Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Mope Like Me: Teenage Fanclub, “Alcoholiday”

by David Medsker

My girlfriend Kim (a.k.a. College Ex #2) hated this song from the start.

I can’t say I blame her, really. Not because the song is bad or anything – au contraire, the song is all kinds of awesome – but because she knew what I knew, but what neither of us wanted to admit: we just didn’t belong together. And this song summed up our relationship in 17 words, though it would be another four and a half years before we accepted it:

There are things I want to do
But I don’t know if they will be with you

That’s the genius of Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque: it’s staggeringly economical. The lyrics to “What You Do to Me” are 20 — count ‘em! — 20 words long. The chorus to “The Concept” is “I didn’t want to hurt you / Oooooooh yeaaaaaah.” But nothing from the album pierced me like those first two lines from “Alcoholiday,” because there were things I wanted to do someday – get married, have kids – but I always questioned whether she would be the one that I’d do them with. I now realize, of course, that if you’re not sure if you want to marry someone, it’s a sure sign that you don’t – and shouldn’t – marry them.

But man, did I love her. With everything I had. It just wasn’t enough. Her parents and friends didn’t like me, my family and friends didn’t like her, and our relationship with each other was what Matt Groening once described as Cobra & Mongoose. Nothing was going to hold this one together. That is perhaps the toughest lesson I have ever learned, that sometimes love isn’t enough. I was such a naïve romantic that I truly believed that love could conquer all. Fool. “Baby, I’ve been fucked already,” indeed.

Teenage Fanclub – Alcoholiday

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  • I get all giddy when I see the Bandwagonesque image anywhere (even if it is kind of blurry). It's my favorite album of all time. Everytime I see this album, I want to buy it again, and I wish I was listening to it RIGHT THEN. One of my goals in life is to sing and play all the parts to every song on the album. Alcoholiday is a fantastic song. Hopefully it doesn't cause too many bad memories that you can't enjoy it.
    When I was young I got diarreah right after listening to my new "Best of the Doors" tape (coincidence?) and I couldn't listen to that tape again for like 8 years. I'm still not much of a Doors fan today.
  • Oh, I actually used to taunt her with the song sometimes. She would ask me to play her something on the guitar, and I'd start playing and singing the lines above. She'd throw a pillow at me and say, "Not that one!" She also grew to hate the Pet Shop Boys album Very, because I played it so much. "Not the orange one!" Yes, the orange one.

    I still love the song today. There may be bad memories associated with the song, but they never trump the song itself.
  • Old_Davy
    Man, I love Teenage Fanclub and especially "Bandwagonesque".

    You hit the nail right on the head by calling their lyrics "economical". They can pack a lot of punch into just a couple of lines and then build an entire song around it.

    But as much as I admire their compact lyrical skills, it's the music that really gets to me. What great melodies, intricate harmonies and layers and layers and layers of guitars.

    Is it really any wonder they never hit it really big? They're too damn good.
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