Mr. T Experience - Yesterday Rules - Page 3

"Big, Strange, Beautiful Hammer" is simply one of the prettiest songs of the century, so far. Not since Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" has a songwriter so elegantly (and trashily) evoked the crucifixion. Let's quote some lines;

Once baptized in pain and light
You'd be advised to hold on tight
When you collide with a big ...
strange beautiful hammer

... And it's about the most mundane annoyances. (Or is it?) "Hammer" is wrapped in a tearjerking acoustic folky package with oddball harmonies and the sort of wrecked / pretty bass and percussion the Velvet Underground did so well on their quiet self-titled album.

"Sorry For Freaking Out On The Phone Last Night" wraps its wisdom in another Etched In Your Cranium hook. The narrator just wants to "keep the freaking out to a minimum," and you won't believe how such an awkward, modest request turns into the sing-along chorus of the year, all dressed up in a kind of British Byrds early-Tom Petty party gown ... and then a crunching bridge that sounds like the Sex Pistols playing the Beatles' "The Night Before." The guitar sounds on this record are killers, all of 'em.

In a late attempt at coherence, I will stop this song-by-song review and just mention a few more from this "There actually isn't a bad song on the record" CD:

The masterpiece of the record is "London." In a sweet semi-falsetto, Dr. Frank lays down enough cruel lines to make Warren Zevon's soul smile somewhere out there, and then the acoustic and bass are joined by an absolutely lovely new-wave orchestra of drums, chiming guitars and cheesy keyboards, surrounding the tears-producing chorus of "Don't ... tell ... me ... your secret lies in London ...." And it sounds just like London, just like London when you're walking down some cobblestone alley with too many pints in your guts and something went bad with some girl and there's the fog and the sickly smell of old grease from the fish and chips stand and the curry from the cornershop, and if you were immortal and cool you'd be Frank Sinatra, singing "A Foggy Day In London Town," fedora resting jauntily upon your head. But you're not. You're a mere mortal. This is your song. I've been compiling a mental list of great songwriters who will smile in admiration when they hear this one: Ray Davies, The Jayhawks, Graham Nash, Brian Wilson, Teenage Fanclub, Burt Bacharach ....

Article Author: Ken Layne

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