Album: The Boldness of Style EP
Year: 1987
I neither loved nor hated Thelonious Monster’s first two albums, 1986’s Baby … You’re Bumming My Life Out in A Supreme Fashion and 1987’s Next Saturday Afternoon. That’s because I couldn’t make heads nor tails of them. I listened to them, and I no idea what ringleader Bob Forrest was trying to do.
This remains weird to me, because I liked his voice, and knew that it he was — for lack of a better phrase — on our side, and he worked in various idioms that I loved, and yet, and yet, none of it stuck, not even the ones where they were actually trying. Looking back, the only thing I can imagine is that they wanted to try to turn a Replacements disintegration show into a studio album.
Until I heard “If I,” which was left off of Next Saturday Afternoon, but instead graced the b-side of an EP or single or whatever that was put out at around the same time called The Boldness of Style, which featured one of the better tracks from Next Saturday Afternoon, “Looking to the West” on the A-side — on the album, “Looking to the West” followed a song called “Swan Song,” and I still don’t know if these were Zeppelin references or not — and joining “If I” on the b-side was a cover of the Doobie Brothers “Listen to the Music.”
Anyways, “If I” is basically a piano-driven duet between Bob Forrest and a woman named Sabrina Judge, who at the time — or maybe later — was the singer of “the dynamic and volatile Los Angeles power trio Wheel.” It starts off with few piano notes from Sondra Christianson, flaked by an organ played by Fishbone’s Chris Dowd, a sax bleat from Fishbone’s Angelo Moore and as a busier-than-you’d-expect bassline from Fishbone’s John Norwood Fisher rumbles in the background, Bob Forrest sings at the top of his range and his heart.
Well if I don’t know where I’m going to
How could someone like you?
Well, how could someone like you?And if I don’t know what it’s all about
How could someone like you?
Well, how could someone like you?
There is real hurt and anger and sadness in Forrest’s vocals, especially the way held out the “IIIIIIIIIIII” at the beginning of each verse, and it floored me instantly, especially when he went into the chorus.
Well, there was a time
Well yeah, there was a time
When I loved only you
Thought you loved me too
Said you loved me
The other great thing about “If I” is that it’s not just Forrest singing at a lost love, but the lost love singing back, with the same amount of hurt and sadness and anger. BTW, I’m having to transcribe the lyrics from the song, because “If I” is not in any of the lyrics sites or on Spotify.
Well, I don’t know what you want from me
How could I give it to you?
How could I give it to you?
And I if I don’t know what I fight for
Well I’m betting we’re through
Yah, I’m betting we’re through
After she finishes with the second chorus, a screaming guitar — played by either Bill Stobaugh, Chris Handsome or Dix Denney, or maybe all three or maybe someone else — comes in as Forrest and Judge continue to yell you said “you loved me” and other accusations at each other. Also contributing to the cacophony, Angelo Moore’s sax, as this piano break-up song has somehow decided to incorporate free jazz. Now, while this was exactly the type of thing that normally distanced me from their music, this time it somehow all made sense to me, and I played “If I” all the time on KFSR, especially when I went through my own yelly breakup that autumn.
That said, “If I” is an incredibly scarce song: it didn’t show up on the CD that contained Stormy Weather and Next Saturday Afternoon, and I just checked and it wasn’t on Spotify, Amazon or Apple Music.
Luckily, somebody did upload it to YouTube, so you can at least hear what I’m on about with this one.
“If I”
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