Pretenders – "Pack It Up" (1981)

 

I don't like your trousers

And your appalling taste in women

And what about your mind?

And your insipid record collection

That dumb home video center

The usual pornography

That all you scum lap up

YOU'RE THE PITS OF THE WORLD!

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  

You best believe I would never, ever scorn Chrissie Hynde – the lead singer and chief songwriter of the Pretenders, who she founded in 1978.  You would have to be out of your f*cking mind to scorn her.

I have no doubt that Ms. Hynde is the one who does the scorning, not the one who is scorned – in other words, she’s the scorner, not the scornee.

Chrissie Hynde

I doubt that I will ever meet Chrissie Hynde, and that’s probably just as well.  She intimidates the hell out of me.  I’m quite sure that if I ever had to opportunity to interview her or even have a casual conversation – say we were seated next to each other on an airplane – I would be so scared that I would make a fool of myself.

You may have noticed that I quoted eight lines from today's featured song at the beginning of this post.  That's because I'm not man enough to tell Hynde that she only gets two or three.

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If you can find a more scornful song than “Pack It Up,” I’d like to hear it.  (Or maybe I wouldn’t.  I’m a pretty sensitive dude.)

Hynde’s scorn is directed at the vanity of men.  Her target in “Pack It Up” no doubt thinks that he has good taste in clothes and music – but she sets him straight.  (She even dismisses the prosaic pornography he favors.) 

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Speaking of male vanity, do you remember Tom Wolfe’s brilliant novel, Bonfire of the Vanities?  One of the major characters in that book is a thirty-something assistant district attorney who is extremely proud of his muscular physique – in particular, his "massive sternocleidomastoid muscles" (i.e., neck muscles), which he constantly flexes for the benefit of every comely young female he encounters. 

He laters sees a videotape of the very comeliest of those females making fun of his weird neck moves – he’s mortified, of course.

I guarantee you that if Chrissie Hynde had seen this preening prosecutor flexing his sternocleidomastoids. she wouldn’t have made fun of him behind his back like the woman in the Wolfe book – she would have cut him down to size by saying something snarky to his face.

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I had planned to induct twelve songs into the 2 OR 3 LINES “SILVER DECADE” HALL OF FAME this year, but I’m afraid there’s going to have to be a change in those plans.

I simply can’t pick one and only one Pretenders song for that honor – Chrissie Hynde deserves better than that.

The Pretenders in 1980

I’ve got my eye on three tracks from the first two Pretenders albums.  But it’s possible I won’t be able to stop there.  (Stay tuned . . . )

Click here to listen to “Pack It Up,” which was released in 1981 on the Pretenders II album.

Click on the link below to buy “Pack It Up” from Amazon:

X – "The Have Nots" (1982)

Here we sit

A shot and a beer

After another hard-earned day

NOTE:  Unlike the singer of today’s featured song – which is the 11th and next-to-last song I’ve chosen to include in the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “SILVER DECADE” HALL OF FAME – I was never a shot-and-a-beer kind of guy.  I was more of a beer-and-another-beer-and-yet-another-beer-or-two kind of a guy.  But a lot of my misspent youth was misspent in dive bars like those listed in “The Have Nots.”  The bars I hung out in were great places to get drunk cheap.  They were not, however, good places to meet women.  (No place is perfect, I guess.) 

The following post is a slightly edited version of a post that originally appeared on my wildly popular little blog on April 30, 2019.

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The first line of the chorus of today’s featured song is “Dawn comes soon enough for the working class.”  Ain’t that the truth, bub!

Dawn came soon enough for me when I was a college student and had a succession of summer jobs that started at seven o’clock every morning – unloading trucks, unloading rail cars, driving a water truck on a road construction job . . . you get the picture.

Dawn comes even sooner if you’ve been up until all hours the night before drinking beer at Nina’s Green Parrot in, Galena, Kansas – where it was legal for 18-year-olds to imbibe 3.2% beer.  

