom what might’ve been, and even more difficult, still, to assess the extent to which we’ve suffered because these talents were barred from continuing to advance.  However, we are fortunate to have the recordings these greats left behind.

In so many ways, Holly defies categorization.  We know he belongs somewhere under the rock umbrella, but his experimental nature makes him hard to pin down.  His songs are humble and often lyrically simple.  But, that sound!  It changes you.  Tracks like “Rave On” and “Peggy Sue” continue to shape our expectations of what the best rock and roll can achieve.  

It is stunning how much impact “Everyday” achieves with such simple devices.  Everything is pared down: the lyrics are of a plaintive love ballad, and Holly’s singular vocal line is primarily accompanied by subdued hand slaps and a tinkling celesta.  This doesn’t really sound like a rock and roll song, but it doesn’t really sound like anything else, either.  The overall effect is almost like a music box playing, quiet and sweet—slow, but sure.  It’s remarkable how with a minimum of sound, it doesn’t feel like something is lacking.

“Everyday” was released as the B-side to 1957’s “Peggy Sue,” but it possesses a sound that is timeless.  This stripped down recording feels like it could have just as easily been recorded today as sixty years ago.  Holly sings about a tender love to last, and the barn-burner fireworks of many of his other tunes would have been an overstatement of such a gentle sentiment.  The track stands the test of time because it doesn’t feel as though it belongs to a time.  Even Holly’s signature glottal flourishes don’t date this song, because the best music just does not fade away.

Question:  Despite having such a brief career, Buddy Holly’s remarkable influence is enduring.  What other musicians do you think we were fortunate to have for a good time, if not a long time?

I'll Make You Cry Those Tears of Joy

“Two Kinds Of Teardrops,” Del Shannon

Two of the most persistent themes in classic rock are cars and love.  Del Shannon incorporates both of these touchstones into his identity because he is rumoured to have chosen his stage name after his favourite car, Cadillac’s Coupe de Ville, and he most always sang about romance.  Released in 1963, “Two Kinds Of Teardrops” wasn’t much of a hit outside of the UK.  However, this song is so much fun to listen to that it deserves a place alongside Shannon’s signature tune, “Runaway.”

Shannon sings lead, and a few sing-songy, child-like girls provide back-up vocals.  Instead of being overly cloying, though, the harmonic dissonance they provide is just jarring enough to complement Shannon’s rough-around-the-edges growl.  The light-heartedness of this counterpoint keeps the song moving and the sound fresh.  Shannon's phrasing transitions quickly between lines and makes the song really move.

The “two kinds of teardrops” represent relationships of the past and future.  Failed relationships produce “lonely tears,” but going steady with Shannon means things are going to change.  This song could be one-note, but the vocal stylings tone down the sugar and add dimension that wouldn’t be there with a lesser voice.  When Shannon sings, “I’m going to make you cry | Those happy teardrops,” he is at once playful, yet in control.  This hopeful promise is one Shannon makes you believe he’ll keep.

Question: Regardless of subject matter, what other songs do you think are “fun” listens?

It’s Been So Lonely Without You Here

“Nothing Compares 2 U,” Prince feat. Rosie Gaines

Although Prince wrote this track, it is most closely associated with Sinéad O’Connor because of her famous release of the single, “Nothing Compares 2 U.”  Three years after that cover version topped the charts, Prince’s 1993 compilation, The Hits 1, included this live performance of his song.  The O’Connor recording of this lament is well known, and it should be; the flight of her lilting vocals is chilly elegance.  However, it is a delight to discover how well the song translates as a duet, with Prince and Rosie Gaines trading verses and bringing the heat.

The beginning of this performance features soothing keyboards and an understated guitar riffing on the familiar “Nothing Compares 2 U” hook.  This quiet scene betrays none of the chaotic despair to come when the singers take their turn.  Prince displays his impressive vocal range, with extensive improvisational ornamentation that sustains interest with its delicacy, side-stepping the trap of becoming tiresome.  However, it is Gaines’ soulful blasts that are the real reason to come to this show; she is a woman on the verge of collapse, and one is left rattled by the sound of her heart breaking.

