Album: Bandwagonesque
Year: 1991
. . .
Alright, before we can dig into my once and future favorite Teenage Fanclub song, we have to address the big pink (and yellow) elephant in the room: the staggeringly awful album cover for Bandwagonesque. If Nirvana went and tossed a naked toddler into a swimming pool chasing a dollar bill on a fishhook because they wanted to make a comment on how capitalism so thoroughly corrupts us from such an early age that it was inevitable they would sign to a major label, that was one thing, but Teenage Fanclub plunking a garish yellow cartoon moneybag over a scorching pink background was something else entirely.
And what that something else was was butt-ugly. Which also made it kinda hilarious, but might have depressed sales. Also hilarious: Gene Simmons — yes, that Gene Simmons — had apparently trademarked a logo of a moneybag with a dollar sign, because of course he had, and he complained to Geffen and ended up getting some money and credit on future pressings of the album. Now THAT’s a trenchant comment on capitalism!! (I’m also happy to say that my CD of Bandwagonesque was purchased early enough that the bat-lizard’s name is nowhere to be found on it, but the vinyl I recently purchased says “moneybag logo used by permission of Gene Simmons.”)
ANYWAYS, “Alcoholiday” opens with some grand, sad, fuzzed-out guitar chords, and after the full band kicks in, everybody sings “ahhhhh ahhh” a couple of times before everybody stops for just a sec so Norman Blake can lead with the chorus. Unless it’s the verse, of course.
There are things I want to do
But I don’t know if they will be with you
If they will be with you
There are things I want to say
But I don’t know if they will be to you
If they will be to you
And if you think that 1991 Jim, on the verge of yet another relationship falling apart, could possibly resist a song called “Alcoholiday” that opens up with that chorus (unless it’s a verse) featuring great harmonies — Gerald Love killing it on both the backing vocals and especially the bass, which is everywhere and everything on this song — over music that absolutely triangulated Big Star, Sonic Youth and Crazy Horse, who in the fuck do you think you’re even reading right now? “Alcoholiday” totally and completely devastated me from the get-go, and it only got more devastatinger as it went along into the verse (unless it was the chorus).
Listen, ever get a feeling when you’re taken by the hand
And led a torch you can’t command?
Went to bed, but I’m not ready
Baby, I’ve been fucked already
Falling into line, but I’m doing nothing
We’ve got nothing worth discussing
Went to go, but it’s all hazy
People say I’m going crazy
I mean, “Went to be, but I’m not ready / Baby, I’ve been fucked already” is 100% top-shelf broken-heartedness, and lives on top of a melody line and harmony part so infectious that’s nearly impossible to get out of your head, to the point where you probably ignore “people say I’m going crazy,” which is no less awful.
Also no less awful: the outro, which is full-blown harmony as the guitars gets blissfully shining and fuzzy and hooky.
All I know is all I know
What I’ve done I leave behind me
I don’t want my soul to find me
All I know is all I know
What I’ve done I leave behind me
I don’t want my soul to find me
All I know is all I know
What I’ve done I leave behind me
I don’t want my soul to find me
And finally the last minute is taken over by a long Raymond McGinley guitar solo — which could be multiple solos or maybe Blake is taking one, it’s hard to get a read when everything is so dusty — that brings “Alcoholiday” to its fade, all of us drunker, sadder and wiser than we were when it started.
Oh, and in one of the greatest cases ever of an influence paying a fan back by covering that fan’s song — way better than Ringo Starr’s “Golden Blunders” — check out the utterly incandescent version by Alex Chilton with the Fannies backing him. It’s everything you would want and more.
And while it was never a single, “Alcoholiday” was just one in a series of great songs — which included “What You Do to Me,” “Sidewinder,” and “Metal Baby” — that made Bandwagonesque such a fantastic record, and gave Spin the license to choose it as their best album of 1991, which was incredibly controversial at the time, given that 1991 was also the year of Nevermind, Girlfriend, Loveless, Out of Time and Achtung Baby! to just name a few.
And in the end, it didn’t really help them here any — while Bandwagonesque was their highest-charting album here, it still only made it to #137 on the Billboard charts (though it did hit a respeectable #22 in the U.K.) — and it’s possible that it fueled a bit of a backlash against the Fannies as well, especially since their ambitions were way more modest than all of the other artists I mentioned. Also, I gotta think that awful album cover hurt it, as well.
That said, Bandwagonesque still holds up for your humble correspondent, and is still a top five 1991 album and a top 20 1990s album for me.
“Alcoholiday”
“Alcoholiday” live in New York, 1994
“Alcoholiday” live at the Phoenix Festival, 1997
“Alcoholiday” Featuring Alex Motherfucking Chilton
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