Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Valerie Loves Me (1991)
Unrequited love is a fairly common topic in rock songs (and movies and books and TV shows and). How many times have you had unfulfilled crushes on people over a lifetime? Usually those thoughts are forgotten after a while, but every so often a great song emerges on the topic. One of the great songs about an unrequited crush is "Valerie Loves Me" by Material Issue, the great Chicago power pop act from the late '80s/early '90s.
The band was formed by Jim Ellison (vocals, guitar). He met Ted Ansani (bass) when both were students at Columbia College Chicago in '86 and found drummer Mike Zelenko through an ad later that year. Material Issue released an EP in 1987 on their own label Big Block and got some attention in the Chicago area over the new few years with their power pop singles "Sixteen Tambourines" and "Renee Remains the Same."
They signed to Mercury Records and released their debut album, International Pop Overthrow, in 1991. Steeped in the tradition of Cheap Trick, Big Star and the Raspberries, the band packed every song full of killer hooks and sharp riffs, singing about girls and cars. "Diane" got some attention on MTV's 120 Minutes, but "Valerie Loves Me" was the group's breakout song.
Ellison wrote the song about a neighbor girl he had a crush on when he was 11.
"Valerie's dancing on the room above my bed, you know/For all the world below to see/Valerie's leaving in a car outside my house, you know/Such a shame she's not with me and all the pretty things/And all the love my heart would bring/I would give my whole life to her/Valerie loves me."
Unable to get her attention, the protagonist watches with envy as Valerie lives what he imagines to be a glamorous life.
"Valerie's riding in a car around my neighborhood/She's thinking of all the men she'll meet/I could only hope for a stolen moment of her thoughts/Between the walk to the club and all the drinks she'll have in a crowded room/Where everybody leaves too soon/I only hope that she remembers me/Valerie loves me."
The song then imagines Valerie as an older woman, living alone while the protagonist has moved on.
"Valerie's lonely in an apartment down the street, you know/And her hair has turned so gray/But she's so happy for the memories she has, you know/She can believe in the day when love was on a string/And she could have had anything she ever wanted/But she can't have me."
The song hit #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and International Pop Overthrow ended up selling over 300,000 copies and hitting #86 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Material Issue followed it up with 1992's Destination Universe, scoring another radio hit with "What Girls Want." But it didn't perform as well as the first album, no doubt overshadowed by the popularity of a different type of guitar rock. After 1994's Freak City Soundtrack, which only sold less than 50,000 copies, the band left Mercury.
Material Issue continued touring in the Midwest and recorded songs for a forthcoming album that they were shopping to labels. But in June 1996, Ellison died by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage, leaving behind a suicide note. The band's final recordings were released posthumously on Telecommando Americano in 1997 by Rykodisc.
An annual power pop festival was renamed International Pop Overthrow in the band's honor. Ansani and Zelenko have continued to play in bands in the Chicago area; for the 20th anniversary of International Pop Overthrow, they reformed the band under the name Material Reissue with singer Phil Angotti filling in for Ellison; they played a few shows in 2011 and have performed occasionally since.
Even though they weren't a big act, Material Issue had plenty of fans. A documentary, Out of Time: The Material Issue Story, came out in 2021. "Valerie Loves Me" was covered a few times in concert by Hole, and the Tragically Hip dedicated their 1998 song "Escape is at Hand for the Traveling Man" to Ellison, who singer Gord Downie had met in passing years earlier.
Although their power pop was a little misplaced in the grunge era, Material Issue was a great band (see the live clip from '92 below) that was gone too soon.
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