10/08/2007
Mix Disc Monday Home / Music Home / Bullz-Eye Home
My college sweetheart and I used to joke about avoiding the words
'never,' 'ever,' 'always' and 'forever' because whenever we used them,
we invariably broke up soon after. That alone should have told me that
the relationship was doomed to fail, but alas, it took another four
years before that lesson finally sank in. It is in her honor that I
present this list of songs with 'never,' 'ever' (the red-headed stepchild
of the bunch), 'always' and 'forever' in the title. She and I may have
avoided the words, but songwriters sure didn't.
"Never
Gonna Come Back Down," BT
(Movement
in Still Life)
This is the only song featuring Mike
Doughty that I can listen to more than once,
and that is probably because BT doesn't let him
repeat the same words over and over repeat the
same words over and over repeat the same words
over and over…you get the idea. All electronic
music should rock this hard. As an added bonus,
the video features the smoking hot DJ Rap. No
girls named Charise, though.
"The
Sun Always Shines on TV," a-ha
(Hunting
High and Low)
Let me guess: you
haven't heard this song since MTV stopped playing
it in late 1985, right? Give it another spin.
You might be surprised at how well constructed
it is for a bunch of so-called teeny boppers. Indeed,
one clever mash-up artist back in the golden age of
Napster found a shocking similarity between this and
U2's "Beautiful Day."
"The
Sun Never Shone That Day," a-ha
(Minor
Earth, Major Sky)
I surely gave one Will Harris a chuckle
by putting those two songs back to back, since
he and I are the last two members of the a-ha
Apologists Association. But I couldn't help it: Minor
Earth, Major Sky was
a damned good little pop record, and it's a shame that
no one saw fit to release it on these shores. These
guys are still huge everywhere else in the world, you
know.
"Something's
Always Wrong," Toad
the Wet Sprocket (Dulcinea)
Fear may have been their big
record, but Dulcinea,
for my money, is Toad's finest, and this was easily
the band's best single.
"Hang on to Forever," The Rembrandts (Untitled)
Poor Danny Wilde and Phil Solem. They will forever
be trapped in 1995, permanently linked to Ross, Rachel,
Monica, Joey, Phoebe and Chandler. This despite the
fact that they achieved chart success a good five years before that.
And in between "Just the Way It Is, Baby" and "I'll
Be There for You" was this, a dandy little song
from their best, and completely overlooked, album.
"Suffer
Never," Finn Brothers
(Finn Brothers)
There are few
people on this planet that love Neil Finn, Split
Enz and Crowded House as much as I do, but those
Finn Brothers albums leave me cold. They seem
labored and weary, while the rest of Neil's songs
bounce around the room like an over-caffeinated toddler.
This song, though, I like, if for no other reason than
the fact that I never knew they had big, cock rock
guitar riffs in them. Neil would unleash another big
riff two years later, on "Loose Tongue." Check
ch-check check check, check it out.
"Always
Leaving," Cowboy Mouth
(Easy)
Atlantic completely screwed
the pooch when it came to marketing this album.
They put all their money behind
"How Do You Tell Someone," which sounds like
Hootie and the Blowfish…a good five years after sounding
like Hootie was a good thing. I had a genius marketing
plan involving three or four songs from the album.
Had the label followed it, who knows. Maybe Rob and
Paul would still be in the band, and this would have
been the album's fifth or sixth hit single. Sigh.
"Will
Never Marry," Morrissey
(Just Say
Yo)
Definitely hunt down the version on Just
Say Yo if
you can find it, as it's two mopetastic minutes longer
than the ridiculously short version that appears on Bona
Drag. Moz outdoes himself here, declaring "I
will live my life as I will undoubtedly die: aloooooooooone."
And while we're talking about people nicking songs
on this list, Aimee Mann totally stole her chorus for
"Par for the Course" from this.
"Stay
Forever," Ween (White Pepper)
I
was extremely late to the Ween party – I really,
really hated that "Push th' Little Daisies" song
with a passion – but damned if White Pepper isn't
a great little pop record. You have to give props to
any album that features tributes to Jimmy Buffett,
Motorhead and Tears for Fears. That is not a misprint.
Buffett, Motorhead, Tears for Fears. And Jellyfish.
Oh, and there's this song, which sounds like Little
River Band.
"Never
Be Lonely," The Feeling
(Twelve Stops
and Home)
B-b-b-baby, you're freaking c-c-c-crazy
if you don't love the Feeling.
"Never Be Mine," Kate Bush (The Sensual
World)
It's funny to have a song talk
about how the association people make to certain
sensory inputs. "The smell
of burning fields will now mean you and here,"
she says, which is funny because the sound of her song
will always mean senior year of college to me, when
I was emotionally torn between Never Ever Always Forever
Girl and her predecessor, The First Love. Both now
live outside of Indianapolis, strangely enough. I wonder
if they ever see each other.
"Always
the Sun," The Stranglers
(Dreamtime)
They once sang "Bring on the nubiles," but
by 1986, that wasn't paying the bills. And thank
goodness for that, because it led to this.
"Let
Forever Be," The Chemical
Brothers (Surrender)
I love
this song, but the linguist in me wants to smack
Noel Gallagher for using "How does it feel
like"
as a refrain. Not "How does it feel" or "What
does it feel like," no no. "How, does, it,
feel, like."
Moron. Of course, the music geek in me wants to smack
Noel Gallagher for, well, being Noel Gallagher. He
wished Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon of Blur would
die of AIDS. Classy with a K, that's Noel Gallagher.
"They Never Will Know," Marshall Crenshaw
(Mary
Jean & 9 Others)
Marshall Crenshaw's music is generally overlooked,
but this album, recently put back in print by Wounded
Bird – who didn't even bother to send Marshall a copy
of his own album – is criminally overlooked.
This is the final song, and it's a doozy of a ballad.
"Did
you Evah," Iggy Pop
and Debbie Harry (Red
Hot & Blue)
I had to go all the way back to Cole Porter's song
catalog to find a good 'ever' song. (You Foo Fighters
fans can stop protesting right now: the addition of
'long' to 'ever' led to that song's exclusion.) And
what's better than Cole Porter? Cole Porter covered
by Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop. It's, dare I say, swellegant.