Day After Day #197: Marquee Moon

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

Marquee Moon (1977)

The punk scene in New York City in the '70s was interesting because there was so much going on. Sure, you had the Ramones, but there was a diverse collection of bands that didn't necessarily fit the "punk" descriptor musically, like Talking Heads, Blondie and Patti Smith. And the band that launched the scene in 1974 by convincing CBGB owner Hilly Kristal to give them a shot playing on Sunday nights at the club: Television.

It took the band nearly three years to release their debut album, 1977's Marquee Moon, but it was well worth the wait. Led by frontman Tom Verlaine, the album was as far away from stereotypical punk as you could get: it was garage rock, but it was complex, intellectual and technically advanced. Richard Hell was the group's original bassist but he left the band in 1975 and was replaced by Fred Smith.

Verlaine and guitarist Richard Lloyd were turning guitar math into magic, eschewing power chords for interlocking melody and counter-melody lines. The whole album is excellent, but it's the title track that stands out. At 10:40, it's probably the longest song I'll write about for this feature (but you never know).

Television actually recorded a demo of "Marquee Moon" with Brian Eno in 1974, but it remains unreleased (see below). Even then, the song featured the interlocking guitar parts and multiple solos by Verlaine and Lloyd. To prepare for the recording of the album, the band rehearsed for four to six hours a day and six to seven days a week.

Most of Marquee Moon was recorded as the band played live in the studio, and the title track was recorded in one take. On the studio version, each of the song's three verses begins with a double-stopped guitar intro before Verlaine starts singing.

"I remember/Ooh, how the darkness doubled/I recall/Lightning struck itself/I was listening/Listening to the rain/I was hearing/Hearing something else/Life in the hive puckered up my night/A kiss of death, the embrace of life/Well, there I stand 'neath the marquee moon/Just waiting."

The original length of the song was 9:58 (it was expanded to 10:40) on the reissued version of the album. 

"Well, the Cadillac/It pulled out of the graveyard/Pulled up to me/All they said, "Get in"/"Get in"/Then the Cadillac/It puttered back into the graveyard/Me/I got out again/Life in the hive puckered up my night/A kiss of death, the embrace of life/Over there I stand 'neath the marquee moon/I ain't waitin', uh uh."

After the third chorus, Verlaine plays a jazz-influenced solo that goes on for the entire second half of the song.

For some reason, a full-length "Marquee Moon" was released as a single in the U.K. and it went to #30 on the Singles chart. The song had to be divided between the two sides of the 45.

The album didn't chart in the U.S., but it was critically acclaimed and is considered a post-punk masterpiece. Television released a follow-up, Adventure, in 1978, but the album didn't sell well. Due to the struggling sales numbers and Lloyd's drug problems, the band split up in July 1978. Lloyd and Verlaine went solo (with Lloyd memorably providing some killer lead guitar to Matthew Sweet's classic album Girlfriend) while drummer Billy Ficca joined new wave act the Waitresses.

Television reformed in 1992 and released a self-titled album, occasionally playing shows over the next several years. Lloyd left the band in 2007 and was replaced by Jimmy Rip; the band said in 2011 it was working on a new album, but it was never released. Verlaine died in January 2023 at the age of 73.

"Marquee Moon" remains one of my favorite guitar songs.

Day After Day #38: Divine Intervention

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

Divine Intervention (1991)

For music fans of a certain vintage, the radio was everything. Growing up, I listened to the radio all the time. I couldn't get enough of it. Of course, by that time, corporate interests were already busy ruining rock radio with formatting and payola, but I didn't know or care about any of that shit when I was 12. Nowadays, of course, that's all gone. Oh, radio's still there, but it's fairly terrible. Thank jeebus for college radio and the internet (pluggity plug plug).

But the radio is how I was introduced to many great artists. I'm pretty sure the first time I heard Matthew Sweet was while driving to the gym in late 1991. "Divine Intervention" was playing on WFNX and I was immediately blown away. Not just by the retro-sounding production or the existential crisis of the singer, but the guitar. My god, the guitar. Right off the bat, Richard Lloyd of Television fame is soloing all over that mofo. Some of the most incredible guitar work I'd ever heard right there in a 5-minute song. 

The song is the lead-in to Sweet's 1991 album Girlfriend, which he wrote after the breakup of his marriage. "Divine Intervention" finds him questioning the existence of God as he evaluates the shambles of his life.

"I don't know where I'm gonna live/Don't know if I'll find a place/I'd have to think about it some/And that I do not wish to face/I guess I'm counting on his divine intervention."

As I mentioned earlier, the production is immaculate, with all the instruments spaced out: Ric Menck's drums are compressed in one speaker, and Sweet's crunchy rhythm guitar in the other while Lloyd just flies all over the place on lead guitar. While Sweet's questioning the existence of a higher power, clearly the real god is right in front of him playing sick-ass solos.

"Divine Intervention" fades out into a fake ending and then roars back, with Lloyd angrily ripping more fire as the song closes. On that first listen, I was sold. I picked up the album and found that there was no letup. Sweet also recruited another guitar legend, Robert Quine of the Voidoids, who also plays with righteous fury on several of the songs. The combination of guitar gods with Sweet's brilliant sad bastard power pop makes Girlfriend one of the best albums of 1991 (although I really listened to it more in 1992), and that's in a crowded field of incredible releases: Nevermind, Achtung Baby, Badmotorfinger, Bandwagonesque, Gish, The Low End Theory, etc.

The title track is a rocker featuring Quine's lead playing and it became a minor hit, aided by a anime video on MTV. But there are so many great songs on this record: "I've Been Waiting," "Looking at the Sun," "Evangeline," "Nothing Lasts."  I saw Sweet in early '92 opening for Robyn Hitchcock at Avalon and have seen him several times over the last three decades, including a record release party for 1997's Blue Sky on Mars at a brewpub in Portland and the 20th anniversary tour of Girlfriend where he played the album front to back. 

Girlfriend only went to #100 on the Billboard 200 chart, but it remains Sweet's crowning achievement. That's not to say he hasn't released great albums since. 1993's Altered Beast was a misunderstood masterpiece, again featuring Lloyd and Quine, as well as Ivan Julian and drummers Mick Fleetwood, Jody Stephens and Pete Thomas. It's a dark and pissed off record that certainly wasn't Girlfriend 2. His '90s output was strong and he's continued to stay active since, including three covers albums with Susanna Hoffs; his latest album, 2021's Catspaw, was good.

But it's no insult to say Girlfriend was Sweet's peak. Even listening to it now as I write this, I'm struck by how great it is.