Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980
. . .
I wish I could remember exactly how I came to buy Underwater Moonlight. Or for that matter, when it was. I always like to think that it was sometime in the early 80s, but it might not have been until early 1984, and it might have been spurred by the entry in the Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, which called Underwater Moonlight “one of the new wave’s finest half-dozen albums”
In any event, I bought an import version of it at Tower Records and put on track one side one and was instantly blown away, as “I Wanna Destroy You” is one of the greatest album openers ever.
With the guitars of Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew stinging like a barrel of bees, “I Wanna Destroy You” announces its intent with full-throated three-part harmonies by Hitchcock, Rew and bassist Morris Windsor.
I wanna destroy you
I wanna destroy you
I wanna destroy you
I wanna destroy you
One of the ironies here is that The Soft Boys were always seen as a reaction to British punk and new wave, flaunting their roots in late 1960s psychedelia, but “I Wanna Destroy You” is as pissed off as any punk rock song you could name, with Hitchcock’s normally sunny persona totally gone as he sings the first two verses.
I feel it comin’ on again, just like it did before
They feed your pride with boredom and they lead you on to war!
The way you treat each other really makes me feel ill
‘Cos if you wanna fight then you’re just dying to get killed!
And one of the other ironies is that this the first thing I ever heard from Robyn Hitchcock, who — as anybody who reads this feature knows — is one of my very very very favorite musical artists. And it sounds like nothing else in his oeuvre. But of course, that’s more of looking-back-at-it irony, because at the time, I just enjoyed the way the guitars and the weird cool harmonies — that shift on “Iiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiii” in each chorus is amazing.
A pox upon the media and everything you read
They tell you your opinions and they’re very good indeed!
But none of this prepares you for the bridge, where, with the guitars raging and the drums building, Hitchcock gets as vicious as he ever will.
And when I have destroyed you, I’ll come picking at your bone
And you won’t have a single atom left to call your own!
After that, they just scream “I wanna destroy you” several times until in a hail of screams and feedback, the song comes crashing to an end, and all I wanted to do is hear more of this music. For the rest of my life, even if I had no idea how much of an outlier “I Wanna Destroy You” well and truly was. And so what?
At the time, of course, “I Wanna Destroy You” was released as a single which went nowhere near the charts, but as Underwater Moonlight became a cult item, passed around as secret knowledge, “I Wanna Destroy You” was inevitably the song that got covered, and there have been plenty of versions — not always officially released, of course — by artists like The Replacements, Goo Goo Dolls, Uncle Tupelo, Circle Jerks, and Victor Sotelo, among others.
Anyways, as an introduction to Underwater Moonlight, to the Soft Boys and to Robyn Hitchcock, “I Wanna Destroy You” could not have been better, but it was hardly the only amazing song — or even my favorite song — on that record, as we’ll discuss in the next few days.
“I Wanna Destroy You”
“I Wanna Destroy You” live in Baltimore, 2001
“I Wanna Destroy You” live in Italy, 2003
“I Wanna Destroy You” Robyn Hitchcock solo, 2017
“I Wanna Destroy You” Robyn Hitchcock & Wilco, Chicago 2019
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