Album: Mezcal Head (Bonus Track)
Year: 1993
. . .
While I bought — from Ragin’ Records, of course — and enjoyed both 1991’s Raise and 1993’s Mezcal Head, I didn’t really fall in love with Swervedriver for another dozen years or so, a story I’ll discus in more detail tomorrow. Let’s just say that 1991-1993 was an incredibly intense time for music for me, and more great shit was released in that period than I could fully process.
Not to mention that Swervedriver released quite a few singles and EPs in the period with bonus tracks that never made those albums, none of which I discovered at the time.
Like “Planes Over the Skyline,” one of the b-sides of the “Duel” single, and a song that would have been a powerhouse on the original disc of Mezcal Head — which in Japan, it was, just not here — so I didn’t get to hear it until the 2009 reissue.
A relatively straightforward rocker, with the usual eight zillion guitar overdubs from Adam Franklin & Jimmy Hartridge and some awesomely overdrumming from Jez Hindmarsh, “Planes over The Skyline” opens with the chorus, which is basically just this:
Planes over the skyline
Planes over the skyline
Planes over the skyline
Planes over the skyline
But of course, it’s all about how Adam Franklin sings “plaaaaaaaannnes oooooover the skyliiiiine” that makes it work, until over some narsty wah-wah guitar you discover it’s a song about San Francisco. A song about having a not particularly good time in San Francisco, as a matter of fact.
Walking through the Haight
Along a loud and crowded street
Disarray
The vendor’s broke again
It drives me ’round the bend
Disarray
Which to be honest, I literally just now discovered, for two reasons: 1) his vocals are a bit buried in the mix during the verses, overpowered by not just the wah-wahs, but also some killer bass runs from Steve George and 2) I’m just waiting for him to get back to that chorus.
Which he does between each verse, and especially at the end, where he sings “planes over the skyliinnnnnnnnne” over and over and over and over, eventually doing a round with himself while the guitars and drums get ever more intense until the planes go not just over the skyline, but the hills and the horizon.
“Planes Over The Skyline”
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