Album: A Catholic Education
Year: 1990
. . .
On the U.K. version of A Catholic Education, “Everybody’s Fool” was the final track of the record, but on the U.S. version, Matador stuck it in the second slot, after “Everything Flows,” which definitely confused me a bit, as the rest of the album wasn’t nearly as good as the opening tracks.
Not to mention that “Everybody’s Fool” just felt like a closing song to me.
Opening with ringing guitar chords from Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley and stop/start drums, “Everybody’s Fool” kinda lurched into action, with Norman Blake singing at the very very top of his range as he describes a person one would have described back then as a poser.
You impress me with your style
I think you’re really cool
Everbody looks at you
‘Cause you’re everybody’s fool
His voice gets even more wobbly on the call-and-response chorus, backed by McGinley and maybe Gerald Love, all of whom are having a grand old time being mean as fuck.
I don’t fuckin’ care (I don’t fuckin’ care)
What clothes you wear (What clothes you wear)
You’re still fucking square
My favorite part of the song is on the second chorus when Blake holds out “squareaarrraaaarre” in a wibbly-wobbly voice that even Stephen Malkmus would have been hard-pressed to duplicate, which leads to the outro, which is both mean and wobblier.
And I’m laughing at you all the time
And I’m laughing at you all the time
And I’m laughing at you all the time
And I’m laughing at you all the time
To me, “Everybody’s Fool” is the epitome of pre-Geffen Teenage Fanclub, whose second album, The King, was basically a piss (or pissed, because they were all fucked up when they recorded it) take of all instrumentals — including a cover of “Interstellar Overdrive” — that didn’t even come out in the U.S., because Matador was all, we don’t need this. And, actually the band wasn’t surprised — they originally wanted it to be limited to 1,000 mid-priced copies — but their U.K label Creation put out 20,000 copies at full price, because that’s what record labels do.
Anyways, none of this would have prepared anybody paying attention to what was coming next. About which, we’ll discuss tomorrow.
“Everybody’s Fool”
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