The late lamented Nina’s Green Parrot bar

Legally, 3.2% beer was considered to be a non-intoxicating beverage, but let me assure you that if you drink enough – I usually drank two quarts in the bar, and got a tallboy can to go for the drive back home – it does the job.

*     *     *     *     *

I didn’t grow up poor, but almost.  My family had enough to take care of the necessities, but there was no money for luxuries like fancy restaurant meals or vacation trips.  

My parents grew up during the Great Depression, and their families were poor – especially my father’s family.  (My father’s father died in 1934, when he was only 38 years old.  He left behind a widow and eight children – they were aged 15, 14, 12, 11, 9, 6, 3, and 6 months. )

I don’t think my mother – whose family lived on a farm in northwest Arkansas – had it quite as bad.  But the early part of her life was difficult.  (Her mother got pregnant when she was only 16.  She and my mother’s father were married a few months before my mother was born in 1926, but he died in an influenza epidemic before her first birthday.)

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I’ve always been fascinated by books about people living on the margins of homelessness and hunger.  George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London is one such book.

Orwell moved to from London to Paris in 1928, when he was 25.  His economic situation started to become difficult when became seriously ill the next year and couldn’t work.  Then a young woman he picked up and brought back to his lodgings stole his money. 

To get through periods of unemployment, Orwell had to pawn his clothes.  For example, he would pawn his overcoat for a few francs when spring arrived, hoping that he would be able to accumulate enough money to redeem the coat before cold weather returned.

He eventually got a job in a restaurant, working almost eighteen hours a day, seven days a week to earn a pittance of a salary.

Orwell was so poor that he only owned one pair of black socks.  He applied black shoe polish to his feet so the bare skin wouldn’t show through the holes.

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“The Have Nots,” which was released on X’s third studio album (Under the Big Black Sun) in 1982, is about blue-collar types – perhaps unemployed, or perhaps making just enough to get by on – who spend too much time and money in bars.

We’re talking about the kind of regulars who spend so much time drinking that they not only know the barmaids by name, but who play cards with them when the bar isn’t busy.  

(Come to think of it, a friend and I used to play cards at the house where the two cousins – one male, one female – who were bartenders at our regular Kansas bar lived after that bar closed at midnight.  But I was a college student, and the dead-end summer jobs I had would last only a couple of months before it was time to go back to school.  My life was nothing like George Orwell’s.) 

“The Have Nots” is notable for its recitation of the names of a number of dive bars in Los Angeles and elsewhere – most of which have been closed for years.

For example, there’s the One-Eyed Jack, and the Hi-D-Hi, G. G.’s Cozy Corner, the Stop & Drink, the Get Down Lounge, and a Detroit joint called The Aorta Bar – which called itself “Detroit’s Main Vein.”

One final note about “The Have Nots.”  The last line of the song’s chorus – “This is the game that moves as you play” – is the epigraph to the precocious Bret Easton Ellis’s first novel, Less Than Zero.  (Ellis was a 21-year-old college student when his novel was published in 1985.)   

The title of Less Than Zero was taken from Elvis Costello’s famous 1977 song. 

Click here to listen to the “The Have Nots,” which I usually listen to several times in succession when it comes up on my iPod.  It’s just that good, boys and girls.

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: 

Soft Cell – "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" (1982)

Once I ran to you

Now I run from you

[NOTE: There were a lot of great one-hit wonders released in the "Silver Decade" (1974-1984) of pop music – "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners and "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles are two of the most memorable.  But Soft Cell's "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" is the "Silver Decade" one-hit wonder that you have to have if you're having only one.  What follows is a severely edited version of the original 2 or 3 lines post about that record, which was originally published on March 13, 2011.]

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Shakespeare's tragic hero, King Lear, knew what he was talking about when he said:

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

To have a thankless child!

I might revise the immortal bard's words slightly, and say instead how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless Chief Executive Senior Contributing Editor!

(Look closely)

That job title is very complicated, so we'll need to pick a nickname that's a little less clumsy.  Hmmm . . . let me think . . .  

