Real Life Rock (35 page)

7
Abiezer Coppe,
Selected Writings
(Aporia Press, London)
Coppe was a Ranter preacher who with the fantastic
A Fiery Flying Roll
(1649) defined the limits of heresy during the English Revolution; the still-shocking tones of his blasphemies precisely capture the mood Johnny Rotten brought to bear in “Anarchy in the U.K.”—which is why Coppe is now back in print.

8
Susan Sontag,
Time
profile (October 24)
Preview of the coming cultural inquistion: “As for equating high and popular culture, she explains: ‘I made a few jolly references to things in popular culture that I enjoyed. I said, for instance, one could enjoy both Jasper Johns and the Supremes. It isn't as if I wrote an essay on the Supremes.'”

9
Cellos,
Rang Tang Ding Dong
(Apollo/Relic reissue, 1957–58)
Remembered only for their Mr. Bass-man-goes-to-Heaven classic, “Rang Tang Ding Dong (I Am the Japanese Sandman)”—and arcanely notable because the young engineer who discovered them, one Lewis Merenstein, went on to produce
Van Morrison's
Astral Weeks
. Who says there're no second acts in American lives?

10
Julie Burchill, “Burchill on Thatcher”
(
The Face
,
September)
In this short, sharp celebration (“there is really no alternative”) of the
Führerprinzip
(sorry, Julie—it means leadership as the first principle of national life, which is exactly what you're talking about), the former punk critic and present-day media icon comes up with a snappy line: “Voting for [Thatcher] was like buying a Vera Lynn LP, getting it home and finding ‘Never Mind the Bollocks' inside the red, white and blue sleeve.” Except that one was singing about liberation, one about domination; one offering the paradoxes of “Bodies,” the other the straight lines of Section 28. With the chant of “10
MORE YEARS
!” rising, Burchill has her bread buttered.

NOVEMBER
29, 1988

1
Randy Newman, “It's Money That Matters” (Reprise)
Every review of Newman's
Land of Dreams
has made a point of dismissing this track as a rewrite of the '83 “It's Money That I Love.” But at No. 70 with a small caliber bullet it's a radio natural—and it's a thrill to hear Newman working in an entirely commercial musical context, his voice mixed down, the harsh guitar guiding the car through traffic, the big beat always demanding more volume. In this context, and in the context of this historical moment, the song reveals itself: it's nothing like the other one. That was a joke, and this is not. This is painful, a no, a dead horse come to life and prancing: a protest song.

2
Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones, “Kiss” (Polydor/China 12-inch)
First Duane Eddy, now this—who's next, Connie Francis? Weighting the tempo with his own bulk, Jones comes up with a bullish, completely convincing performance, especially when he announces “Think I'd better
dance
, now” as if he's just remembered he's always wanted to be James Brown.

3
Daniel Johnston,
Hi, How Are You—The Unfinished Album, Sept 83
(Homestead)
Originally launched into the ether as one of Austin songwriter Johnston's various homemade cassettes, 10 years ago this would have sounded almost obvious. “Suddenly we could do anything,” the motto of
Streets
, the first U.K. collection of punk singles, meant that suddenly you could hear anything; now the insistent individuality of Johnston's half-songs, orchestrated through found noise and found cadences, communicates weirdness, not speech, privacy, not a public space. Someone actually made this, with the idea that someone else would actually listen to it? When I try to picture the singer all I see is the puff-cheeked woman who lives in the radiator in
Eraser-head
.

4
Five Satins, “In the Still of the Nite,” in
Dead Ringers
,
dir. David Cronenberg (Fox Pictures)
In the shiny, ultrasuede apartment shared by the twin gynecologists Jeremy Irons plays, the one currently clinging to sanity puts a record on their $10,000 stereo; the other rises, and together they drape themselves around the first man's girlfriend. The pristine clarity of the sound and the desire it carries nearly makes the scene a match for the black hole “In Dreams” digs in
Blue Velvet
—the tune throws the whole movie off kilter, raising the specter of a life neither man has ever touched.

5
Richard Thompson, “Turning of the Tide,” on
Amnesia
(Capitol)
Just a run-through, an attempt to teach the number to the band, and it opens up a sense of fate and dread everything else here seems to cover up with good humor and fast fingers. By the way, what's Christopher Reeve doing on the sleeve?

6
Pet Shop Boys, “Always On My Mind,” on
Introspection
(Manhattan)
A nine-minute remake of their worldwide smash remake of the old Elvis hit—this time done as Elvis would have done it in Las Vegas, the orchestra up there sawing away, the female chorus washing up through the strings. It's all in place, except for the disruption of the drum machine and the wrong singer, who for a spoken passage has his thin voice twisted from near-Chipmunks
levels down to 16 rpm bass, and then comes back as a real person full of bile and revenge. Neat.