Album: All Shook Down
Year: 1990
. . .
You hide yourself in darkness, but we’re heading for the sun
The guess here is that some of you really hate this song, which is one of two or three on All Shook Down that clearly feel like they were just Paul all by his lonesome, overdubbing all of the instruments and the vocals.
I could be wrong, but “Torture” almost lives up to its name, a really claustrophobic couple of minutes that’s based upon a pair of furiously strummed acoustic guitars — one of the ironies here that if it had drums and electric guitars, it would have been the fastest, punkiest song on the album — and a organ (I think) hook that is pretty fucking torturous itself.
Until it isn’t.
You climb into your rocket ship
And count from ten to one
There’s no television coverage
For that loser on the run
You hide yourself in darkness
But we’re heading for the sun
For me, that moment came when the round-robin chorus finally kicked in.
Ooo it’s torture
(Torture ooh)
Without you, yeah torture
(Torture ooh)
What to do, it’s torture
(Torture ooh)
Without you, it’s torture
(Torture ooh)
I’m not gonna lie, those buried, mumbled “torr-turrree ohhhhhhhhhh” kill me every single time, just catchy as all fuck, making up for all of disconnected business of the rest of the song. And in fact, I suspect that was kind of the point: weirdness to distract from the prettiness.
“Torture”
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