I suppose we could call her "Linda," since that is her name.  But I think I will call her "Super Bitch From Hell" since that's what she is acting like.

(It's tempting to call her "Hillary," but that would be hitting below the belt – although that expression doesn't really apply when you're talking about women . . . does it?  Not that you should hit a woman above or below the belt!)

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Recently, Super Bitch From Hell (or "SBFH" for short) and I were discussing Scala & Kolacny Brothers, the wonderful Belgian girls' choir that does lovely, ethereal choral versions of pop songs.  I found a Youtube video of them performing a cover of the old Soft Cell hit from 1982, "Tainted Love," in Montreal, and mentioned what a guilty pleasure that song was.

OMG, that set SBFH off on such a rant that you wouldn't believe it:

Don't even get me started on "Tainted Love." One of the worst songs in the history of songdom, IMO. Can't really even put my finger on why I hate it, I just do.  

Very persuasive logic, eh?

Being the a**hole that I am, I couldn't resist egging her on.  I sent SBFH this message:

The Soft Cell "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" medley is probably one of the 10 greatest accomplishments of Western culture to date – will have to write a "2 or 3 lines" post praising it just to annoy you.

To quote David Bowie, I knew I was putting out the fire with gasoline with those words.  And, sure enough, SBFH rose to the bait:

I may have to have a "Soft Cell Sucks" t-shirt made up & post a pic of it right under the announcement of your Soft Cell post. Controversy = more readers, right?

SBFH wasn't done taunting me.  I had told her that Scala & Kolacny Brothers was performing in Washington next month, and that I really wanted to see them but didn't want to go alone.  So she had to taunt me about that: 

You should get [your 16-year-old son] to go to the concert with you.  

Oh sure, like that's happening.  My son's a good kid, but he would rather cut off an arm than go to a concert with his father.  And how pathetic would it be for me to take a 16-year-old to an edgy downtown club because I couldn't find a date? 

 Just tell him it's a bunch of hot Belgian chicks singing rock songs. No need to elaborate on what they actually sound like. Or, why don't you take your hot French g/f?  

I don't think SCFH – oops, I meant to type SBFH – really believes that I have a hot (age-adjusted) French girlfriend.

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I left it at that, figuring that would be the end of it.  But n-o-o-o-o-o-o . . . within hours, SBFH sent me a very intemperate attack on "Tainted Love," which you would think was Hitler's favorite record or something, and dared me to post it.

What could I do?  I couldn't just ignore her -- although I knew the folks in the marketing department would soil their drawers if I told them I was tearing up the FY 2011 2nd quarter posting schedule and inserting an unplanned post on the spur of the moment.  

You would think that SBFH might have a little more concern for the good of 2 or 3 lines – after all, it is the only wildly popular little blog I'm aware of that has given her carte blanche to ramble on about her glory days.

We even let her get away with that disturbing little story about relieving herself in a coffee mug in her minivan.  (Goodness gracious, "Linda," have you no shame?  Wouldn't that story have better been kept to yourself rather than splashed all over the pages of my blog?)

But no, it's a-l-l-l-l about her.  So rather than just deep six her contribution, which would no doubt precipitate a major hissy fit by Ms. SBFH – I so hate it when I'm forced to call Ted, our chief of security, to escort an employee who has misbehaved out of the building – I've decided to turn the other cheek and accede to her desire to unload on "Tainted Love" in 2 or 3 lines. 

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My non-italic comments are interspersed throughout her italicized screed, which begins with the following sortie: 

One of the many benefits of my lofty position with 2 or 3 lines is occasional permission to voice a dissenting opinion.

Am I imagining things, or is there the tiniest hint of sarcasm here?  

Disagreement with upper management, while tolerated, is not necessarily appreciated.  Shameless toadying is the preferred modus operandi for underlings.

I'm pretty sure now that I wasn't imagining that sarcasm.

