Actually at that point that whole discotheque idea was pretty much off...
Since the The Mr T Experience... and the Women Who Love Them orders have begun as of today, it seems appropriate to feature another track from the new master / test press for today's Song for Odin, so here we go.
It's "How'd the Date End?":
https://youtu.be/cS1w_PeTqIQ
This was included as an unlisted track on the B side of the 7" and not on the original CD ep, and it happened in a rather haphazard, unplanned way. We had to sneak on to somebody else's session at Dancing Dog last-minute to do it really quickly.
I'm going to quote from the Shards vol. 2 liner notes here:
'As originally conceived, the … and the Women Who Love Them CD EP was supposed to have six tracks, and the 7" would have two of them, plus an extra song that wasn’t on the CD. The song slated for this slot was “Checkers Speech,” but new drummer Jim was really fond of that track and insisted that it be on the CD. I had to come up with an additional track, and this was it...
'At that time we were already way, way over our tiny budget for this project, so the song had to be dashed off really quickly. When it came time to do the vox over the guitar track I realized that I’d missed out a whole chunk of the song (the bit where the narrator describes being picked up where he’d fallen down, read his rights, and brought downtown.) There was no time to correct the error, and we just went with it. The song was included on the 7" but not listed in any way.
'I always meant to do a proper version with all the lyrics. This one was recorded in my bedroom, and appeared on the Women Who Love Them “Special Addition” compilation. (Note: the current digital catalog has this version and not the original on the “Tapin’ Up My Heart” digital “7 inch” because we didn’t have a digital file of this song at hand when we put those songs up. It was meant to be a place-holder till we got a file of the original one, but that never wound up happening.'
At least we'll be able to update the digital now. And there's something raw and immediate about this recording that the other one doesn't have. It's funny how tension and angst can animate a recording, for good or ill, quite apart from the actual content. It's a silly little song, though a pretty good silly little song, I'd say, fueled nevertheless by tension, anxiety, a sense of hopelessness, and a... vague thirst for revenge, somehow? A "goodbye cruel world" vibe, I suppose I'm getting at, doing my silly little song nobody wanted to hear just to spite them. Or something.
This is another example, I suppose, of a song built around an obsolete reference that still manages to work under its own steam. "So, Chuck, I don't care who the audience picked..." The Love Connection TV show no longer has any cultural currency, and I know from experience that even at the time a whole lot of people just didn't understand what's going on there. It's this: the narrator of the song is telling host Chuck Woolery about his TV-arranged date and announcing his disinclination to go on a date with the contestant voted for by the audience. And now, I imagine, most people reading this won't understand that sentence I just typed. Still, dating woes are eternal, I expect. "I'll be on my own, it's my natural state, whether or not I have a date." If you deliver well enough on a good conceit, it can happen that you don't even need the conceit anymore. Which is a mercy, "legacy"-wise.
That's all I got to say on this now. Place your orders if you're on the dibs list, because this deluxe edition is the best yet and if you're at all interested in this stuff you're going to want one. You can still get on the reserve, back-up list for in case anybody on the main list drops out (link in notes below.) Good luck, and see you next time.
notes:
-- Shards vol. 2 version: https://youtu.be/bpnTrtMjQvs
-- Shards vol. 2 liner notes: https://medium.com/@drankf/mtx-shards-volume-2-notes-eb4363ac1ce5
-- Sounds Radical link to get on the reserve list: https://www.soundsradical.com/andthewomen.html
-- Songs for Odin playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLommF46BbnATopffORs0YkspebJHka2o_#music#songs#product#minds
