Better Things: Mercy

"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.

I'm a child of the '80s - those were my formative, teen years. So a lot of the random odd music I love and remember comes from that decade; it's only natural.

This song is pretty random: the title song from an ex-Sex Pistol's first solo record, a decade later and miles away from punk. It's sweet and tender and true and yearning, in that hard-rock-ballad '80s style that can be a cliché but is lovely when it works.

This is Mercy by Steve Jones.

What I love most about it is the sound: that distinctive guitar line that launches us right in and continues throughout, the muted background chiming in the chorus, Jones's world-weary, growling voice attempting a croon throughout.

Where is the love I've lost
Where is the mercy and trust?

It's not a complicated message, it's not told in a complicated way. But Jones's voice and guitar work embody the weariness - you can feel all of the miles that led up to this, even if it's all packaged in a very radio-friendly '80s idiom.

I think this was Jones's biggest single, which means it charted a bit, somewhere, briefly. That's another thing in its favor, oddly, all these years later: this song questioning the point of the world, in a style that Jones hoped would be huge, turned out to fizzle itself...just like the world itself.