Thank You Fiends: Big Star's "Third/Sister Lovers"

Narrative cohesion has never been a strength or selling point for rock albums. Concept albums like Tommy
and Arthur fall apart upon close analysis; whatever Sgt. Pepper is supposed to add up to, it doesnt add up
to a coherent narrative. Whats intriguing about Big Stars 1974 opus Third/Sister Lovers is that, if the tracks
are placed into a certain order, a coherent narrative does emerge. The pivot point of the narrative is a male
protagonist unparalleled in the annals of popular music a sensitive, androgynous if heterosexual young
man, involved to the point of extinction in multiple relationships and contexts. Because the lyrical cohesion of
the album is matched by startlingly original music a compound of White Album-era Beatles, baroque pop
like the Left Banke, and deconstructive impulses that really have no precedent but Lou Reeds Berlin and
solo Syd Barrett Sister Lovers stands out as one of the highlights of the rock era, a masterpiece with its
own integrity. Yet this integrity is difficult to find unless the songs are placed in a particular order and the
sequences that have held sway so far are not sufficient. The sequence that is being discussed here will be
presented at the end of the piece.

As far as the protagonist of the album is concerned, sensitivity and androgyny are adumbrated by
perversity the first track, Kizza Me, has him address Lesa, the heroine/anti-heroine of the album, I
want to white outI want to come on outI want to feel you, deep inside Between word games and
graphic sexuality, we know that these characters are romantic, but marginal, artsy, possibly seedy a
subculture underbelly exposed, rather than Bruce Springsteens noble savages. The sound of the album is
slow, warped, druggy when the protagonist intones nothing can hurt me/ nothing can touch me in Big
Black Car, we know that this is not only a revelation of obfuscated vulnerability but of intoxication. Whats
important for the movement of the narrative is that the protagonist is investigating multiple relationships
we meet Lesa first, then in O, Dana we meet Dana and her circle of friends. O, Dana is, in fact, a crucial
narrative hinge. The lyrics to O, Dana amount to a collage of voices; each line seems to represent a new
person offering a witticism, lament, interrogation or interjection. Dana appears to be the person in the center
who everyone wants, including the protagonist. The most interesting lines accrue to the second bridge
Shes got a magic wand/ that says, Play with yourself before other ones. The protagonist reveals
numerous things in these lines that he is, in fact, if not a poet, at least poetic (he thinks in metaphors); that
he is aware of Danas recalcitrance as he desires her; and that he considers this magic wand a perverse
anti-phallic symbol, symbolizing Danas reluctance to get involved, even if Lesa has extended her generosity
to him on this level. After O, Dana, the dichotomy between Lesa and Dana is clear Lesa, as love-object,
is a singular entity, difficult but yielding; Dana is at the center of a frenzied social nexus, where satellites are
a part of her persona. One thing Sister Lovers avoids is a direct confrontation between Dana and Lesa; until
Nighttime, Lesa never vocalizes her discomfort with Danas circle. But once all these balls are in the air, it
is clear that the Sister Lovers narrative is essentially a love triangle. This applies even if we never see Dana
without her friends; not a she but a they. For the protagonist, the situation amounts to sensory overload.

The centerpiece of the album, where the protagonist is concerned, is Holocaust. As a lyric, Holocaust is
pure portraiture it shows the protagonist in an emotional, psychological, and physical vacuum. It is also
doused, on a level with Faulkner, in a Southern Gothic sensibility the product of a mercilessly hot climate
and the slow lugubriousness it engenders. Beyond the lyrics, the usage of slide guitar as auditory
manifestation of psychic torment is particularly effective. Its a more refined, inventive version of the slide
guitar passages in Lynyrd Skynyrds Free Bird. The disturbing quality of what could be called the Oedipal
passage in the song (Your mothers dead/ she said, dont be afraid/ Your mothers dead/ Youre on your
own/ Shes in her bed) is born of its ambiguity is she dead or isnt she? And the richest lines in the song
function as a repeated refrain Everybody goes, leaving those who fall behind/ Everybody goes as far as
they can/ They dont just scare. The viciousness of Danas gang could qualify them to be the everybody;
that the protagonist just scare(s), lacks courage in the face of opposition, is something weve seen in Big
Black Car. Yet the extreme sluggishness of the music (which contrasts interestingly with a gorgeous
melody) suggests intense, sickly drunkenness. Self-pity could be a constituent element of the music too.
What makes the track so chilling is the incredible intimacy conveyed in Alex Chiltons vocal. The track was
mixed and engineered (by John Fry and Jim Dickinson) so that Chiltons vocal hovers right at the top of the
mix. To the extent that Chilton and the protagonist can be conflated, Chilton paints his own self-portrait. It is
a profile in utter darkness, even if social contexts rear their heads. The mirror mentioned in the Holocaust
lyric is itself a potent symbol for the song. Even if the mirror is being gazed into in an unlit room.

