Catching Lightning in a Foster's Can

Album: Hoodoo Gurus, Mars Needs Guitars!, 1985
Best Track: "Hayride to Hell"

Lasting Memory: Until I discovered Uncle Tupelo and began working my way backward and forwards and sideways through traditional American bluegrass and folk music -- which explorations are only sporadically reflected in my music collection, oddly enough -- I had two favorite country tunes of all time.

The first was, and probably still is, Marty Robbins' "El Paso." Really. I love that song. Shut up.

My second all-time favorite country song was the Hoodoo Gurus' "Hayride to Hell." The two songs have quite a bit in common, it turns out, starting with an illicit romance, plenty of justifiable emotional and physical violence, and bad endings for pretty much everyone involved. The melodies are also pretty similar. (H/T Crankypants blog)

The Hoodoo Gurus were not a country band, of course, but they could have recorded a disco track or a polka number in 1984-1985, and it would have turned into a whole bunch of people's favorite song. In that two-year period, the lads steadily improved their songwriting and musicianship throughout all of Stoneage Romeos and 80 percent of Mars Needs Guitars! while continuing to mine the deep vein of unrequited and broken love on songs like "Bittersweet," "Poison Pen," and "The Other Side of Paradise."

Truly, the band could do no wrong. Until it did. The final two songs on Mars are every bit as weak as their album mates are strong. The most jarring thing about the drop-off in quality is how precipitous it is as "Poison Pen" gives way to the regrettable title track. It also always struck me as strange that the two worst songs on the album are also the two at the end. Thinking about this now, I have to figure that the band was basically telling its label, "You want a ninth and a tenth song? Fine, here're are a ninth and a tenth!"

Admittedly, the album era was unkind to a majority of artists. Nearly every disk produced by every artist between the years of 1980 and 2000 -- the years when singles stopped selling and before digital downloads were an option -- contained more filler songs than hits. Also, no band can be at the absolute top of its game all of the time. The problem with catching lightning in a bottle, as the Hoodoo Gurus had, is that you end up with burnt fingers.

But the Hoodoo Gurus were doing so much good work, I have to wonder why they didn't just put out Mars with eight winners. The question will loom larger in my next post.

Up Next: Hoodoo Gurus. Blow Your Cool, 1987