Weirdness Flows: The Songs of Dinosaur Jr (11-20)

             

Given that the last couple of posts have attracted a lot of 'definitely should have been in the top 20' comments, I suspect that my actual top 20 will provoke some along the lines of 'way too high!' (Just as - as I said in the last one - I no doubt would be doing myself with someone else's list.) 

20 Out There 

Where You Been (1993)

Yet another cracking album opener. It’s not as full-on and immediate as, say, ‘Pieces’ or ‘Goin Down’, instead taking a darker, more intense approach. The verse is sleek and brooding; the chorus is a heady swirl. The middle eight (‘It’s what you can’t spare…’) ramps up the emotional potency; the second time around, it’s extended to great effect, and is accompanied somewhat incongruously by J on chimes.

As you would expect from a six-minute Dinosaur track, there’s soloing aplenty to enjoy, highlights of which include the piercingly belligerent opening salvo, the woozy slide in the chorus and the frenzied finale. As for the video: where can I get one of those pink hats?

 

19 What Else Is New 

Where You Been (1993)

I’m conscious that thus far ‘uplifting’ may be another one of those words that I’ve overused, but how else to describe the keening solo that opens this song? Regarding the vocal, the same is true of ‘yearning’ and ‘melancholy’; but again, how else is one to capture J’s tender, endearingly vulnerable performance here? In addition, the coda - an understated yet relentless acoustic strum accompanied by building timpani, sweeping strings and delicate drum fills - is truly moving.

 

17/18 Blowing It / I Live For That Look

Green Mind (1991)

I’m sure I’m not alone in always having considered these two tracks to be part of the same song - listening to either in isolation is curiously unsatisfying. The first part is a vibrant mix of busy acoustic strumming, pulsing staccato chords and a notably scornful, punkish vocal - despite the hesitant tone of the lyric (‘my head whirling around… I don’t know a thing to say to you… am I acting on something real, or am I blowing it again?’)

The second half knocks off some of the rougher, more angular elements and gets into more longing, emotive territory (‘time to pay up for not having a single thing to say’) and is rounded off with an exemplary solo (the high, bent note at 1:41 is especially affecting).

And of course the transcendent moment is the bridge between the two sections, marked by an ascending guitar note that raises the hairs on the back of the neck.

 

16 Bulbs of Passion

Dinosaur (1985) (cassette version only)

Although originally a cassette-only bonus track, for many people 'Bulbs' is the lead song on Dinosaur, having been promoted to that position on the 2005 reissue at J's request. 

After the quiet opening passage of J delivering his brittle, world-weary vocal over distant, interwoven shards of discordant guitar (the line, 'queasy, jittered, uneasy' is an apt description), followed by an eruptive chorus of Lou screaming the title, you might be fooled into thinking this is going to follow a predictable quiet/loud dynamic. Instead we get an array of disparate but seamlessly linked passages: churning riffs ('the feeble structure..), an angular, almost prog-like guitar refrain, a melodic, country-ish middle eight ('hold it in my hand...') interspersed with two savagely astringent solos. You can hear a lot of the common reference points - Sabbath, Sonic Youth, Neil Young - but it never sounds derivative.

Lyrically, there's a lot going on here, little of it easy to interpret. It's full of bleak imagery ('The toll that looms, the loss I dread') and guttural language ('buckle when my judge clutches'; 'teeth scrape on the last remaining fossil'). Towards the end, it's tempered slightly by the reference to 'tears... flowing from the love in her eyes', but this is immediately countered by the self-loathing 'hated feeling gonna eat me alive'. It's plausible that there might be some early indication of the tensions within the band that led to the disintegration of the original line-up in phrases such as 'my treatment of an ego underfed', 'no one's satisfied with merely a cut' and 'the parts all function but the fuse is lit.'

 

15 Hide Another Round

Sweep It Into Space (2021)

It’s been a long, long journey from ‘Bulbs of Passion’ to this, but however much you appreciate the more angular, dissonant elements of Dinosaur Jr’s back catalogue, you surely can’t deny that this is an almost perfect little pop song. The riff is irresistible, the melody is irrepressibly catchy and the whole thing is taut, crisp and as endearingly eager to please as a Christmas present puppy. The lyric is perhaps a little inconsequential, but when a song puts a smile this broad on your face, who cares?

