CHRIS: So, Keith, last week you dropped a cover of Erasureās āA Little Respectā on our readers, and while the recording itself was nothing less than a healing salve that lessened the pain of daily life āĀ with its clownish politicians, terrifying weather, and mankindās casual saunter toward extermination at the hands of A.I. āĀ the dialog we included with the song raised a few eyebrows. It upset some carts, and frankly, it rattled a few cages. What jostled people, I think, was the little soft shoe we did around the concept of ābest,ā in the sense of ābest songā and ābest album,ā and specifically how that related to a mostly forgotten 90ās indie rock band called Pavement.
For todayās edition of Great Apes, you decided to cover a tune off of Pavementās final album, 1999ās Terror Twilight, and one of the first things an observant S.D.I.R. reader will likely notice is that your choice is nowhere to be found in Pavementās top five Spotify songs, a category that you assigned special significance during that last conversation. Obviously the Great Apes series isnāt now nor has it ever been an assay of popularity āĀ G.A. contains multitudes ā but I wonder if you can give us some context for your selection, in particular what makes you gravitate to a song that, at least according to Spotify, is nowhere near Pavementās best.
KEITH: Well, look, as much as I always want to bring our viewers examples of the very best writing that humankindās rich songbook offers, I also donāt want to just become one of those wretched souls online who tries to cultivate an audience simply by parroting the most familiar, popular songs in the American Top Forty (our best music). The jukebox cover band is a verminās trade, and Iāll leave it to those toiling on TV and radio under the tutelage of the wise and tasteful Simon Cowell.
No, sometimes our job has to be to instruct the audience; to curate. I like to dig around in the bowels of archeological ruins such as Pavementās Terror Twilight and uncover not only sparkling jewels like āSpit On A Strangerā and āCarrot Rope,ā but also the artifacts that have varnished, rusted away, become homes for spiders and scorpions and those centipedes with the outsized mandibles.
So, hereās āAnn Donāt Cry,ā a lovely little ditty buried deep in the back half of Pavementās last act. A cursory glance through Pavementās career-wide numbers suggests that it is indeed one of Pavementās worst songs - you have to look to the last few songs on the bandās deliriously overstuffed āWowee Zoweeā to find songs on Pavementās canon albums with fewer listens. But regardless of his many human failings, Stephen Malkmus is a phenomenal songwriter, and so even his very worst songs can be enjoyed and admired, like a brass handle in the guest bathroom at Angkor Wat.
CHRIS: I forget, do you actually like āCarrot Ropeā? Itās got undeniable ālast song on the albumā energy, but I dig it. It seems to get a bad rap from Pavement fans, even compared to the coinhabitants of Terror Twilight, this bandās least-loved construction. In their review of the 2022 reissue of T.T., which contains like 40 extra tracks, Rollingstone wrote, āāCarrot Rope,āā¦ remains terrible, and the tossed-off-sounding previously unreleased āBe the Hookā absolutely should have replaced it.ā This strikes me as quintessential beef-witted Rollingstone,Ā since āBe the Hookā is a wet fart of a songā¦Ā but are they getting at something essential about āCarrot Ropeā? Does it actually suck? In my nostalgia-soaked memories surrounding Terror Twilight āĀ you purchasing it at San Franciscoās Sony Metreon mall, where weād hang out almost daily when we first moved to the city and were still couch surfing, then listening to it on repeat in your Nissan Pathfinder, the other place we were allowed to hang out during daylight hours āĀ I remember loving every track. Am I deluded? Was āCarrot Ropeā a skipper??
KEITH: Oh, yeah, I love āCarrot Rope.ā I guess I can understand why the sort of Pavement heads who revere the early stuff consider it the apotheosis of the bandās fall from grace. Itās got a big old hook for a chorus, catchy sing-song melodies throughout, and a fairly conventional structure , as far as Pavement songs go ā verse/pre/chorus/verse/pre/chorus, although they pointedly fade out on a meandering solo, rather than succumb to the puerile third chorus, which they likely think is best left to the likes of Stone Temple Pilots. Theyāre right, of course, but I mean that as the highest complement to STP.