This tune is absolute catharsis.  Presented as an ambling, blues-y lament, every word becomes poignant; each syllable breaks with the emotional destruction of love lost.  This particular rendition is so powerful because conceiving of it as a duet transforms its character.  The two voices are in the same song, but they are somehow not speaking to each other, they are speaking about each other.  The lack of communication is frustrating, but it deepens the emotional release necessary when confronting a profound loss.  Each line reveals a new dimension of sorrow, effecting devastation.

Question: Performing this song as a duet adds impact to its already weighty subject matter.  What are some songs that you think are better for being duets rather than solos?

Merry Christmas Baby!

Song and Why is on holiday for the rest of the season.  Please check back January 10, 2012 for another song and why it's great.  Happy Holidays!!

We’re Sweating in the Winter

“Date With The Night,” The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

There are a lot of songs about dates: dates with that special someone, dates to remember, dates to forget, dates gone good, dates gone bad, dates even ending in death.  Going on a date with “the night” defies all the usual norms; one of the partners is metaphysical.  Now anything can happen.  From the first time Karen O announces, “I got a date with the night!”, the track explodes with possibility.  It’s that feeling one has when getting ready for a wild night out with anticipatory thrill—the night could bring anything, and it is absolute frisson.  “Date With The Night” is on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ 2003 release, Fever To Tell, an album that jumps you from behind and won’t let go.

Lyrics are almost cursory to the combination of O’s voice, Nick Zinner’s guitar, and Brian Chase’s drums.  Spinning an incoherent tale of walking on water, fixing fights, and most enticingly, “dropping brides at the altar,” this chaotic narrative serves as an unbounded allusion to a night that could be.  The cut opens with blares of Zinner’s scratchy axe, with a hook that is as catchy as it is startling.  Chase’s percussion keeps “the date” on a tear through the night, landing only briefly before flying through each chorus.  O’s gale-force howl is matched by Zinner’s equally shrieky shredding.  The perfect storm that ensues is as overwhelming as it is seductive.

Everything is on edge, electric—almost unbearable.  The track tests the limits of shrillness, but never pushes it so far as to be reckless and unlistenable.  It is no small feat that even when O screams, she sings.  Backed by wailing sirens from Zinner’s guitar, O is the party police, screeching orders that will be obeyed.  Much of the time it’s difficult to decipher her aggressive commands, but Officer O won’t let up, her voice a piercing siren itself. You know it’s a good party when the cops get there before you.

Question: In “Date With The Night,” not just anything happens, everything happens.  What songs fill you with the anticipation of nothing but possibility?

Everybody's Shaking

“Too Young,” Phoenix

Featured on Phoenix’s 2000 album, United, “Too Young” reveals the group’s Parisian roots through vocalist Thomas Mars’ occasional, charmingly Francophonic inflections.  Although these errors in pronunciation seem unintentional, they may well be affect, for they shrewdly contribute to the atmosphere of unstudied disquiet to which the song alludes.  The chorus is an elegant frenzy of Mars beseeching “Can’t you hear it calling | Everybody’s dancing | Tonight everything is over | I feel too young.”  The close of this lyric summons a sadness in recalling a moment lost to being overwhelmed.  Failure is implicit here, but not in a judgmentally removed way; the song is understanding and engaged in its reflections.  Even the title, “Too Young,” is a softened rather than impatient stance.

The power of this song is greater than the sum of its parts.  Its true impact is found in its capacity to conjure the tangibility of fleeting angst.  The message is a tangle of ephemera, but the mode is strikingly simple.  Like last week’s Stone Roses track, “This Is The One,” “Too Young” is almost all chorus.  This repetition has an hypnotic effect, opening the emotional potency of the repeated words to wash over the listener.  The chorus’ lyrical hook could almost be cloying, were it not tempered by the accompanying mid-tempo instrumentals.  The complex sentiment is uncomplicated by a stark guitar motif that serves as a kind of respite from the song’s emotional weight each time it is featured. 

