Album: Thirteen
Year: 1993
. . .
The thirteenth and final song on Teenage Fanclub’s album 1993 album Thirteen, which was named either of the number of songs on the album — there was a lot of that going on in 1993, cf. Paul Westerberg’s 14 Songs — or the epochal Big Star song, was Gerald Love’s tribute song, “Gene Clark.”
I don’t have to tell you this, of course, but Gene Clark was a founding member of The Byrds, who were definitely an influence on Teenage Fanclub, natch. Clark had left The Byrds just before the recording of 1966’s Fifth Dimension, though he does share a songwriting credit for “Eight Miles High,” which of course automatically gave him a lifetime pass to put out a shitton of records — most of which I’ve never heard, sorry — until his death in 1991.
Naturally, in “Gene Clark,” Gene Clark is never mentioned by name, and not only that, the music itself is more Neil Young than anything else. In fact, not only is it the most Neil Young song of Teenage Fanclub’s career (including Grand Prix’s “Neil Jung,” which is saying something), the production is closer to Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend album than anything else released by either Sweet or the Fannies in 1993.
And so “Gene Clark” starts with grungy rhythm guitar in one speaker by Norman Blake, while Gerald Love and Brendon O’Hare play that slow “boom-boom-bah” beat that all adepts attribute to Neil, regardless of whether or not they really should, and way over in the other speaker, Raymond McGinley plays a long long long guitar solo using as few notes as humanly possible, repeating himself over and over and over. I guess it could drive you nuts, but I think it’s awesome. All 3:30 of it. Which is how long it takes for the fever to break and Love to start singing the words.
When the circle finally formed, you called me up
The only one making a sound
I can’t work out what I want to see
I bury my thoughts in the groundAll the seeds you sow are just looking for a space to grow
So sleep, sleep and lay your white body down
So sleep, sleep and lay your white body down
There’s some nice harmonies from Norman Blake on the “sleep sleep and lay your white body down,” after which McGinley comes in with an absolutely god-tier circular riff — still way over in that other speaker, and still with the rhythm section playing that straightforward beat — which lasts the rest of the song while Love mantras:
No matter what you do, it all returns to you
No matter what you say, you’ll hear it all someday
Over and over and over until “Gene Clark” just fades away, ending Thirteen the vinyl on a proper note, but really just setting up the bonus b-sides that follow it on the CD.
“Gene Clark”
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