Love Minus Zeros.

I’m not much for love songs at the moment (I’m more into the monster songs, to use Jad Fair’s dichotomy), but as a reluctant recognition-nod to valentine’s day, here’s one I really like.

As I understand it, this is from the last set of recording that the first incarnation of The Zeros did, in 1980ish. It’s track eleven on the Bomp! compilation of their stuff, and sequenced as it is behind ten grade A punk/power-pop blasters, it’s more subtle charms may take a few (hundred, in my case) listens to sink in.

The other songs The Zeros recorded for this session (“Getting Nowhere Fast”, “They Say That Everything’s Alright”) speak in plain terms of disillusionment with the low-reward grind of life in a rock band, prefiguring their subsequent decision to pack it in. But in “Girl On The Block”, Javier Escovedo puts a more positive spin on his return to ‘normal’ life, giving us a sweet picture of bored-yet-blissful existence with the hometown girl he’d probably have been knocking around with if he’d never started a punk band and headed for Hollywood. Like a grizzled cowboy returning to his homestead after unknown adventures in the movies, Javier is abandoning the fantasies(?) of swastika-clad blondes and mascara-smeared man-eaters who inhabit his earlier songs, returning instead to where his heart truly lies.

It’s mature and sensitive and shit – you can tell from the way they’ve got an overdubbed acoustic mixed in there somewhere.

In the hands of an older, sleazier rocker, a song like this could easily take on a pretty entitled and ugly tone, but Javier as ever is right on the money – teary-eyed and full of respect-bordering-on-awe for the sense of belonging he finds at home with his gal; “she takes me but she don’t need no one at all / when I go I know that she won’t fall”.

Like all Zeros songs, “Girl On The Block” has a chugging mid-tempo swing that is just to die for, and a boilerplate sense of pop-melody that is just unfuckable-with in it’s simple, utilitarian perfection. Listen to that star-gazing chord progression as he sings “ain’t no beer left / so I guess I’m going out” – a vision of aimless, prospectless life transformed into paradise by the presence of the kind of unconditional warmth and companionship so distant from the neon-punk ideal he dropped out of school and left home to pursue a few years earlier.

Earlier Zeros songs were driven by a sort of breathless fantasy of urban decadence, but that’s all gone now – what’s left is some straight dope on how to live a good life in imperfect conditions, and it’s pretty f-ing beautiful.

Labels: punk rock, song reviews, The Zeros, Valentine's Day