This song is so evocative of that uncomfortable time in one’s life when everything seems to be in limbo—even socializing is unsettled.  The track is transportive and tenderly takes one back to those bright, young, bewildering days.  Through the metaphor of being unready for the complications of a specific romantic relationship, the narrative expands this device to encompass the larger uncertainty and confusion of approaching adulthood.  The dizzying beginnings of coming into one’s own are the focal point, and the poignant recollections of that time manifest a fond wistfulness—yearning, even—to once again be on that chrysalid brink of maturity.

Question: The real strength of “Too Young” is its success at inciting an emotional response.  What other songs make you feel before you think?

We All Know Her Desire

“This Is The One,” The Stone Roses

The Stone Roses are back!  After forming in 1983, ushering in the Madchester scene of their hometown, and siring an entire generation of Britpoppers, the band split in 1996, having released only two albums—The Stone Roses and Second Coming.  In 2012, there is once again the opportunity to experience the Roses’ magic live on their world tour.  All four core members have agreed to participate: vocalist Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire, bassist Mani, and drummer Reni.  Lucky concert-goers will be sure to be treated to a version of “This Is The One” at next year’s Roses shows.

Released on the Stone Roses’ self-titled 1989 debut, “This Is The One” is a memorable treasure from the outstanding album.  This track is a remarkable lesson in restrained exhilaration.  It presents a tempered perspective on the ecstasy of finding love.  But this is not the usual romantic fluff of pop songs; it is a passionate reward hard-won after considerable wait.  The prolonged loving fixation which resists fulfillment drives the song’s ethereal longing.  This is the person yearned for and finally found.  The bittersweet journey to love underscores the delight of its triumph, amplifying the deliciousness of this moment.

A wide-ranging melody coupled with fast-moving guitar and bass lines lend this recording a nostalgic quality.  Nostalgia only lasts for so long, though, and the Roses are eager to unburden themselves of the past.  Brown dreamily declares: “I’d like to leave the country | For a month of Sundays | Burn the town where I was born!”  Reni’s drumming is just right; it mirrors the vocal lines and drives the ballad beyond the form’s standard metric confines.

The first half of this song feels like a secret.  But it’s one that can’t be kept.  Brown’s soft, whispery style engages the listener and intimates an immediate kinship.  As the track progresses, this confidence can no longer be kept, for the lyrical narrative is too joyful not to be shared.  Towards the end, Brown is joined by jangly backing vocals that tirelessly proclaim to all that “This is the one she’s waited for!”  Happily, the secret doesn’t falter and sound nauseatingly repetitive or garishly gossipy; it becomes more beautiful—and thrilling—each time it is intoned.  These vocals complete the tune, gradually fading to nothing yet everything at the same time.  Perhaps this is a love that has burned itself out, for it was born, as Brown tells, of “a girl consumed by fire.”

Question: I think “This Is The One” captures the guarded excitement of love’s beginnings perfectly.  What are your favourite songs that attempt to express love’s first ripple in time?

Oh What She Does To Me

“Don’t Worry Baby,” The Beach Boys

Brian Wilson penned this 1964 tune to answer last week’s girl-go-get-him cut for the ages, “Be My Baby.”  Strangely though, rich yet worried, “Don’t Worry Baby” has little of the simmering aggression that characterized the song for which it was inspired.  Instead, it is reticent and passive, reluctant and even humbled at times, all while tendering a provocative take on the expected sugary ballad.  