My hot (age-adjusted) French g/f

In this case, though, I feel compelled to express my complete distaste for “Tainted Love.”  I have a sneaking suspicion that the hot (age-adjusted) French girlfriend must have somehow influenced our fearless leader in his adoration of this song.  How else does one explain such an obvious lapse in judgment?  

Hold it right there, sister.  I've liked this song since it was released in 1982.  (It helped that I didn't own the record and heard it only infrequently on the radio, so I didn't wear it out for myself.)  The French g/f had nothing to do with it.

The squiggly synths and mechanized drum loops, coupled with the whiny vocals, are just completely unappealing to me. I don’t have a problem with synthesizers and drum machines, in principle. A lot of early eighties bands used them and produced great music. The Eurythmics come to mind, as well as Blondie, Devo and Depeche Mode.  

(Depeche Mode produced "great music"?  ARE YOU FRIGGING KIDDING ME?)  

“Tainted Love” just sounds way too sterile and mechanical to me. The accompanying video, a mishmash of togas, tennis outfits (or maybe cricket), and children, is vaguely homoerotic but mostly just silly and not very entertaining. 

Click here to watch that video.  (The guy in the video who's not wearing a toga is wearing a cricket outfit, not a tennis outfit – the fact that he's holding a CRICKET BAT instead of a tennis racket was a dead giveaway, I thought.)  The video is very creepy – but I believe we were talking about the song.  Attacking the video is attacking a straw man.

(By the way, calling this video "VAGUELY HOMOEROTIC" is akin to saying that Sarah Jessica Parker has a vaguely equine appearance.)  

  

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Back to SBFH's philippic against "Soft Cell":

Neither Marilyn Manson nor the Pussycat Dolls, who both covered the song, could make it palatable, either. 

Click here to watch the Marilyn Manson video.  (Watch the hot-tub scenes and tell me they aren't highly palatable!)

Click here for the Pussycat Dolls cover.  (Nothing "vaguely homoerotic" here.)

The Pussycat Dolls

Coil’s version is the most unusual and interesting of the covers. An industrial music band formed in the early eighties, Coil released “Tainted Love”  in 1984. It was the first musical release to have all of its profits donated to a foundation dedicated to AIDS education and prevention. Coil’s video of the song is on permanent display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

That's all well and good, but one might ask how truly noble it was for a band no one has ever heard of to donate the non-existent profits from a record that nobody bought to a good cause.

Coil's version of "Tainted Love" reminds me of what a 45 rpm record sounded like on my parents' stereo when I accidentally played it at 33 rpm.  And as for the video, my advice is not to view it after a big meal unless you're a bulimic . . . in which case it's perfect.

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I think SBFH may have confused New York City's Museum of Modern Art ("MOMA") with the Museum of Bad Art ("MOBA") in suburban Boston.  MOBA's permanent collection includes 500 pieces of art "too bad to be ignored," according to one critic.

From MOBA's permanent collection, here is an anonymous tribute to the famous pointillist artist Georges Seurat, which the anonymous artist titled "Sunday On The Pot With George":

And here is one more piece from MOBA's collection for those of you who prefer artworks that present the lovely female form rather than anything "vaguely homoerotic."  This painting (also anonymous, not surprisingly) is called "The Itch."  Whether "the itch" is under her right armpit or it is her back that itches isn't clear.

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.  Far be it from me to try to take on the title of arbiter of musical taste.  But, Gary, I’m sorry – “Tainted Love” is just . . . wrong!
 

There certainly is something that's just wrong here, but it ain't "Tainted Love."

(I know, that was kind of a weak ending, but the lawyers wouldn't let me talk about taint.)

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Soft Cell's version of "Tainted Love" ranked #2 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders, but #5 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the Eighties.  Obviously VH1 doesn't take as much care with its lists as it might.  ("Tainted Love" ranks ahead of "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners on the first list, but behind it on the latter list.)

Click here to hear the radio edit of "Tainted Love"/"Where Did Our Love Go?".

Click here to listen to a much longer version that was very popular in the clubs back in the day.

