One of the difficulties I had in formulating this list was differentiating between songs I liked and songs I thought were great. Those two terms are not always synonymous. I can think right off hand of about three dozen-or-so songs that I liked that didn't make this list because, when I listened to them again, I could find no reason for greatness, no reason I liked 'em other than the fact that they were catchy or silly, and I thought this list--if I was being serious about it--should reflect artists (singers, bands, songwriters, producers, etc...) who--whether they meant to or not--accomplished something noteworthy in their recording of their songs. On the other hand, I've placed songs on here that just don't touch me or shake me or rock me on a visceral level, though I can recognize their importance or influence or originality or artistry*. Though they're not on this list (one reason for this should be obvious), I feel this latter way about the New York Dolls.
The Dolls were punk progenitors. They recorded their first album of glam-rock (mixed w/R&B covers) in 1973, recorded one more album, then split, never recording another studio album together again...not with all the original members, that is. Guitarist Johnny Thunders died in 1991, and bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane died of lieukemia in 2004. Their influence spread wide and deep, as they inspired the Sex Pistols, Blondie, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Kiss, Motley Crue, and many others. As important as their music is, I've just never been able to feel it on a gut level, not like I have with, say, the Sex Pistols, Blondie, the Talking Heads, etc....I can appreciate the artistry in their music, though, as can Robyn Hitchcock.
Hitchcock--an old punk/New Wave guy himself, co-founding the Soft Boys in the late '70s--has been recording his literate, idiosyncratic (at times whimsical, at times satirical, often both) pop/rock songs for over twenty-five years, and he's never cut a more emotionally-affective record than this one, "N.Y. Doll," a tribute to Arthur Kane. After the Dolls split in '74, Kane jumped from band to band, turned to the bottle too often, and became an alcoholic, living much of his life in poverty. In the late '80s, he--while drunk--jumped through a plate-glass window and landed two stories below, messing his body up royally, incurring nerve damage from which he never completely recoverd. He then turned to God and lived the rest of his days as a Mormon librarian in Los Angeles.
In this song, Hitchcock sings first person from Kane's perspective, and it's that narrative trope that allows Hitchcock to comment upon Kane's life (his punk career, his alcoholism, his near death, and his Christian conversion) without seeming pedantic, and it also allows him to touch upon life's mutability without resorting to sentimentality. Hitchcock also alludes to the power that art and religion can have to uplift, but that ultimately, neither will save, and that we're all doomed to die, that the inevitable will come, and there's nothing religion nor art may do to change that. Life may not end, but we will, individually, and the universe cares not. That's a depressing thought, and thus the song's a downer--at first. Hitchcock uses some haunting vocal techniques to reflect the sadness of the lyric, as his breathiness and his dip into sotto voce come across rather ghostly, as if Kane's spirit came out of repose to softly and matter-of-factly describe his lot in life. It's an effective technique; it's distancing, and this distancing makes the song all the sadder, for if Kane doesn't even seem to think his life important, then who will?
Hitchcock will. He wrote and recorded and published the song so that Arthur Kane's name will never be forgotten by those who have heard this song, and I've listed and discussed and published this review for the same reasons. Death will come for us all one day, and we'll go gentle or we'll go kicking and screaming, but we'll go with her nonetheless. Worse than this is the fact that not too long after (say, at best for most of us, 150 years), no one will be around to remember us anymore, and before two-hundred years roll 'round, no one will be around to even remember the tales our descendants told of us. If we're fortunate, though, someone as respectful and sympathetic and intelligent and talented as Robyn Hitchcock will pass through this world and take a long look and say that we--as he--were one in a million.
NOTES
*I don't consider myself a fraud for including these (latter) songs, for it's not as if I dislike them; it's just that if I want to take my writing here seriously, then--as a critic--I have to be able to recognize greatness, whether I love it or not. That's why you won't see, let's say, "Yahhh!"** by Soulja Boy Tell'Em on this list, though I just listed Mystikal's "Shake It Fast" earlier this week. If given a choice, I'd prefer to listen to the former, though I recognize that the latter one is a better record in many different ways (though not all).
**"Yahhh!", at times, is brilliant, and it's fun, and it's funny, but overall, methinks, it's just too dumb and too repetitive and too irritating for me to include here, as I can't listen to it repeatedly without getting annoyed. It's an obnoxious song. Purposely so, though.
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