What They Were Really Born to Sing

248. U2, "Hallelujah Here She Comes"
Written by U2: produced by JImmy Iovine
Island 99250 1988 Billboard: # 3 (as B-side of "Desire")

I made that comment some posts back about fun early U2 B-sides, and their new album just came out and it's even duller than the last one (no "Vertigo"), so I think it's time to briefly take note of this song, which isn't even available on Rhapsody so I can't give you a link off the title. "Hallelujah, Here She Comes" is one of several dozen songs that U2 recorded during the Rattle & Hum period. More than any other of the band's projects, the process of selection on this one was fascinating. Some performances ended up in the film, some ended up on the album, some ended up as B-sides, and some have only shown up on bootlegs, and I'm by no means the only person who would have shuffled the available tracks in their places around had he gotten the chance. During this period, in the wake of the enormous global success of The Joshua Tree, U2 self-consciously embraced American music--and when you say "self-conscious" in relation to Bono, you're obviously talking really self-conscious. They recorded a song with B. B. King in Sun Studios; they sang a song about hearing Billie Holiday on the radio in Harlem; they had Bob Dylan play organ on a track whose lyrics were almost incomprehensible (even though it had been neophyte Al Kooper who had famously played organ on "Like a Rolling Stone").

Predictably, the best songs for the project were the less self-conscious ones. The ElvisQuoteaRama "A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel" in particular is a sad little mishmosh, just begging to be matched to footage from Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train a few years later to make a true YouTube classic. By contrast, "All I Want Is You," which seems to have no clear musical referent, is probably one of the band's best ballads, right down to Bono's last-minute entry in the Roger Daltrey/Bruce Springsteen Sustained Classic Rock Scream Sweepstakes.

"Hallelujah Here She Comes" isn't that classic, but it's a lovely little gem just the same. "Desire," the A-side of this single, is a good song, but it's as clear a Bo Diddley homage as Springsteen's "She's the One." The beat on this song, however, is all its own, propulsive, vaguely cowboyish, but really just Larry and Adam laying down a beat for their mate Paul Hewson to goof around on. Not only does it have an unpompous call-and-response on the Hallelujahs, but the simple lyrics here are less portentously witty than many of Bono's. "I see you're dressed in black/I guess I'm not coming back" is no "How long/Will we sing this song," but it's certainly worth repeating.

A Moment in the Global Dreamtime

226. CHURCH, "Under The Milky Way"
Produced by The Church, Greg Ladanyi, Richard Wachtel & Waddy Wachtel; written by Karin Jansson & Steve Kilbey
Arista 9673 1988 Billboard: # 24

For a certain subset of pop-descended, art rock-derived bands during the 1980s, this is the single that everyone was trying to record. As in a Big Country single, you have a guitar (actually an e-bow) doubling for a bagpipe. As in a Hooters single, you have the attempt to use a melodeon to denote authenticity rather than calculation. Throughout, you have the indirection and vague dreaminess that characterized so many Brit and Anglophile bands in the post-New Wave, pre-Alternative era.

But the Church weren't Brits, of course. They were Australians, which I suspect is part of the reason why they actually pulled it off. That and the fact that this song is a collaboration between frontman Steve Kilbey and his girlfriend Karin Jansson. Allegedly, it's about a club in Amsterdam called Melkweg, and I can't help wondering whether Stew of Passing Strange fame frequented the same club, since he and Kilbey seem to have been in the city around the same time. In other words, this is a song by an Australian and a European about a place in Amsterdam that could only have been produced in the U.S. by one of the great L.A. sidemen (Waddy Wachtel). Because of all this, the song is global and particular at one and the same time.

It is also very much the product of a specific global cultural moment. You might not know what specific place produced this record, but you could never doubt what time. This is why, when Richard Kelly wanted to introduce his audience for Donnie Darko to a familiarly strange high school in the late 1980s, he chose to use this song. We've all been then, even if we haven't been there.

You Can't Hug a Child with Nuclear Arms, But . . .

671. 10,000 MANIACS, "What's the Matter Here?"
Produced by Peter Asher; written by Robert Buck and Natalie Merchant
Elektra 69388 1988 Billboard # 80

672. SUZANNE VEGA, "Luka"
Produced by Ronald K. Fierstein; written by Suzanne Vega
A & M 2937 1987 Billboard # 3

Codes vs. referents leading to a confused listening experience. Blame it on postmodernism, pop production, or (everybody's favorite target for projection) Ronald Reagan, as you wish.

If you pay any attention to lyrics, it's obvious what these two songs are about: child abuse.
So how did they get so high on the pop charts? Well, they're hummable, and even danceable, which are not necessarily qualities I look for in songs designed to raise awareness of previously ignored social problems. In both cases, I can remember djs doing these flip leadins and tags for these songs when playing them on the radio. One announcer I had formerly liked ever referred to the 10,000 Maniacs track as "Whatsamattayou?" in a jokey Italian dialect that I had thought had gone out with Pat Cooper records.

Some of the fault lies with the performers too, particularly the Maniacs. Natalie Merchant sounds as if she's having too much fun on this track. Maybe she is, maybe she enjoys telling off her stuckup albeit abusive neighbor, but that's not really the point now, is it? Then there's that jokey postmodern sleeve for the 45, which just signals ironic distance.

Don't get me wrong: I love not taking serious things too seriously. I'm part of the generation that took the overly precious hippie slogan "You Can't Hug a Child with Nuclear Arms" and added the words "But You Can Sure as Hell Teach It a Lesson" for our very own heartwarming bumper sticker. So no, I don't think you always have to be glum when singing about serious things. However, I do think that, no matter what kind of attitude s/he cops, a serious artist should never let her/his work help people forget things to which they should be paying attention. Falldown funny or painfully morose, art is always about getting you to see something you never saw before. It should never give you an easy out to avoid pain and discomfort.

That's ultimately why Vega's song is the more artistically successful of the two, although I don't think I'll ever understand why it charted this high. The Maniacs' track is about their rage and their superior insight, and I feel as if the kid gets forgotten in the mix. Vega's song, however, attempts to reproduce the kid's voice, and the avoidance here is true to the situation. Both the song and Vega's performance ask you to go beyond the surface and figure out the things that aren't explicitly said. I still think this is a tragic case of a folk singer adding too many instruments in the studio to what should always have been a bare acoustic song, but still it's a noble attempt. It gets you to ask questions, which is one of the many reasons we have art.