The Peak, 8/25/09: Happy 55th B-Day Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus!

[RGMike]

EC sings "Veronica" for the billionth time.

But here's a cool live version of "Less Than Zero" -- BOSFRA

[RGMike]

Accidents Will Happen (live/acoustic)
King Horse
Every Day I Write The Book
Tear Off Your Own Head
Watching The Detectives
Complicated Shadows
Pump It Up
Man Out Of Time
Veronica
Less Than Zero (Dallas version)

Sorry I missed the great "Man Out Of Time". I still say that if Columbia had been on the ball, it coulda been the big left-field hit of 1982 -- Elvis's "Year of the Cat".

[urth]

Accidents Will Happen (live/acoustic)
King Horse
Every Day I Write The Book
Tear Off Your Own Head
Watching The Detectives
Complicated Shadows
Pump It Up
Man Out Of Time
Veronica
Less Than Zero (Dallas version)

Sorry I missed the great "Man Out Of Time". I still say that if Columbia had been on the ball, it coulda been the big left-field hit of 1982 -- Elvis's "Year of the Cat".

Not a bad set--a few of the one's you'd expect to hear but when he went outside that realm he chose well. Curious what the "Dallas version" of Less Than Zero is.

You're right about Man Out of Time, Mike. For that matter, Imperial Bedroom (the '82 album that gave us MOoT) was full of 'em: Beyond Belief, and Shabby Doll to name two off the top of my head, but that was the album that really established EC as a mature songwriter to my ears. He started to go that direction on Trust, but IB was where his style came full flower. He embraced a lot of different voices and songwriting conventions, and won me over fully. It's too bad MOot didn't get a bigger push as '82 was when new wave was really hitting the masses hard, and he could have had a much higher profile to the mass market for years after if he'd had a big hit then.

[RGMike]

Not a bad set--a few of the one's you'd expect to hear but when he went outside that realm he chose well. Curious what the "Dallas version" of Less Than Zero is.

Meant to mention that -- it was NTM. It's a re-written lyric (and quite amazing -- see below). EC was apparently annoyed that the references in the original to "Mr Oswald" were misinterpreted in the US as being about JFK's assassin; he was actually referring to a British right-winger with the fascistic National Front.  So he wrote a new version about Kennedy's killing.

"Less Than Zero (Dallas Version)":

Jenny takes her clothes off in succession,
While her husband rides a bumper in the President's procession.
She's sees him on the screen as she looks up from giving head.
When he's had enough of that her lover throws her on the bed
to teach her she's alive and suddenly he's dead.

Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect,
even your mother won't detect it,
no your father won't know.
they think that I've got no respect
but everything means less than zero.
Hey, ooh hey, hey, ooh hey.

Calling Mister Oswald, calling anyone at the scene,
If you were taking home movies there's a chance you might have seen him.
They've got a thousand variations, every witness in a file.
Jenny puts on some coffee and she comes back with a smile.
She says, "I hear that South America is coming into style."

chorus

A pistol was still smoking, a man lay on the floor.
Mister Oswald thought he had an understanding with the law.
She's got rubies on her fingers, Jenny turns and looks away.
Her mind upon a basement out of the USA.
She says, "Let's talk about the future now we've put the past away."