Album: Endless Arcade
Year: 2021
. . .
And whoops! It’s twenty years later. Weird how that happens. And Teenage Fanclub is much closer to being called Oldage Fanclub, but then again so am I. That said, 2021’s Endless Arcade is only the fourth (or fifth, if you count their 2002 collaboration w/ Jad Fair, Words of Hope and Wisdom) album they’d released since 2000’s Howdy!, which was released when Bill Clinton was president, in case you want context as to how long ago. During those twenty years, they did what many legacy artists did: took their damn sweet time between records, so we had 2005’s Man Made, 2010’s Shadows and 2016’s Here, which were all fine and none of which had any songs that I can remember by name right now.
Which, of course, is on me, not them.
Anyways, the most major event to transpire during all of that time was the 2018 departure of bassist Gerald Love, who had decided that he didn’t want to tour as much as the rest of the band, a perfectly understandable position for someone in his 50s.
But Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley weren’t quite ready to pack it all in, so long-time keyboardist David McGowan switched over to bass, joining original drummer Francis McDonald — who had come back for Man Made — and keyboardist Euros Childs in soldiering one, figuring that two great songwriters could still fill an album every few years. Thus, Endless Arcade, which came out in 2021 and reminded those of us who still cared why we still cared.
The highlight — as it had been so many times — was the opening track, Norman Blake’s “Home,” which could be about Love, but more likely is about love.
Every morning
I open my eyes
I’m waking up to reality
I’ve been mystified
I’ve been losing sight of
What it means to be
And all this time I’ve been holding on
To our memory
And without even breaking a sweat, they roll right into the melancholy chorus, Childs taking the harmonies.
I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be home again
I just don’t know when I’ll open that door again
For me, what makes “Home” isn’t the lyrics or even the melody: it’s the guitar solos. The first one is a twin-intertwining solo with Blake & McGinley’s guitars locking around each other just like they have since 1989 or whatever. Just lovely. Even better, though is McGinley’s long long long solo that takes over the last half of the song. How long? Four minutes, and every single note is so well-considered that it’s like one of those classic 1970’s guitar solos that dotted songs like “Reeling in the Years” or “Two Tickets to Paradise,” though it’s both longer and more understated than either of those.
With the rest of the band — especially drummer McDonald — both supporting and pushing McGinley, the whole thing is an absolute marvel and ends only when McGinley decides its time for it to end. Fantastic!
As I write this, Teenage Fanclub have a new record coming out in September of this year, Nothing Lasts Forever, a nice and semi-ironic title from a band that has been around for 35 years now. And based upon the advance singles, “Foreign Land” and “Tired of Being Alone,” it will be another good one. Long may they do their thing!
“Home”
“Home” (Single Edit)
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