Track Attack- "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" (The Smiths, 1984)

(Welcome to "Track Attack," where each Tuesday a "new" song will be reviewed. Anything is fair-game for this feature, from meticulously lush 70s folk to blown-out 2000s R&B. Today's track is a brief, but brilliant piece of 80s indie pop. Arguably the pinnacle of sadness for a band who had an affinity for the sad.)

Discussions of sad sack miserablism start and end with the Smiths. Other bands lay claim to melancholy (Mazzy Star) or hold the championship belt in outright depression (Joy Division), but the Manchester quartet retains ownership of immutable sadness. It's the reason "This Charming Charlie" is so incredibly funny. Lauren LoPrete was able to find the one pop culture figure capable of matching the Morrissey fronted group in the head-hanging department. Charlie Brown was by all accounts "a good man" and the world conspired against him anyway. So it was with Morrissey in the Smiths. When he wanted a place to call home, he was kicked out. "Miserable Lie" wouldn't let him experience the thrill of a first time without reminding he and his lover, "There's something against us." Even with his steadfast commitment in "Girlfriend in a Coma" he's left to shakily beg, "I'd hate anything to happen to her," atop sawing strings and Andy Rourke's gulping bass. Where melancholy can be a torturous invention of the mind, the sadness Morrissey was experiencing was all too real. His brain wasn't inventing reasons to be glum. He'd been dealt shit hands and was reacting the way a lot of us would, by rocking back and forth in a ball of woe.

Though the band would write better songs (I still rank "I Know It's Over" as their best), no effort in their catalog can match 1984's "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" in terms of sorrow. Appearing as the B-side to their fifth single "William It Was Really Nothing," it's everything the chart placing track isn't. Despite the song's 1:50 run time, the tempo moves at a glacial pace. Gone are Mike Joyce's booming drums, Rourke's rolling bass, and Johnny Marr's spidery guitar. In fact Joyce and Rourke don't even appear on "Please, Please, Please...," giving a sliver of credence to the foolish assertion that they were replaceable. Even Morrissey, one of rock music's greatest vocalists, has seemingly "checked out" here. He doesn't use any of the sliding vocals that closed out "William It Was Really Nothing" or let out falsetto cries. Instead it’s one exasperated sigh. The figure on the bed of the cover may as well be Morrissey, whispering "haven't had a dream in a long time," as he brushes back his jet black quiff. Like Marr's acoustic guitar playing and background soloing, he's lifelessly still.

Never getting your way will cultivate that kind of defeatism. Hopefully we all understand that 100% of our wishes can't be granted, life doesn't allow for such fulfillment. But how often do we consider the idea of rarely, if ever, having a prayer answered? I'd like to think I could handle it, that I'd maintain a stiff upper lip, but that's a lie. Endless rejection of every kind would be suffocating. It wouldn't be long before I'd be like Morrissey pleading "Please please please, let me, let me, let me, let me get what I want, this time," just so I could breathe fresh air again.

Perhaps the better question is what would happen when such a loser finally wins? Would they run off jumping and praising a higher power like the crippled man of the Book of Acts? Or would the celebration be marked by another sigh, one of relief? In the case of "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want," the "victory parade" is signaled by Johnny Marr's shimmering mandolin. I've somewhat joked before that you can hear heaven in his outro, but I'm largely serious when I say it. As mechanically rhythmic and reverberated as it is, his part is exceptionally humane. A tiny stream of comfort washes over me when I hear Marr's picking. I know the same is true of Morrissey who has broken down in tears as those familiar notes ring out. For once in his life though it's not woeful sorrow he's experiencing, but joyful sadness. Lord knows it would be the first time. 

If you have suggestions for songs you want to see featured in future editions of Track Attack, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Track Attack- "Born in the U.S.A. (Demo Version)" (Bruce Springsteen, 1982/1998)

"Born in the U.S.A." was the song that got me into Bruce Springsteen. I know that isn't a particularly earth-shattering revelation, countless people came to The Boss in a similar fashion. But I still remember mine, which has to count for something. When I got my first MP3 player at 13 I went on a downloading spree on the non-free Napster, filling my drab gray electronic stick up with whatever caught my eyes and ears. One song was Born in the U.S.A.'s booming title-track. If "Like a Rolling Stone"'s opening snare shot kicked open the door to Springsteen's mind, Max Weinberg's "exploding drums" left giant wood splinters in my brain. It wasn't just Weinberg's raucous playing though; it was Professor Roy Bittan's synthesizer riff which has hypnotic bile coursing through its Clarion veins. Hearing it now, I'm still not sure if he's striving for anthemic or stomach churning. 

And then of course there's Springsteen, howling with a righteous hunger and indignation he's rarely returned to. More than any of those other elements, his voice is what drew me in. At 13 I had no idea why he was screaming. That utter desperation cast a spell on me though and when I returned to Springsteen several years later, this time for good; the crushing despair is what drew me back in. If the veins in Springsteen's face weren't popping out when he recorded the album version, it'd be easy to imagine. The cliché of doing (blank) "like your life depended on it" has rarely been as true in music as it is here. His wailing about going to "kill the yellow maaan" doesn't have anything to do with bloodlust or cultural imperialism, he's been backed into a corner and using the rifle in his shaking hands is the only way to get out.

If the 1984 album version of "Born in the U.S.A." is about desperation, the ‘82 acoustic version Springsteen cut for Nebraska is resignation incarnate. Gone are the massive drum fills and queasy synth lines. The seismic roar of Springsteen's voice is distilled to a ghostly whisper. "Righteous hunger" has ceded to starvation. Infamously Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign attempted to co-opt the song and sought The Boss' endorsement. Wholly unaware of the song's bitter resentment of blind nationalism and mistreatment of Vietnam vets, conservative columnist George Will went so far as to say of Springsteen, "He is no whiner, and the recitation of closed factories and other problems always seems punctuated by a grand, cheerful affirmation: 'Born in the U.S.A.! '" Had Will listened to Springsteen's intensely strummed offering first, he would've altogether abandoned any "patriotic" talk. No way could anyone point to jingoism in a line like "nowhere to run and nowhere to go," especially when there's nothing distracting you from the sentiment.

It's easy for some then to see the song's true colors and label Springsteen unpatriotic. While I find it incredibly dimwitted to do so, I understand it. Just like most don't want to hear their favorite sports team lambasted, they don't wish to see their country taken down either. Hearing Springsteen depict Veteran's Affairs as callous, "you" want to fire back at the charge. It's a department that does deeply important work and how dare someone criticize it. He's not criticizing V.A. callousness or American ineptitude after Vietnam out of hate though, but love. He had friends shipped off to the war. He got the same draft notice in the mail and had to take the same physical. While he was "fortunate" enough to fail, plenty of his friends weren't so lucky. This isn't a situation then he's unfamiliar with, he knows it all too well. When he frantically plucks guitar strings in the Tracks version and anxiously moans "I had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet Cong, they're still there, he's all gone" your heart falls out of your chest because its uncomfortably real. With "Born in the U.S.A." Springsteen wasn't speaking out of turn about a country that had given him everything; he was giving a voice to those who the country abandoned. It's not a condemnation so much as a correction. And the sparse 1982 demo version makes that painfully clear.

I hope everyone has a happy Fourth of July! Look for the blog to return in full-force on Monday.