I think what the great Pavement acolytes seem to dislike most about Terror Twilight is that itās the least bristly of all of the Pavement records. It sounds pleasant, expertly recorded as it was by Nigel Godrich, Radioheadās go-to producer, back before he followed that band down their own dark path. Malkmus and Spiral Stairs seem to both be trying to sing a little less like injured animals than is usual for them. The jams feel more coherent, as they theyād actually been ā gasp! ā arranged, beforehand. āCarrot Ropeā isnāt my *favorite* song on the album ā thatād be āSpit on a Stranger,ā or maybe āMajor Leagues.ā Or it could be āYou Are A Light,ā or āThe Hexx.ā Or, maybe itās good old āAnn Donāt Cry.ā
CHRIS: I have a counterfactual for you to consider. As reported in (among other places) Washington Postās 2022 review of the reissue, Nigel Godrich favored a more difficult track-listing for Terror Twilight, one that would start with āPlatform Bluesā and āThe Hexx,ā banish āSpit on a Strangerā all the way to the end, and āĀ coming to the point now āĀ slot āAnn Donāt Cryā in at #5 (āYou Are a Lightā was 3rd; āCream of Goldā 4th). Guitarist Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs) vehemently opposed this version, which he thought was too recondite for a record that had cost the band way more money to record than any previous one, and kinda needed to be a hit. Many years later, though, Kannberg had come around to Godrichās view, and the producerās song order is used for the re-issue.
So the question is this: considering how important track placement can be for a songās longterm popularity āĀ lots of people listen to the first few tunes and then switch to Drake when they get bored ā if āA.D.C.ā had been track 5, arriving much earlier than the melodic peaks of āSpit on a Strangerā and āMajor Leagues,ā would it now be a big hit for Pavement? Could it have saved the album?? Might Pavement, encouraged by intoxicating new heights of success, have stuck together, ultimately outlasting even Pearl Jam???
KEITH: That sounds like just the sort of bad idea that Colin Greenwood might have fed to poor, gullible Godrich as a prank. Thank god that Spiral Stairs, a man whose pop acumen was behind such songs as āHit The Plane Down,ā was there to re-direct!
Look, would āAnn Donāt Cryā have more listens if it were higher up in the tracklist? Sure, oh sure. Thatās just good olā inertia working for you. People could have stumbled upon it two songs earlier and, perhaps, relished it. But the fact of the matter is that it still would have come later than āPlatform Blues,ā which is the moment when the album begins to shed Spotify audience interest. In fact, the whole ALBUM would have been after āPlatform Bluesā! Terror Twilight would probably have a total of like 23 listens, if Godrich had had his way with the tracklisting!
We gotta figure out whatās going on with āThe Hexx,ā though. How does a non-single generate such 11th-hour enthusiasm, bumping listenership by four times what its predecessor āSpeak, See, Rememberā sports.Ā Was it in a Skittles commercial or something?
CHRIS: Very strange, although the story seems to be about more than just āThe Hexxā and āSpeak, See, Remember,ā since after āThe Hexxā (2.4M), āCarrot Ropeā jumps all the way up to 2.8M (allaying my fears about that songās approval rating among Pavement fans, I guess). And the doldrums extend from track 6 (āPlatform Bluesā) all the way to track 9 (āSpeak, See, Rememberā), enveloping poor, innocent āAnn Donāt Cry.ā Is it possible that āPlatform Bluesā causes roughly 80% of listeners to spam the ānextā button in disgust, resulting in (a weirdly precise) four skipped songs, at which point they pick back up, happy enough, with āThe Hexxā? Does this mean that a big percentage of our readers, even the Pavement fans among them, have never heard āAnn Donāt Cryā?? Todayās a big day!
