Album: Marquee Moon
Year: 1977
. . .
Take a look at that utterly iconic album cover! Taken by Robert Mapplethorpe — who had taken the instantly-iconic cover of Patti Smith’s Horses the year prior — it depicts four young men each trying to out-serious each other, with only drummer Billy Ficca showing the hint of a smile. These are dudes who know they’ve made a classic record, and are dying for you to get on with playing it already
However, the shot that was used wasn’t the exact photograph Mapplethorp actually took: the story goes that Richard Lloyd took the contact sheet to a print shop to get color photocopies — this was how we lived back then — and they didn’t quite look right. Lloyd was into that, and started fucking around with the photocopy machine, with one of the outcomes used for the cover. As for the original, apparently bassist Fred Smith took it home and had it framed.
I didn’t know any of that, but what I did know was that I wanted Tom Verlaine’s hair, even though there was no way I could pull it off until my baby fat went away. I’m dead serious here, I really loved his haircut: it was just so angular and cool. Kinda like his guitar leads on “Friction,” the weakest song on maybe the greatest side of any album ever recorded.
This is in no way, shape or form, a diss on “Friction:” something had to be the weakest song on that side; in this case it just happened to be “Friction,” just like “5:15” is the weakest song on side three of Quadrophenia and “Moral Kiosk” is the weakest song on side one of Murmur and “Lay it Down Clown” is the weakest song on side two of Tim, though that last one is a pretty easy claim to make. (Unless somehow the upcoming Ed Stasium remix of Tim reveals the song’s hidden depths. It’s possible, I guess.)
Anyways, “Friction” opens with a sideways guitar riff from Lloyd, over which Verlaine almost instantly starts spewing magic, kicking out a spiraling lead that rainbows over Lloyd’s riff, before summoning his most psychotic voice to start singing:
I knew it must’ve been a-some big set-up
All the action just would not let up
It’s just a little bit back from the main road
Where the silence spreads and the men dig holes
After every other line, Verlaine adds commentary with his guitar, like he’s so wound up he doesn’t have any real words to express himself, though on the chorus, he’s actually restrained, as he and Lloyd smash at their guitars.
I start to spin the tale
You complain of my diction
You give me friction (Friction!)
You give me friction (Friction!)
You give me friction (Friction!)
Once again, they’re making great use of call-and-response, as Lloyd and Fred Smith — who’s doing some pretty sick bass runs throughout — joyously scream “Frick-shun!” as if they’re trying to take the piss from the eerie spooky mood “Friction” is trying to create, not to mention that overly serious album cover. Also taking the piss: Verlaine’s singing on “You complain of my DICK … shun.” Heh, heh . . . dick.
As the second verse unfolds, so does the guitar commentary: it’s now coming after nearly every line. Perhaps not unlike Verlaine’s diction.
My eyes are like telescopes
I see it all backwards, but who wants hope?
If I ever catch that ventriloquist
I’ll squeeze his head right into my fist
“Friction” also does a cool structural thing: it sticks the guitar solo right in the middle of the third verse, which starts with “How does a snake get out of its skin? / Here’s a depiction:” which is definitely one of the weirder ways to say “here comes a guitar solo,” but godsdamnit if it also doesn’t describe the subsequent guitar solo, which sheds and shreds at the some time, with Verlaine basically yanking the lower strings right off of his guitar.
By this point, there are also a shit ton of guitar overdubs going on, so when Verlaine sings the back half of the third verse you don’t know what to pay attention to.
Oh, stop this head motion, set the sails
You know all us boys gonna wind up in jail
Which is why it’s so cool that whole band slams together one last time for the final chorus of “Friction,” ratcheting the tension up with every single line, until it gets released with a spelling lesson.
Well, I don’t wanna grow up
There’s too much contradiction
And too much friction (Friction!)
But I dig friction (Friction!)
You know I’m crazy ’bout friction (Friction!)F!-R!-I!-C!-T!-I!-O!-N!
Just a fabulous stop-time as Verlaine spells “Friction” out with only a guitar behind him. As they start it back up, Billy Ficca, whose been (relatively) restrained through most of the song, suddenly starts doing jazzy fills, matching Verlaine’s dissonant guitar solo, threatening to drive the song out of sync, but instead to yet another stop time, which sets up the crazed outro where Lloyd and Smith (and maybe even Verlaine at this point) scream “FRICTION!” while Verlaine creates it with his guitar, until finally Verlaine and Ficca kill the whole thing by crashing it into a pile of rubble. Fan-fucking-tastic!
And reminder: this utterly insane monster song was the weakest song on side one of Marquee Moon, though that crash-landing of an ending perfectly set up the clean guitar chords which opened the next song. But that’s tomorrow’s story.
“Friction”
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