Day After Day #243: There She Goes

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

There She Goes (1988)

Sometimes a song just hits. An artist figures it out and nails it right out of the gate. The La's captured a perfect piece of dream pop heaven on their first album and were poised to do big things. And then they just didn't.

The La's were formed in Liverpool, England, in 1983, as a skiffle outfit. Lee Mavers joined the group a year later as rhythm guitarist and eventually started doing more of the songwriting and become the frontman. The band caught the attention of some local labels and in 1987 released its first single, "Way Out," which hit the top 100. Their Liverpool origins and pure pop sound drew comparisons to the Beatles.

"There She Goes" was released in 1988 and didn't fare well in the charts. After a few years of recording and re-recording their debut album, with a rotating group of musicians, Mavers and bassist John Power settled on a lineup with Lee's brother Neil on drums and Peter Cammell on lead guitar. They went into the studio in December 1989 with producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, Simple Minds) and recorded what would become their debut, but Lee Mavers was not satisfied with the sound. Lillywhite eventually put together what the band had recorded into 1990's The La's and the band, especially Mavers, complained about the finished product. 

Still, when it came out, the album went to #30 on the U.K. album chart, although it barely cracked the Billboard 200 in the U.S. A remixed version of "There She Goes" was released as a single and it became a hit, going to #13 in the U.K. in 1990. In the U.S., it went to #49 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

The song's gentle lilt makes it sound like it's straight out of the mid-'60s. It's a jangly love song, although some believe it was about a love affair with heroin, something Mavers has always denied.

"There she goes/There she goes again/Racing through my brain/And I just can't contain/This feelin' that remains/There she blows/There she blows again/Pulsing through my vein/And I just can't contain/This feelin' that remains."

There have also been comparisons of the song to the Velvet Underground's "There She Goes Again," which isn't explicitly about drugs, either. Mavers was steadfast that it was a love song about a girl, although he did admit to taking heroin around 1990, which was two years after the song was written. 

"There she goes/There she goes again/She calls my name, pulls my train/No one else could heal my pain/But I just can't contain/This feelin' that remains/There she goes/There she goes again/Chasing down my lane/And I just can't contain/This feelin' that remains."

Whatever it's about, the song has had staying power. It's been used in several movies and TV shows, including The Parent Trap, Fever Pitch, The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Gilmore Girls. "There She Goes" is used throughout Mike Myers' 1993 movie So I Married an Axe Murderer, both the La's version and a rocked-up cover by the Boo Radleys.

Nearly a decade later, the American Christian alt-rock act Sixpence None the Richer released a cover of "There She Goes" in July 1999 that went to #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #14 on the U.K. Singles Chart.

As for the La's, they never made another album. The band stopped touring and rehearsing in 1992, but would reunite occasionally for shows, supporting artists like Oasis and Paul Weller in the mid-'90s. The band released some compilations of early recordings and live radio sessions. Mavers began jamming with Pete Doherty in 2008 and there were rumors that Doherty's band Babyshambles was going to back up Mavers on the second La's album, but it never happened. Mavers reformed the La's in 2011 for some shows in Europe, but that was the last public La's activity. 

In an interview for the 2013 book Isle of Noises: Conversations with Great British Songwriters, Mavers said he's a father of four and hasn't done drugs for decades. 

Original La's guitarist Mike Badger said in a 2021 interview about the song that "There She Goes" has been a blessing and a curse for Mavers. "It's the best thing that's happened to Lee but also the worst. He wrote this perfect song, but it's meant he hasn't had to do anything because he has a constant source of income."