Chicks, man....
228. Graham Parker "Local Girls"
Throughout the 1970's the term 'singer/songwriter'' conjured up images of some pseudo-sensitive schnook with an acoustic guitar softly warbling platitudes about how you've got a rocky mountain high friend who will protect you from the fire and rain in this wild world. Graham Parker, a veteran of the English 'pub rock' scene that helped spawn Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe, among others, is a good way to wash the taste of all that out of your mouth. His lyrics are as sharp and literate as any of the coffeehouse crew, but this guy could never be anybody's easy listening, and this song would probably be a bad choice on a date.
In a voice that's equal parts whiskey and bile, former gas station attendant (a fact particularly relevant in this song, witness the line '..dreaming at the counter of the store') Parker, over stinging electric guitars, snarls an ode to sexual frustration and self-loathing that's more nakedly confessional than anything James Taylor or the rest of the 'AM Gold' crew ever dreamed of. If Parker ever encountered a horse with no name, he'd probably shoot it.
Throughout the 1970's the term 'singer/songwriter'' conjured up images of some pseudo-sensitive schnook with an acoustic guitar softly warbling platitudes about how you've got a rocky mountain high friend who will protect you from the fire and rain in this wild world. Graham Parker, a veteran of the English 'pub rock' scene that helped spawn Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe, among others, is a good way to wash the taste of all that out of your mouth. His lyrics are as sharp and literate as any of the coffeehouse crew, but this guy could never be anybody's easy listening, and this song would probably be a bad choice on a date.
In a voice that's equal parts whiskey and bile, former gas station attendant (a fact particularly relevant in this song, witness the line '..dreaming at the counter of the store') Parker, over stinging electric guitars, snarls an ode to sexual frustration and self-loathing that's more nakedly confessional than anything James Taylor or the rest of the 'AM Gold' crew ever dreamed of. If Parker ever encountered a horse with no name, he'd probably shoot it.
