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Best tunes of 1991: #27 Ministry “Jesus built my hotrod”

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“Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world
So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long”

I had a few friends in university that had the whole monologue to this song memorized, could spout it off in exactly the same tone, and would do so randomly to great effect. (You know who you are.) I personally could only ever remember the last couple of lines and the last bit, the “dang a long ling long”, never failed to make me laugh.

“Jesus built my hot rod” was the first single off Ministry’s fifth album, “Psalm 69: The way to succeed and the way to suck eggs”. It was released in 1992, I know, but this track makes my 1991 list because it was released as a single well in advance of the album, more than six months beforehand, if memory serves.

I blame my friend Elliott for getting me hooked on this track. He had purchased the cassette single, which featured the eight-minute, full version on side A and on side B, the “Short, Pusillanimous, So-They-Can-Fit-More-Commercials-On-The-Radio Edit” version, along with “TV song”. I actually liked the latter B side song first, with its hilarious “Connect the goddamned dots” lyrics, but with the constant rewind and playback of the A-side, I grew to love it as well.

The lyrics on “Jesus built my hot rod” are nonsensical, purportedly laid down by a quite drunken Gibby Haynes (of Butthole Surfers fame), and the aforementioned monologue and outro words were recorded afterwards to try to tie things all together. But this song isn’t about saving the world. It’s about angst and the music has plenty of it. Frenetic drumming and careening guitars match the pace of the samples of NASCAR racers roaring by. You turn it up loud and all you want to do is close your eyes and bop your head to the breakneck tempo as well as you can.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1991: #29 Pixies “Alec Eiffel”

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In the last post in this series, I described how I discovered a ton of music while video taping videos off MuchMusic’s “City Limits”. Pixies’ “Alec Eiffel” is another such song, though it had help. My friend Tim told me about the band as well, which is why when I heard the video was coming up, I was able to beat Elliott to the VCR to plug in my tape and press the Record button. I loved the video and how the band playing in a wind tunnel added to the rage of the song. I didn’t know this then, but them simply opening their mouths and letting the wind do the work was part of their refusal to bow down to MTV and lip sync during the filming of their videos.

Yes, I came to the Pixies late, almost too late. This track was the third single off “Trompe Le Monde”, the Boston-based quartet’s final record before dissolving in 1993. My friend Tim would later include the song a mixed tape for me and later, made me a copy of their now classic album “Doolittle”. My love for them grew, the more material by them that I heard. Meanwhile, lead vocalist Frank Black started off a mildly successful solo career, bassist Kim Deal focused on her side project, The Breeders, lead guitarist Joey Santiago did some film and television score work, and drummer Dave Lovering became a magician. The band would later reform in 2004 with the whole lineup and I finally got to see them perform live a couple of times. They’re still a going concern today but Kim Deal has since left the band again to focus on the reunion of The Breeders.

“Alec Eiffel”, of course, refers to the French engineer who designed the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. Brief, like much of the Pixies’ work, the song is a mere two and a half minutes but it packs a wallop. Fierce right from the start with a burst of guitars and Lovering so frantic on drums. There’s a hint of the surf rock left over from “Bossanova” but only just a hint, and the synths almost give the normal Pixies clatter a bit of structure.

Really, “Alex Eiffel” is a straight ahead pop song. Well, as pop as Frank Black can write anyway.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2001: #22 Weezer “Island in the sun”

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I remember really enjoying their set and told the lead singer so when I saw him afterwards at the merch table. However, I had no idea how massive the band would get, or that I would be seeing them headline a massive outdoor festival more than fifteen years later, when I saw Weezer open up for British shoegazers Lush in the summer of 1994.

The only song I had heard at the time on the radio was “Undone (The sweater song)” but shortly afterwards, I started hearing “My name is Jonas” quite regularly. Then, came the video for “Buddy Holly”, which spliced footage of the band performing with archive images of that of classic sitcom, “Happy days”, so that Weezer appeared to be performing at Arnold’s drive-in. And that was it, they were huge. So then I found myself getting someone to make me a copy of their debut, self-titled album (aka the Blue album) on cassette tape. The tricky sophomore album, “Pinkerton”, came next in 1996 but personally, I never really bothered with it. I was too embroiled in the ridiculousness of Britpop by that time.

Five years passed and I started hearing them on the radio again.

The first single from their third album and second self-titled album (aka the Green album), “Hash pipe”, felt to me like a bit of a lazy effort and well… dumb… for want of a better word. But the second single by comparison was sweet pop goodness.

“Island in the sun” is yet another simple tune by the band but it has one heck of a catchy melody. It has all the hallmarks of the 50s and 60s doo-wop sound that they played with and that made their debut so successful but this time, without all the crunchy guitars. “Island in the sun” is as laidback as I imagine Island life to be: lawn chairs, fruity drinks, white powdery sand, and the cool, blue salt water lapping at your naked and slowly tanning toes. It is without a care. It is that place knowing that your workday is still a few more days and a few thousand kilometres away.

And isn’t that a nice thought on a cold wintry morning such as this?

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.