"Better Things" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year or Portions For Foxes series. See the introduction for more.
Several times this year, I've mentioned that Better Things has given me an opportunity to revisit favorites under slightly different names - solo acts instead of the main band, things like that. (See Richard Thompson and Kristin Hersch, for examples.) This is another one of those.
I had Wall of Voodoo in This Year - I picked two songs for 1982 and none for 1981 to bend the list enough to fit Call of the West in; that's how important and major that song is to me. But their singer and main songwriter Stan Ridgway also had a fine solo career, with a number of great story-songs - besides this one, Drive She Said is just as propulsive, Harry Truman is dark and foreboding, and Don't Box Me In (with Stewart Copeland) is a spiky wonder - over a couple of decades after he left Voodoo.
The song I want to talk about today is Goin' Southbound, from the 1989 record Mosquitos. (And you can definitely hear the '80s in the keyboards in this song - I think it adds to the atmosphere; you can make your own decision.)
Ridgway was mesmerizing in his this-guy-talking-to-you songs; this is one of his best, with a driving beat to back up the compelling situation. The speaker is recruiting someone - you the listener, if you like - to take a package. It is definitely not legal.
Don't worry about the cops, 'cause they're in on it, pal
Just pick it up no later than tonight at three o'clock
And bring it to the warehouse––here, put this in your sock
I love songs that tell stories or set up situations - the ones filled with details and words - and this is one of the best, told smartly and tautly by a singer/songwriter at the height of his power.
You've got this job
But you don't know how
And everybody does
What nobody will allow
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