 

14 Tiny

Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not (2016)

From the same school of ideas as ‘Hide Another Round’, ‘Tiny’ edges just ahead owing to the joyfully thrashy, circular riff and the exuberantly nimble solo. If this song doesn’t make you grin like an idiot, you should check your pulse. And as for the video: a bulldog riding a skateboard - what's not to like?

 

13 Watch The Corners

I Bet On Sky (2012)

After two sprightly numbers, this is a very different proposition. It opens with an ominous chug, before opening out into an expansive yet urgent sprawl, punctuated by a machine-gun riff. The solo halfway through is heavenly, but - after a brief pause where the song threatens to dissolve into a melancholy coda like ‘What Else Is New’ - is bested by a majestic, electrifying workout, the sustained notes just before the four-minute mark being exceptionally exhilarating. The only criticism you could possibly level at it is that it ends too soon.

One of their best videos, with more than a touch of Black Mirror about it.

 

12 The Wagon

Green Mind (1991)

Yet another example of a blue ribbon opening album track. ‘The Wagon’ slides into view hurriedly, a blur of hazy arpeggios and chugging riffs, moored resolutely by Murph’s thunderously precise fills. A paean to that most American of vehicles, the station wagon, the lyric sometimes has only a tenuous grip on logic (‘There's a place I'd like to go / when you get there, then I'll know’) but is never less than moving; and, true to form, J wrings every ounce of emotion out of simple lines like ‘here’s a wagon / get on in’.

It’s somehow simultaneously comfortably laid back and enthrallingly relentless. As for the solo - whilst there might be a very few more extravagant and virtuosic performances elsewhere, this example comes as close to capturing J’s genius in a (just over) 30 seconds as any other.

The video below (which is an edited version of the song - the full one is here) is a hilarious freak/slacker reimagining of Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer'.

 

11 Almost Ready

Beyond (2007)

To say that the original trio’s comeback LP hits the ground running is an understatement – it absolutely explodes into life. As the NME’s Nathaniel Cramp notes, ‘As the guitar solo on opener ‘Almost Ready’ kicks in after about, oh, two seconds it’s like the intervening 18 years… haven’t happened at all.’ 

Propelled by the simplest of riffs (a strummed G-D-C) and Murph’s exuberant pounding, the song fizzes with energy; J’s drawl is at once relaxed and revitalised; the solos – and a lot of them are squeezed into the three minutes without a trace of self-indulgence – are fast-paced but precise and unhurried. To top it off, the chorus is simply a fine, catchy pop hook. It’s a thing of joy: a song that Pitchfork described as ‘an almost platonic ideal of a Dinosaur Jr. song’.

This is one of those where J could sing his shopping list and it wouldn’t matter, but as it happens it's actually a neatly captured little sketch of someone stepping back hesitantly into the world of relationships (‘I’m always scared… I want to care again’). ‘Wondering if I made a dent’ is a deftly simple way of depicting the agonies of confused communication; ‘Wondering what it is you meant again’ is more prosaic but equally effective because of its universality. The half-rhymes of the third verse (sure / nerve / worse) emphasise the uncertainty of the narrator, and are impeccably well-suited to J’s delivery.

This fan-made (I think?) video is rather a bizarre one, overlaying what looks like a festival performance over a montage of blurry footage featuring Eastern temples and clips from wildlife documentaries.

The performance on The Late Show with David Letterman almost defies you not to use the word ‘blistering’. Lou’s bass is far more flamboyant (and almost Peter Hook-like in places) than on the studio version, but never distracts from the heads-down power-rock-trio vibe. The fact that J has left the price tag attached to his presumably new guitar strap says everything you ever need to know about his style. As a UK resident who is only vaguely aware of Mr Letterman’s work, I know little about his character, but his reaction suggests he was genuinely blown away.

Previous Next

Index / Home Page