Click below to buy that extended mix on Amazon:

 

Squeeze – "If I Didn't Love You" (1980)

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I didn't love you, I 'd hate you

Squeeze is yet another band I first heard on the "Mystic Eyes" radio program, although they became popular enough that I also heard their music elsewhere as well.  

This song is from their third LP, Argybargy, which is a new wave masterpiece – it has a number of very strong and very memorable tracks, and it's essentially impossible not to sing along when you listen to them.  (I was singing along to this one today while on a bike ride, and got a number of admiring looks from the walkers and joggers that I passed while singing at the top of my lungs.)

I have to disagree with Squeeze when it comes to love and hate -- love and hate aren't always mutually exclusive, either-or emotions.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel wasn't talking about romantic love when he said "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," but I think that principle applies to romantic love.  

The French writer, Marcel Jouhandeau expressed a similar sentiment: "To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn."  (Jouhandeau also said "The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock," which may be as good as any explanation why love and hate can go together.)

Love most often turns to hate when it is not reciprocated, or when the beloved is guilty of deception or betrayal.  Perhaps Squeeze should have said Because you don't love me, I hate you, or Even though I love you, I hate you.

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Click here to listen to "If I Didn't Love You."  Like most of the other members of the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES "SILVER DECADE" HALL OF FAME, it's notable for the intelligence of its lyrics.  

When I'm judging a record, I usually care less about the lyrics than I do about the music.  But when the music and the lyrics are both first-rate, then you've really got something.  Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford – Squeeze's primary songwriters – produced a number of songs that were strong both musically and lyrically.  So did other "Silver Decade" hall of famers like Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, and Chrissie Hynde, to mention just a few.  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Joe Jackson – "Someone Up There" (1980)

The way you looked at me I knew

That we’d be coming to an end

It happened just by chance

I just spent an hour listening to snippets of Joe Jackson songs, trying to decide which one was most worthy of being chosen for the 2 OR 3 LINES “SILVER DECADE” HALL OF FAME.

I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed an hour more. I bought several Jackson LPs back in the early eighties, and listened to them a lot – but I never bought CDs of his albums or downloaded MP3s of his songs, so it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to his music.

Joe Jackson in 1980

What that hour taught me is that Joe Jackson may have been be the best songwriter of the “Silver Decade.”  I think Elvis Costello and Chrissie Hynde are worthy contenders for that title, but Jackson may have the edge when it comes to the sheer number of great songs he wrote.

Jackson’s body of work is remarkable for its stylistic range.  Whether you’re in the mood for an up-tempo, guitar-driven power-pop song or a haunting, piano-accompanied ballad, he delivers the goods.  

His lyrical versatility is also notable.  Jackson can pen pointed, sardonic lyrics that cut his targets down to size with the best of them, but what he really excels at are bittersweet songs – emphasis on the bitter, not the sweet – about relationships that don’t end well.

The singer in those songs – including today’s featured song – is never sure exactly what went wrong, but he knows there’s no fixing it.

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To say that it was difficult for me to choose one Jackson song for the newest 2 or 3 lines hall of fame is an understatement.

I would sample one of his songs and decide that it was the one worthy of being honored.  Then I would dip into another song and change my mind.  

I could see myself bouncing from song to song for days and still be uncertain of which one to pick.  So I decided to just stop where I was – which happened to be “Someone Up There” from Beat Crazy, Jackson’s third studio album:

Like many of Jackson’s songs, “Someone Up There” is essentially a short story with musical accompaniment.  

Its boy-meets-girl, boy-loses girl trajectory is nothing unusual.  What is unusual is that the narrator recognizes that there was no particular logic behind the couple falling in love and then breaking up – both “happened just by chance.”

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Click here to listen to “Someone Up There.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Clash – "Clampdown" (1979)

But you grow up and you calm down

And you're workin' for the clampdown

After I chose today’s featured record to be one of the inaugural members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “SILVER DECADE” HALL OF FAME, I learned that Robert “Beto” O'Rourke had quoted its lyrics in a debate with Ted Cruz in 2018, accusing Cruz of “working for the clampdown.” 