“Don’t Worry Baby” captures both the contents that haunted many teen boys’ thoughts—racing cars, the pressures of fitting in with the cool crowd, learning how to be a man in the 1960s—and the kind of love that can withstand it all.  With refreshing honesty, the boy confides: “I guess I should’ve kept my mouth shut when I started to brag about my car | But I can’t back down now because I pushed the other guys too far.”  This act of confessing to his girlfriend cleanses the boy of his fears.  For every pain the boy must endure, the antidote is his sweetheart.  With each problem he encounters, she is there; Wilson spills, “And she says don’t worry baby…Everything will turn out alright.” 

Mike Love often sang the high parts, but here Wilson’s own falsetto is lead, winding above the lush harmonies.  From the outset, even the most troubled lyrics are juxtaposed by a sunny surf-sound accompaniment.  This can serve to undermine the seriousness of the subject matter after the first listen.  However, after more dedicated plays of this track, the contrast between form and content is revealed to delectably heighten the tension within the song.

In the lyrics, a boy speaks plainly to his girlfriend.  In “Be My Baby” there was a girl (Ronnie Bennett) singing to a boy, and she wanted him to be hers.  Here, the gender of the singer changes, but not that of “Baby.”  Even though the male is the voice of the recording, the girl seems to be the one who is in control, the one who the song is about.  The title, “Don’t Worry Baby,” is reflexive, for it is the boy who is “Baby,” not the girl he is singing to—it is she in whom he seeks solace.  Significantly, though, the boy already has won the girl; he is not in the heat of pursuit as in “Be My Baby.”  Or, as was the case in “Be My Baby,” perhaps he was the one who was pursued?

Listen to the Girl as She Takes on Half the World

For the launch of Song and Why, a special double-post:


“Be My Baby,” The Ronettes

“Just Like Honey,” The Jesus And Mary Chain

Although the Ronettes were a trio, producer Phil Spector chose front girl, Ronnie Bennett, to sing both lead and backing vocals on the group’s biggest hit, 1963’s “Be My Baby.”  This made for a brilliant record that is, at times, almost arrestingly full.  When it seems as though there couldn’t be room for more sound, yet another instrument is introduced.  For once, too much is just enough, and the sonic overload does not overwhelm the lovingly simple wordplay—it attends to it beautifully.  One of the most precious aspects of “Be My Baby” is the innocence of love’s first blush that blooms through, something that was playing out during recording sessions in the studio as much as it was when the song was on the turntable at countless dances in local high schools.  Did I mention that Ronnie Bennett became Ronnie Spector?

Take that unforgettable “Be My Baby” beat, add a healthy dose of feedback, and it could become a mess, but with the guidance of the Jesus and Mary Chain, it is a rebirth.  From the opening thuds of (Primal Scream leader) Bobby Gillespie’s drum, everything old is new.  William Reid’s guitar fuzzes over the familiar rhythm, joined by his brother, Jim’s, wistful serenade.  “Just Like Honey” is from the Mary Chain’s must-own debut album, Psychocandy, released in 1985 when the band’s initial shows were legendary three-song sets that collapsed into violence—none of which is present on this pensive track.  Instead, the Jesus and Mary Chain are much wearier and wiser, acquiescing to “listen to the girl as she takes on half the world.”  For, achingly, Jim Reid confesses, “walking back to you is the hardest thing that I can do.”

Both songs are about love that is just beyond one’s reach.  However, in a very important way, “Be My Baby” is subversive and sly—this is bad-girl music that sounds like something far more pretty and sweet—whereas “Just Like Honey” deals with the same subject matter with even greater ambivalence and lyrical economy. “Be My Baby” begins conventionally regarding the man’s role: if the girl were able to land her new boy, she’d make him “so proud of me.”  As the Wall of Sound plows on, this woman’s entreaties grow, becoming more and more insistent; they, like the castanets that punctuate them, will not be ignored: “Be my baby now!”  In contrast, “Just Like Honey” features a guy who knows his music and is pining for a chick who is a real tall order.  The tune ends at a dreamy impasse, drifting into a world where there is only a guitar-drenched shimmer of hope for love fulfilled.