Album: Guadalcanal Diary, 2 x4, 1987
Best Track: "Where Angels Fear to Tread"
Lasting Memory: In honor of my friend Michael, who got married this past weekend to the lovely Marguerite, I'll relate Michael's most distinct memory of enjoying Guadalcanal Diary's 2 x 4.
During the fall semester of 1987, Michael and some of his classmates made a road trip from Virginia Tech to either Williamsburg or Norfolk to catch a GD show. One of the traveling companions was a young woman Michael took a fancy to during the drive down.
At some point in the return trip, the driver figured it would be enjoyable for everyone if they all listened to even more GD, who had, by all accounts, put on a great concert. Singing along, having a good time, Michael, for reasons he couldn't explain then and never will understand, decided it would impress his new lady friend if he stuck his face directly in front of hers, bugged out his eyes, and screamed this verse from "Let the Big Wheel Roll":
I got a jacked-up four-wheel drive
Big, like Mr. T
The babe that's ridin' shotgun
She's a TEENAGE SEX MACHINE
[emphasis Michael's]
Surprisingly, this failed to have the desired effect, and he never heard from the young woman again after she got out of the car back in Blacksburg. Things still worked out well for Michael, though.
As for the Diarists, they were up to their up to their usual tricks of mixing the almost scarily religious with the nearly comical profane on 2 x 4. Sure, the lyrics to "Little Birds" amount to little more than a list of easily smirked at children's superstitions, but the melody sure makes those old wive's tales sound like gospel truths. Maybe mirrors really are the gateways to another world, and maybe God really does watch us through the eyes of little birds. Best to sleep with your master bedroom's bathroom door closed and to keep you window shades down at all times.
Life can be scary, but so can efforts to escape its vagaries -- whether the refuge sought is in alcohol at "3 AM" or in old-time religion "Where Angels Fear to Tread."
But it really doesn't matter what you do, because the the "Litany" is the lesson: Life goes on. So enjoy. And know that any woman who doesn't enjoy having lyrics maniacally screamed into her face probably isn't worth spending time with anyway.
Up Next: Guadalcanal Diary, Flip-Flop, 1989
Note From Management: This post really should have been about Guadalcanal Diary's 1986 album Jamboree, but my copy of that cassette got stolen from the studio at WUVT FM. I had brought the tape in for my show, forgot it, and it was gone the next day. Never trust a college kid. The real shame of it is that I was absolutely going to slay you with my word-by-word analysis of the lyrics to "I See Moe" and convince you that the Moe of the title is actually all of us. Your loss.
As compensation, here are the words to what I consider to be the best song on 2 x 4. As reward, they are presented without further commentary.
Black clad preacher on a mountain road
Lifts his voice in tongues unknown
Barefoot dancing on burning coals
Covered by the night
Backwoods firewater jubilee
Believers dance of victory
The lame can walk, the blind can see
Step into the light
With torch aloft and eyes aglow
Gaze into the fire below
Drawn by something they don't know
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Rattlesnake coiled in a young girl's arms
Green eyes flashing in the dark
Spirits keep their own from harm
Faithful to the end
Blind man standing on a narrow ledge,
balanced on a knife edge
He comes to judge the quick and dead,
forever and amen
Swaying gently to and fro
The valley of death that yawns below
Call to them and want to know
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
White clad preacher with a house of gold
Wrings his hands and bares his soul
He knows the tears go with the role
Join in the crusade
Swept away by angel choirs
Give in to their strange desires
Cast your faith into the fire
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