It was very sad news yesterday that Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens had passed away. There’s a nice obituary here, which correctly emphasises the distinctive Australian-ness (and dare I say, Queensland-ness) embodied in his songs. It’s some small consolation that his music will live on.
There’s an interesting appreciation of The Go-Betweens’ music in The Village Voice, where Robert Christgau argues that lyrically, McLennan’s songs work like short stories:
The Go-Betweens’ romantic complaints refuse bile, raw self-pity, and the kind of wimp vulnerability gumsuckers with guitars have manipulated to their own ends since Cat Stevens was an infidel. They’re analytic, they’re bemused, they’re amusing, they’re emotional within bounds, they’re as kind as they should be or a little kinder, they’re sharp-tongued when it’s called for, and often enough they’re, well, loving—all of which is rendered more approachable by the flat thoughtfulness of their voices and tunes and more complex by the well-worked intricacy of their arrangements and structures. A little beneath the surface, at a level far from unreadable but appropriately personal, this music isn’t so much about love as it is a model of love’s preconditions. It has no equal in pop, and also no equal of any note in the contemporary short story, where convention commonly confuses darkness of worldview with depth of purpose.
Update: Andrew Bartlett pays tribute.
I will take time out from spitting poison at Larva Prodders to join in commemorating the passing of GMcL.
Nominations for favourite GB/W song are hereby invited. “Darlinghurst Nights” is suitably elegaic.
Messages of condolence can be posted here.
The Village Voice link points to The Australian article. This is worth correcting, because Robert Christgau is the only deconstructionist Marxist I can stand to read (probably because he’s the only one who writes about pop music).
A sad day for Australian music.
A suitable response there Jack, unlike the bile over at TimBlair in response to the passing of Richard Carleton.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/richard_carleton/
A more depicable bunch of bloggers would be hard to find.
RIP Grant/Richard
Agree Jack. If its a Forster song – the beautiful “Dive for your memory”, perhaps. If one of McLennan’s own – “You wont find it again” surely says it all.
Very sad news. Just as they were entering an artistic renaissance.
Moving tribute by Steve Kilbey here http://stevekilbey.blogspot.com/ , on his blog.
“McLennan, 48, died in his sleep after becoming ill at his home in the city’s Highgate Hill.”
Err umm, why didn’t the dopey bugger call the doc, or was that that his problem?
Deeply shocking and upsetting news.
As for favourite Go-b’s song. I’ll limit to McLennan songs, I think “apology accepted” is the one. I’ve howled it out a few times since I heard the awful news.
Yep, Matt, that’s the one for me too.
A real loss.
Sorry about the Village Voice link. I’ve fixed the post and here it is again:
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0041,christgau,18856,22.html
Naomi, I was thinking it may have been an aneurysm. That would explain a very sudden death. In such situations you are dead within seconds. observa’s comment really is very insensitive.
… which is a big shock to us all, Kim.
Naively, Zoe, I expected better.
I have a link to Everything You Could Ever Want To Know about the GOBs, an excellent collection by Roger Griffin the artist who collects record art.
Cal, on that thread at tim’s place you linked to, all I will say is that it’s a rare moment when C.L. is the most moderate voice:
At least he lived long enough to be snarky at the Courier-Mail for using “Streets of Our Town” in their tabloid transformation ad. And to point out that there’s still stuff wrong with our town almost two decades on from Fitzgerald.
He’ll be greatly missed.
Kim, you’re doing CL a disservice. He is invariably the most moderate voice at “Tim’s place”. I actually quite like Tim Blair, but any time I dive into his comments threads I come away feeling unclean.
I realised upon playing a huge chunk of the Gobys back cat last night that Grant’s words informed much of my mythology about the Nth East of Oz.
Spring Hill Fair always conjured up images of victorian era picnics & parasols to me – i was amazed when i reached brisvegas to discover it was a neighbourhood riven with, among other things, indie rock bands!
The heat in the cities, the loneliness in the country, the magic in the air – Grant, and to a lesser degree Robert, made Brisbane, and Queensland, a series of sounds & images in my mind
Each album recalls that time of my life clear as a bell, I treasure them dearly, and as always, am sad it takes a death to bring the value of a person’s work into focus.
Vale Grant indeed.
Unfortunately the Spring Hill Fair has gone to the dogs. It used to be fab.
I was listening to “Horsebreaker Star” (solo album from mid 90’s) last night on the way home from work – I’ve always thought it excellent, but it brought back one particular stanza from “What Went Wrong”:
You’re burned out on the trail
Filled your wounds with hail
Abandoned without bail
Ah, what went wrong?
Now, it’s pretty much a clichéd, nonsense “moon, spoon, June” rhyme (in a song that has this as its raison d’être, bit like “Subterranean Homesick Blues”), but… “Filled your wounds with hail”?? Who knows what it means, but what an image! You could spin a whole tragic period drama like “Kingdoms of Heaven” just from that one line.
Some very lovely counterpoint backup vocals from Syd Straw on this album as well – turns some average, stock stuff into something special.
I love (most of) that album too, Tony. The title song always gets me:
‘This road that we’re on,
it travels so far,
can you see the light
of the Horsebreaker Star’
building to the crescendo when the full band comes in and a great guitar break
The cause of death, it now seems, was a massive heart attack.
I ran into a guy I used to know from days of yore last night who said the funeral was very moving.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/music/tributes-well-up-for-a-gobetweens-last-gig/2006/05/11/1146940678780.html
Nice obituary in Time Off:
http://www.timeoff.com.au/index1.php?area=News&pg=32&subarea=32&sel=2079