Review Summary: One hit wonders make one of the defining albums of the 80s
The Pretenders discovered the Violent Femmes (singer/guitarist Gordon Gano, bassist Brian Ritchie, percussionist Victor DeLorenzo) busking on the streets of Milwaukee. Yet another reason to love the Pretenders. If you need a reason to love the Violent Femmes' 1983 debut, however, you've got problems.
It's not often that a group comes along as fully formed and charged with purpose as the Violent Femmes. This group is poetic, bizarre and FIERCE. They're able to construct angst marathons out of the simplest of materials, sounding as though they're about to break every string on every instrument they touch, Gordon's voice fraying, cracking and breaking in insolence, horniness and sadness along with his acoustic playing, Brian's bass thick and moody, Victor plotting out strange circular riffs ON A DRUM.
In the spirit of this album, I'll hit some of these tunes quick and focused (except for Add it Up, where I'll stretch out a bit), and leave it there.
Blister in the Sun. The weird charm and buried anger of the band comes rising to the surface on this opening track. With one of the most famous opening melody lines in alternative rock, a bass and drum playing jaunty licks off each other, that builds into a song wondering about girlfriends, masturbation and someone's place in the world (and in the sun). "Let me go on like I blister in the sun/Let me go on/Big hands I know you're the one"
Kiss Off. The break-up-and-eff-off song of all time. Gordon comes off as morbid, sarcastic, lost and falling. The band charges behind him on acoustic instruments. It all leads to the countdown "I take one, one, one 'cause you left me/And two, two, two for my family/And three, three, three for my heartache/And four, four, four for my headaches/And five, five, five for my lonely/And six, six, six for my sorrow/And seven, seven for no-no-no tomorrow/And eight, eight, I forget what eight is for/But nine, nine, nine for a lost god/And ten, ten, ten, ten for EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING!" One of the best moments of the '80s, all told.
Please Do Not Go betrays a strange reggae fixation, which the Violent Femmes are unable to make sound reggae, hard as they try. It builds off bass and drums, Gano's frantic picking, and his voice which, wounded, flows into the chorus for the other members to echo with "goodbye"s that meander into silliness. "She turn around, she turn around -- she like another guy!/What can I do?/I fall down dead/She never see ... the tears I cry."
Add It Up. The masterpiece on this masterpiece album. Willfully obscure, bizarre and catchy as hell. It begins a capella with Gordon singing "day after day" ruminations, then turns into the whole band sounding like they're destroying their instruments as they're playing them, Gordon dipping into angry diatribes about why he can't get laid. If that were all it was -- a young man's horniness betrayed and mislaid -- it wouldn't be a masterpiece. But it doesn't stop there. It grows frantic and awful. The music turns to bass as Gano coos out his pleas. "Oh my muhmuhmuhmuh oh my mum/have you kept your eye, your eye on your son?/I know you've had problems/You're not the only one/when your sugar left, he left you on the run."
Gano then begins singing about buying a gun downtown, before launching into a frantic "Don't shoot shoot shoot that thing at me! DON'T shoot shoot shoot that thing at me! You know you've got my sympathy but don't shoot shoot shoot that thing at me!" His words grow more scrambled and horny and confused, until he's mumbling "grasp and reach for a leg of hope" and "words all fail the magic prize/nothin' I can say when I'm in your thighs" and then, completely high on his own idea, he stretches to the breaking point of seduction. "Oh my muhmuhmuhmuh oh my mother. I want to love you lover! The city is restless, it's ready to pounce! Here in your bedroom, ounce for ounce!" He then pleads with his mother to let him make love to her, the words spilling out of his mouth. The music stops. He says (in her voice) "Wait a minute honey, I'm gonna add it up."
The band starts chanting "Add it up!" as Gano launches into the beginning of the song all over again, more frustrated, horny, and ready for his mom than ever. The acoustic instruments crumble into noise. The song ends.
Confessions is quiet, woozy and distanced. Gano wonders what "people are worrying about today," then realizes it's good they worry, because there's plenty to worry about. What starts soft later grows harder, into a frenzied tantrum, as Gano bellows "I'm gonna hack hack hack hack it apart!"
Prove My Love stumbles through a wonderful melody, where Gano worries about his relationship, wants sex (to the lyrics "Special favors come in 31 flavors/We're out of mints/Pass the Lifesavers/I'm droppin' hints/Candy for candy-coated tongue"), and questions "What do I have to do?" in a chorus that seems dropped in from another song entirely.
Gone Daddy Gone tries to come to grips with not being able to have the girl you want. The words seem innocent, imbued with soft voices and vibraphone, but Gano sounds smutty and possessed. "Beautiful girl, lovely dress/High school smiles ... oh yes." By the end of the tune, he has resigned himself to failure yet again.
Good Feeling closed the original record. A song that is slow, measured, sad and subdued, as Gano and the boys wonder what happened to their good feeling, how they wish it could stay. Melancholy and heartbroken, it makes the perfect excuse to start the record over again.
This, along with Hole's Live Through This, helped me get through a bad breakup a number of years ago. But even before the record resonated on such a deeply personal level, it was a record to learn and love. This takes the anguish, agony and fun of youth and hurls it lovingly into your face like a snowball. Mixed signals never sounded so good.
