Better Things: Add It Up

"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.

It's probably cheating for me to call this song a favorite: I didn't hear it at the time.

I don't know exactly when I got into the Violent Femmes - the dates in iTunes just tell me they were part of my initial massive loading project in late '03 - but it was late enough that my copy of their iconic 1983 self-titled first record is the 20th anniversary edition. (Maybe I had the old version earlier, but, even in the best case, I was at least a decade late - I think I discovered them with the Add It Up compilation in the early '90s.)

So that's why this song wasn't part of This Year two years ago - I didn't hear it that year.

But the thing about time is that it's always getting later. Things are only new once, but they can be good forever. And I did discover that first Violent Femmes record, and loved it, as you should too. (Although it is possible to be too old on first hearing to love it, I think: there's something inherently young about early Violent Femmes, that gnawing longing of youth.) Blister in the Sun and Kiss Off are equally awesome, and Gone Daddy Gone not far behind them.

But the best song, at least for me right at this moment today, is Add It Up, one of the quintessential songs of teenage angst, desire and despair. (Singer Gordon Gano wrote most of that record while he was still in high school in Milwaukee, and it shows.)

It is one of the best ever "c'mon baby, we're both virgins but we should totally fuck right now" songs, building on a tradition of decades of songs that were more circumspect and less overtly horny to be clearly the next stage, the punk stage in that tradition.

But I look at your pants and I need I need a kiss
Why can't I get just one screw?
Why can't I get just one screw?
Believe me I know what to do
But something won't let me make love to you

The Femmes had a magnificent sound as well - punky but acoustic, propulsive and demanding, stark and loud and true, the sound of three guys committing totally to this song in this moment with their minimal gear and their raw energy. I think their longer early songs, especially this one and Kiss Off, give them the best scope to explore all the aspects of that sound - both also have excellent live versions on that Add It Up compilation.

Rock and roll is about fucking, when you come right down to it: it's why so many parents and bluestockings tried to ban it for so long. (Not just rock and roll, of course: vast swaths of popular music are about fucking; people like fucking.) And this is deeply in that tradition, late enough that it can be much more obvious about it than, say My Ding-a-Ling.

So, in your own life, when you need to make a life-changing decision, stop and

Wait a minute honey
I'm gonna add it up