Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Add It Up (1983)
Much of the great music throughout the history of rock was created by frustrated teenagers. There's something to be said for the awkwardness and angst of the teen years, and no band captured the sexual frustration of a teenage boy like the Violent Femmes.
The Milwaukee folk-punk trio were formed in 1981 by bassist Brian Ritchie, drummer Victor DeLorenzo and singer-guitarist Gordon Gano. On August 23, 1981, the band was busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, a venue where the Pretenders were playing that night, when Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott saw them and Chrissie Hynde invited them to play a short set after the opener. As the story goes, that chance meeting propelled the Femmes to stardom, but in reality, they were booed by Pretenders fans that night. It took another year before the band opened for Richard Hell in New York City and got a good review in the New York Times; that led to them signing with Slash Records and releasing their self-titled debut in 1983.
Most of the songs on the Violent Femmes debut album and its follow-up were written by Gano when he was in high school. The Femmes came out of nowhere with the radical combination of acoustic instrumentation and Gano's angst-ridden musings on sexual and social frustration. Gano drew a lot of comparisons to Jonathan Richman's early work, although he said he was more inspired by Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate.
"Blister in the Sun" got most of the attention and rightly so; it's an incredible song. But I'm going to focus on "Add It Up," which is powered as much by Gano's horny teen longings as Ritchie's amazing acoustic bass work. Gano begins with a slow solo intro before the rest of the band kicks in.
"Day after day/I will walk and I will play/But the day after today/I will stop and I will start/Why can't I get just one kiss?/Why can't I get just one kiss?/Believe me, there'd be some things that I wouldn't miss/But I look at your pants and I need a kiss/Why can't I get just one screw?/Why can't I get just one screw?/Believe, I'd know what to do/But something won't let me make love to you/Why can't I get just one fuck?/Why can't I get just one fuck?/I guess it's got something to do with luck/But I waited my whole life for just one/Day after day/I get angry and I will say/That the day is in my sight/When I take a bow and say goodnight."
The song has two narrators. The first three verses are sung by someone who would today be called an incel (involuntary celibate) who is upset at his lack of sexual activity and is getting angry about it, possibly to the point of committing suicide. But the second narrator is trying to calm the first one down, even talking to the kid's mother about it after the kid gets a gun.
"Ma-ma-mama mama mo my mum/Have you kept your eye, your eye on your son?/I know you've had problems, you're not the only one/But when your sugar left, he left you on the run/So mo-my-mama, mama-mo-my-mum/Take a look now, look what your boy has done/He's walking around like he's number one/'Cause he went downtown and he got him a gun/So don't shoot, shoot, shoot that thing at me/Don't shoot, shoot, shoot that thing at me/You know you got my sympathy/But don't shoot, shoot, shoot that thing at me."
The third part of the song finds the first narrator dealing with his frustration in a different way, by going to a prostitute.
"Broken down kitchen at the top of the stairs/Can I mix in with your affairs?/Share a smoke, make a joke/Grasp and reach for a leg of hope/Words to memorize, words hypnotize/Words make my mouth exercise/Words all fail the magic prize/Nothing I can say when I'm in your thighs/Buy mo-my-mama, mama-mo-my-mother/I would love to love you lover/The city's restless, it's ready to pounce/Go here in your bedroom, ounce for ounce."
The song builds up to its finale as the narrator watches the sex worker count his money.
"I'm giving you a decision to make/Things to lose, things to take/Just as she's about ready to cut it up/She said, 'Wait a minute, honey, I'm gonna add it up'/I'm gonna add it up, add it up/Add it up, add it up."
Ritchie's insane bass soloing carries the song to its end in a frenzy.
In an interview years later, Gano said he wrote the song out of boredom. "I was in my bedroom--that's where I wrote it--feeling frustrated. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. It just happened to feel good lyrically...and it still does."
That first Violent Femmes album is still their best and most successful, eventually going platinum despite never getting on the Billboard 200 chart in those years. It finally did hit #171 in 1991.
The Femmes' second album, 1984's Hallowed Ground, explored country sounds and Christian themes; Gano was a devout Baptist. They moved in more of a pop direction with 1986's The Blind Leading the Naked, which was produced by Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads and had a minor hit with a cover of T. Rex's "Children of the Revolution." There was a brief hiatus, during which Gano released an album with his side project The Mercy Seat and Ritchie also released solo albums.
The Femmes reunited in late 1988 and released 3, which recalled their earlier sound. Their 1991 album Why Do Birds Sing? had a hit with "American Music." DeLorenzo left the band in 1993 and was replaced by Guy Hoffman; the band released five albums with Hoffman as well as songs for the soundtracks of The Crow and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. DeLorenzo returned in 2002 as the band was readying a 20th anniversary reissue of their debut.
Ritchie filed a lawsuit again Gano in 2007 after the latter licensed "Blister in the Sun" for use in a Wendy's commercial. Ritchie sought half ownership of the band's music and access to royalty accounting; the band eventually split up in 2009.
The Violent Femmes reunited to play Coachella and other festivals in 2013. DeLorenzo was replaced by Brian Viglione of Dresden Dolls for a few years. The band's first album in 16 years, We Can Do Anything, was released in March 2016. John Sparrow, who played percussion in the Femmes' backing band, the Horns of Dilemma, joined the band as its new drummer after Viglione left. The band is still together; its most recent album is 2019's Hotel Last Resort.
"Add It Up" was covered by Ethan Hawk's character in the movie Reality Bites, was featured in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 videogame and was covered by pop singer Shawn Mendes in the CW show The 100.
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