I was listening to my recently-purchased copy of Glasvegas on the way into work this morning and I had an itty-bitty epiphany. This part isn’t the epiphany — the conventional wisdom on Glasgow’s Glasvegas is that their sound is rooted in early rock sounds like girl groups and rockabilly as filtered through Euro sound junkies like the Jesus and Mary Chain and U2. It was in considering Glasvegas’ retro concerns that it dawned on me that they were taking up the middle ground between Bruce Springsteen and Morrissey. And that’s the tiny epiphany, that the Boss and the Mozz are essentially two sides of the same coin.
Don’t go nuts yet. I’m well aware that the Springsteen camp and the Morrissey folks rarely are seen together in public. One guy is the poster boy for “authentic rocking” while the other is the patron saint of lovelorn smartipances. Still, both performers are icons who’ve made careers mining rock and pop styles from that period between Elvis and the Beatles and using those retro moves as the backdrop for their own stylized yearning, dreaming, and score settling. The Morrissey who evokes that grey seaside mope in “Everyday is Like Sunday” is singing about a slightly imaginary version of English life in the same way that Springsteen’s auto-powered desert defiance in “The Promised Land” is speaking to a not-quite-real experience of American working-class frustration. Obviously the two artists focus on different flavors of classic pop and rock. However, both of them are nostalgic, even sentimental, writers and performers. One plays the role of the British eccentric, the other the role of American blue-collar everyman.
Enter Glasvegas. Their songs (like Morrissey’s and Springsteen’s) are crammed with words. They’re also unabashedly emotional. You can’t get away with a twist like “My name is Geraldine/I’m your social worker” without meaning it. And wink-wink, nudge-nudge stuff would make you cringe like the end of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. And just so you know that Glasvegas aren’t fooling, they’ve built their sound partly using the direct, plaintive blueprint of the Ronnettes and Shangri-Las and partly using U2’s plans for echoey, arena-as-cathedral guitars. It’s a big sound for songs with big hearts. I’ve read of Glasvegas being compared to the Jesus and Mary Chain, and while both bands are playing the sweetness vs. noise game, Glasvegas lacks the emotional distance (i.e, reverb-drenched or distorted deadpan vocals) and the abusive feedback of the JAMC’s early Beach-Boys-meets-Velvet-Underground stuff.
I think the neat trick that Glasvegas pulls is taking the romantic girl group song form and using it to write something other than boy/girl love songs. I mean, “Daddy’s Gone” takes the typical “my baby’s gone away” track and repurposes it as a vehicle for musing about one’s lousy father.
“Daddy’s Gone”
All I wanted was a kick-a-bout in the park
For you to race me home when it was nearly getting dark
How I could’ve been yours, and you’d be mine
It could’ve been me and you until the end of time
Do what you want, when you want
Be as fucking insincere as you can
What kind of way is that to treat your wife
To see your son on Saturdays
What way is that to live your life?
At this point in semi-popular rock history, when masks and ironic stances or complete escapism seem to be requirements for serious consideration, it takes a certain amount of guts to write and record songs about streetfights, bullying, and broken homes with a straight face. A song like “Go Square Go” could easily fit into an arch little betsit record by Belle and Sebastian.
“Go Square Go”
If he wants to fight you
at the school gates
Half past four grab your bag
Don’t you be late
If he wants to hit you
Hit you in the face
If he wants to hurt you
in front of your mates
If he wants you to run away
Run away run away
Don’t you fucking run away
It’s striking to hear a sad, almost tender song like this given the big rock treatment with the resigned/charged “Here we fuckin’ go” refrain juiced up into an anthemic rallying cry. Its the sort of clever, exhilarating move that would make Uncles Morrissey and Springsteen proud. Heck, even St. Bono would likely approve.