KEITH: Well, āCarrot Ropeā was a single, you see, so all bets are off, numbers-wise. It was released as a single in the UK, and was apparently Pavementās highest-ever charting song (#27 š¢).
Youāll recall how on our first couple of albums, we had to write and record a whole hunk of b-sides, because every British single had to have at least two b-sides, and sometimes we released two or three different versions of each single, so they needed to have different b-sides, and then we also RE-released songs as singles with new b-sides, so that, despite having only actually released three individual songs as singles, we easily wound up with enough b-sides for the 15-song compilation Crap Attack? Well, yeah, Pavement did one (ONE, the lasy bastards!) of those for āCarrot Rope,ā and guess what song was the lead b-side on that single? āHarness Your Hopes,ā Pavementās best (ie, most-listened-to) song, the one that started this whole Pavement conversation.
CHRIS: š¤Æ Mystery solved. Or at least āpath followed until it circled back on itself,ā which is the lazy TV writerās equivalent of āmystery solved.ā Well, may āThis Means Warā never get upvoted to the top of our Spotify rankings. I suppose Iād be about as glum as Steven Malkmus seemed when I recently caught a Pavement reunion show.
Having trouble making out the lyrics to āAnn Donāt Cryā when you listen to Keithās cover version? Steven Malkmus is a famously marble-mouthed singer, so our guy Keith probably had no idea what the original words were. Hereās our best-guess transcription of what he ended up singing in the above recording. This should help you sing along, if thatās your thing.
ANN DONāT CRY, by Pavement
(Keith Murray cover version)
āThat damn itch aspen, Don,ā
I.M. Gna, half in fun enema
Dude, whatcha doinā?
Ya try whatcha get.
When ya see the lie,
Calm down, aw, Seth
ā my ho ā
aināt a wonderful house-builder man
We got Rumsta Liv, Rumta LeVin, Rumta GIF
but no Rumta Givon
āBut Geneva hat,ā I chants
āNoia āneva hat,ā I chants
To those are buff
Take a south
Bro us down
Shover south
Wig it down
So-so, hog
Butch, your vocals did play
Ka(me)afka
Cold colt buoy with American hot
Gun runninā
En la coupe, les chats (again)
But, and: donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye, andā¦
Donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye
And: donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye, andā¦
Donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye
Well, my, āhotā is not a wide-opined thing
Ah, no!
Theyāre a sadly naughty lot, Toussaint
Set the Metter-Inner ā fife laws rends
De Gaulle, de Gaulle
Tine-tied tight tooth attracts
Je suis mĆŖme: Boeur-le-Fax
Re-peat and till your onion-y ground again
But, and: donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye, andā¦
Donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye
And: donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye, andā¦
Donāt chuck rye
Donāt chuck rye
Tier N
Donāt chew craw for 7-Eleven
Tape you away
Donāt chew craw for 7-Eleven
Donāt chew craw for 7-Eleven
Donāt chew leaf, fin, what they say, hey hey?
Leaf, fin, what they say, hey hey?
Leaf, fin, what theyā¦
Leaf, fin, what theyā¦
Leaf, fin, what they say
BƔhn mƬ, sweet
Swede aunt
Oi! Mateā¦
Oi, Nicky Harfield, mateā¦Ā big, huge thanks, Nicky. Nobody ever needed a beer worse than we did last week after watching the incoherent, asinine Fast X, and your paid subscription footed the bill for a couple of beauties. Three, actually!
Readers of Slow Descent Into Radness will know that weāve very rarely gated posts in the past, leaving paid subscription to those Samaritans who want to help foot our monstrous monthly bar tab. In the near future weāre going to begin rewarding these kind souls with more than just our inebriation āĀ weāll be giving them some exclusive fruits of our inebriation. More on that soon.
Cheers to all of you for joining us on this terrifying Descent.
šŗšŗšŗ,
Chris & Keith
Waiting on the great apes album...š¤
Steve had a B-side called Sin Taxi, and while itās not technically Pavement I still consider it my favorite Pavement Song.