"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.
Another song from the depths this week. I was in my teens in the '80s - meaning that was the era when I was listening to more music, and was maybe more in tune with the music of the time, than ever before or since. So a lot of the quirky, particular things I still listen to come from that era.
I think The The was more of a dance band than I usually listened to. I don't know how popular they ever were. But I liked this song a lot. I mean, I still like it a lot. But I liked it a lot then, too.
In the annals of creepy metaphors for love in popular song, Infected has got to be way up at the top of the list.
I can't give you up, 'till I've got more than enough
So infect me with your love.
Nurse me into sickness. Nurse me back to health.
Endow me with the gifts of the man made world.
"Your love is a disease that I don't want to recover from" is certainly a take. And Matt Johnson - at that time, and for much of the time, the only member of The The - sells it here, through the very '80s relentless drum-machine sounds that propel the song forward.
It's just that one idea, worked out in several verses and that great chorus. Just that stark metaphor, and that techno-ish dancefloor beat. And that's all it needs.
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