Keep a Lamp Trimmed and Burning

Album: The Radiators, Zig-Zaggin' Through Ghostland, 1989

Best Track: "Fall of Dark"

Lasting Memory: The name of this album, as I recall from hearing an interview with some Radiators band members on FM99 in 1990 when the station had "7 Album Sides at 7" show on Sunday nights, came from a Vietnam vet the band knew who described his time sneaking through the rainforest during night maneuvers as "zig-zaggin' through ghostland."

I am too lazy to do an Internet search to either confirm any part of my memory or determine whether the term was standard slang. I hope both are true, though, because the image is so evocative, perfectly conjuring what it would look like to run from covering tree and to obscuring fern as the sky overhead was intermittently made day-bright by flares, tracers, and phosphorous shells. The blur of motion, play of shadows, and constant fear would definitely make a man feel as if he were moving randomly through a haunted world.

Great use of the language, there, that restores some of my faith in native English speakers, which has been taking some pretty serious hits lately.

The Radiators conjure many nice musical and lyrical moments on Zig-Zaggin' Through Ghostland, especially in "Fall of Dark":



The line from the chorus that runs "Keep a lamp trimmed and burning" is particularly effective as a metaphor for the band's continuing to perform and record into their fourth decade and for encouraging the cyclically wounded American economy and workforce to keep the faith and keep an eye out because the light chases and follows the dark.

And not to get too heavy, but the second-best song on Zig-Zaggin' is the cover of "But It's Alright," which makes hope nonmetaphorically personal by assuring a lover that everything will be OK.

There's a lot to like on Zig-Zaggin'. Not enough to win over millions of people in the record-buying public, but that's a regret probably best not dwelt on when rueful reminiscences can be as easily spent on "Memories of Venus," for instance.

The other reason to follow the Radiators' admonition to keep a lamp burning is because the songs on Zig-Zaggin' are chock-a-block with phrases and references that may soon be as arcane as Chaucerian Middle English.

The best example of this is "Confidential," the first track on the album. The lyrics include mentions of local newspaper classified ads, payphones, and four-party lines. I'm old enough to remember when every household subscribed to a newspaper, payphones were ubiquitous, and home phones were mandatory. Any kid first hearing "Confidential" today might not be able to make heads or tails of the song's tale of the underbelly of society simply because the modes of communication being described have no meaning for the kid.

In that sense, then, we need to keep the lamp burning just to ensure that there will be lamps in the future. Anymore, technologies aren't becoming obsolete, they're being abandoned and almost willfully erased from society's consciousness.

Here's hoping that that trend stops.

Up Next: The Rainmakers, The Good News and the Bad News, 1989