Probably the worst song on this album, but still a great song



 

When I made a list of my favorite guitarists (which isn't a terribly big list to begin with) there were a couple I neglected to think of, and Verlaine is absolutely one of those. The driving force of the rarest of bands who really only needed one great album to be considered amongst the greatest (sure, the second one is good too, but it's way in the dust compared to Marquee)

Listening to this reminds me of some interview I heard a long time ago with either Chris Stein or Debbie Harry about their original bassist Fred Smith leaving to join Television, and them making some comment like "Nice choice  buddy, leaving Blondie for the riches of Television"....and it has got me thinking on that most obvious of questions: is choosing quality over success the best decision? Now Blondie wasn't a bad band by any stretch, they were fine, but compared to Television they were a fucking joke. But I imagine if you stuck around as bassist for that joke long enough, a joke who were the biggest band in the world for awhile, you'd be set for life. Which is good, right? Or is that still not at all what matters ? Even as middle age starts creeping in, can you still be putting artistic integrity ahead of basic comfort and security? At what point is it just a kind of madness?

It makes me think, if I was Fred Smith, would I also be regretting that decision? I'd like to think I'd be at total peace with it but I would regret it, which is maybe the saddest revelation in this of all. That even me, who would rather chew my own foot off than make better, smarter, sounder decisions towards my future success in life if it meant compromising anything at all, can't help but think how the security blanket of all that money would make things so much easier. How the seeming romance of likely poverty fuelled by artistic liberty isn't a romance at all once you've lived it for a couple of decades. That it's just a gyp. And then I think about how much it would probably sting to hear a cunt like Chris Stein taking pleasure in my 'wrong decision' as he sits on his bags of 'heart of glass' money.

But at least I'm sure Smith knows Parallel Lines sure the fuck isn't Marquee Moon and can't even dream itself into the same universe as it. And that's something? Right?
 

crumbsroom wrote:

But at least I'm sure Smith knows Parallel Lines sure the fuck isn't Marquee Moon and can't even dream itself into the same universe as it. And that's something? Right?

At best, maybe a tight Blondie comp LP of their best stuff (which is not necessarily a "greatest hits") could earn a right to sit somewhere in proximity to Marquee Moon.  Television made the classic mistake of burning through all of their genius in a relatively brief spurt, rather than pedal through 4-5 albums with 2-3 classics sifted through each, which is what peers like Blondie or The Cars seem to be happy doing.