(For those of you who don’t follow politics, Cruz – who’s a Republican – is the junior U.S. Senator from Texas.  O’Rourke – a Democrat – is a former congressman from El Paso who unsuccessfully challenged Cruz that year.)

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Beto O’Rourke is the son of a politician – his father Pat was the El Paso County Commissioner before becoming the co-chair of Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign.  ("I like the guy. He's entertaining, and he has some magic in him," the elder O’Rourke later said about Jackson.)  But a couple of years later, Pat switched parties and ran for Congress as a Republican – he was obviously quite flexible when it came to political principles.

In eighth grade, O'Rourke became a fan of punk rock after hearing the Clash's 1979 double album, London Calling, which includes “Clampdown.”  O’Rourke later called that album “a revelation.”  

Maybe it was today’s featured song – which is as anti-establishment as all get-out – that inspired O’Rourke to become a member of a computer hacker group called Cult of the Dead Cow, which became famous “for releasing tools that allowed ordinary people to hack computers running Microsoft's Windows.”  (Thanks to O’Rourke’s fierce anti-sexist principles, the group’s members included females – making it perhaps the only hacker group of that era to contain any female hackers.)  

O’Rourke further burnished his anti-establishment rep by stealing long-distance phone service during his teen years in order to use his dial-up modem without paying.  

(I didn't join the cult,
but I did buy the t-shirt.)

Beto also wrote poems and short stories for Cult of the Dead Cow under the pseudonym “Psychedelic Warlord,” a name inspired by a 1974 record by the English “space rock” band Hawkwind.  O'Rourke later apologized that some of his stories were “hateful” – in fact, one was a fantasy about driving down a street and running over children.  “I have to look long and hard at my action, at the language that I have used, and I have to constantly try to do better,” he told reporters.

One of his fans defended O’Rourke, writing that “a lot of people wrote embarrassing stuff when they were 15 and, by the mercy of God, it’s not available on the internet."  

(I didn’t write any stories about murdering children by intentionally hitting them with my car, but I certainly wrote some pretty embarrassing stuff when I was 15 – all in the forlorn hope of getting the attention of one or more cute babes I had my eye on.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose . . . )

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Beto seems to have cleaned up his act after his Cult of the Dead Cow days.  

He went to a very posh Virginia boarding school, then attended Columbia University – where he majored in English literature and co-captained the crew team.

O’Rourke stayed in New York City for a few years after graduation, working as a nanny, as an art mover, and as a proofreader for a publisher of reference books before taking a job with an internet service provider owned by his uncle.

After moving back to El Paso, Beto continued to rely on family connections for his livelihood.  He moved into an apartment building owned by his father and got a job at his mother’s high-end furniture store.  He wanted to start a tech company a couple of years later, but couldn’t get financing – so his father took out a loan on his behalf, enabling Beto to get his company up and running.

In 2005, O’Rourke won a seat on the El Paso City Council.  A few years later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

After three terms in Congress, O’Rourke took on Ted Cruz, who was heavily favored.  Beto made the incumbent sweat a little, but ended up losing.

Cruz and O'Rourke after the 2018 debate

He then ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination for the presidency, but his campaign went nowhere – he ended up dropping out of the race well before the Iowa caucuses.

Now Beto wants to become the governor of Texas.  He’s an underdog, and 2022 doesn’t look like it will be a good year for Democrats – but stranger things have happened. 

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Is it fair to say that Beto O’Rourke grew up, and Beto O’Rourke calmed down, and Beto O’Rourke is “working for the clampdown”?  I think so.  

Of course, he’s not the first privileged child of wealthy and powerful parents to pass through a phase as a wild-eyed radical and then settle down and take advantage of his family’s wealth and power.  And he won’t be the last.

Click here to listen to “Clampdown,” which is only one of the great songs on London Calling – truly one of the all-time great albums.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: