Album: Last of the Independents
Year: 1994
. . .
And so it was another decade before Chrissie Hynde released another song I liked as much as her classic early work.
In between, though, was a pretty dour period. Martin Chambers exited before 1986’s Get Close, and I seem to remember sitting on the floor at Cindy’s apartment listening to it and not finding any connection to it whatsoever, though “Don’t Get Me Wrong” was a pretty OK — if overproduced — single.
And I pretty much ignored 1990’s Packed!, filled as it was with session musicians — none of them named “Johnny Marr,” who had enlivened their set opening for U2 a couple of years previously — though “Sense of Purpose” was a pretty decent song.
That said, 1994’s Last of the Independents was a definite improvement, featuring the return of Martin Chambers and the installment of Adam Seymour as her permanent lead guitarist, a slot where he lasted longer than Robbie McIntosh and James Honeyman-Scott combined And while “I’ll Stand by You” was always a skosh over the top for me, at least I could hear why people loved it so much.
More up my alley was “Night in My Veins,” a good old-fashioned Chrissie Hynde fucksong.
He’s got his hands in my hair
And his lips everywhere
Oh yeah, it feels good, it’s all right
Even if it’s just the night in my veinsHe’s got me up against the back of a pick-up truck
Out of sight of the neon and glare
We might as well be on a beach under the moonlight
Love’s language reads the same anywhere, yeah
With Seymour alternately jangling it up, crunching it out and providing a weirdly disjointed solo in the middle, “Night in My Veins” hit enough pleasure points that if I squinted (and ignored the extraneous synth parts), it almost felt like old times.
Almost. But at least I knew that I couldn’t count Chrissie Hynde out yet, even though it would be another five years before Pretenders released a new album. But when they finally did, it would their best album in a very long time.
“Night in My Veins”
“Night in My Veins” Official Video
“Night in My Veins” live on Letterman, 1994
“Night in My Veins” live in L.A., 2003
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