The mirror is a symbol and symbolic material and imagery is strewn haphazardly through Sister Lovers.
Big Black Car suggests a hearse; we see Lesas scarves and blue jeans in Kangaroo and Nighttime;
Beale Street, in Midtown Memphis, manifests in Dream Lover; gymnasts and kleptomaniacs are used to
suggest Danas friends in You Cant Have Me; and, of course, Danas anti-phallic magic wand. It is
important to note, however, that the relationship between the protagonist and Lesa remains a predominant
theme throughout the record. This is consolidated in a run of songs at the end Dream Lover, Blue
Moon, Take Care. These songs seem to represent the protagonists final intervention and withdrawal. The
final withdrawal is from Lesa; after Nighttime, Dana and her crew fade to the back. This is seemingly at
Lesas instigation. One of the unique aspects of this narrative is that the protagonist is not forced to choose
one, but to reject both. By Take Care, he sounds utterly exhausted. The album does represent an
exhausting journey. And how many rock albums represent this much nuanced movement? Sister Lovers,
pieced together this way, has the richness of high art. That it remains a cult classic is understandable; the
vision of the album is extreme. Ultimately, it has more to do with Sir Philip Sidney than with the Beatles and
their contemporaries. It is, for my money, the greatest rock album of all time. That Alex Chilton is seldom
mentioned as one of the greatest songwriters in rock history is owing to a master narrative created by
underlings. But works of high art are meant to evolve over long periods of time. So some of us hope it will be
with Sister Lovers. What time may take from others, it may give to Big Star. Posterity does have a brisk way
with treacle.

Adam Fieled

Kizza Me
Thank You Friends
Big Black Car
Jesus Christ
Femme Fatale
O Dana
Holocaust
Nature Boy
Kangaroo
Stroke It Noel
You Cant Have Me
Nighttime
Dream Lover
Blue Moon
Take Care





















Post-Avant Rock: The Other Alex Chilton (and Chris Bell!)


In 2009, I put up a blog post on my blog Stoning the Devil about a strain of poetry which went under the
name "post-avant." Before then, no one had particularly defined what "post-avant" poetry was. I gave post-
avant two definitions; one was meant specifically for post-avant as a form of poetry, one could be used as a
catch-all phrase for any kind of art which could be deemed post-avant. That definition was "anything with an
edge." If you want to apply a dictum to Alex Chilton's m.o. in everything musically significant he did other
than (and including) Third/Sister Lovers, "anything with an edge" fits like a glove. Several works need
specifically to be considered: Big Star's Radio City and parts of #1 Record, the Alex Chilton solo record (Jim
Dickinson produced) Like Flies on Sherbert, and some of the material Chilton recorded in NYC in the
Swinging Seventies. The Chris Bell solo album I Am the Cosmos, released fourteen years after Bell's death
in '78, also counts, and fits under the "anything with an edge" rubric. Much of what came out of Memphis in
the Seventies does fit under the post-avant rubric, and Jim Dickinson's whole fethishistic approach to
making records was a post-avant approach. The Memphis crew which sustained these guys was edgy. Of
all the accomplishments just mentioned, Big Star's Radio City is the most vaunted and, in fact, often goes
higher on some rock critics' lists than Third/Sister Lovers does, so we'll deal with Radio City first.

Radio City is a collection of twisted power-pop songs which were recorded after Chris Bell left Big Star.
Several key components of the songs distinguish the album. First and foremost is Alex Chilton's guitar-
playing. He uses complicated arpeggios extensively and uniquely, so that Radio City is hardcore as a rock
guitar player's wet dream; an album of indie guitar heroics. Chilton's playing isn't grandiose the way you'd
expect to hear from Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, and Page, but it's phenomenally tasteful and expressive just the
same. The way the guitars are mixed is dense, and the tone of the Radio City guitars is trebly in the
extreme. Some musicians hear Byrds-like "jangle" in Radio City, but there's also a certain amount of Keith
Richards "crunch." That's one of Radio City's big musical equations: the Byrds magically melded with the
Stones, McGuinn with Keef. What makes the album so edgy is that the song structures and the lyrics are
unconventional, and oddly formed. Though the melodies are catchy and solid, Big Star sound, always, on
the edge of a nervous breakdown, with cacophony and chaos right around the corner. The songs have
awkward breaks and pauses, Jody Stephens' punctuations on drums are abrupt and emphasize how
combustible the musical approach is, and there's always a hinge to disarray. Lyrically, there's plenty of
mischievous sex, in the Chilton tradition, but there's also a sense that Chilton is playing edgy games to
thwart the inclusion of cliches: he sings "you're gonna get your place in the scene/ all God's orphans get
fates in the dream/ now, you get what you deserve" in "You Get What You Deserve," or "She tells the men
Go to Hell/ and where that's at is where I'm comin from" in "She's a Mover." The album has a number of
centerpieces: "September Gurls" is a straightforward slice of hard rock candy, with a memorably trebly guitar
break, and "Daisy Glaze" is a tempo-changing, warped bit of inchoate angst which includes some of the
most intricate arpeggiated guitar work in the rock canon. Those who prefer Radio City to Third/Sister Lovers
like the twisted approach and that many of the songs are uptempo; the edginess of the approach is that all
the power-pop elements are inverted away from standard usage. Radio City influenced the approach of 80s
bands like the Replacements and 90s power-popsters the Gin Blossoms, and for AmerIndie and college
radio remains a reference point.

Like Flies on Sherbert, Alex Chilton's late 70s classic, is more an exploration of kitsch, a swan-dive into total
cheese that listens like an attractive junk-heap. The cover photo, by Memphis native William Eggleston, has
the same aesthetic; if the picture (affixed to this post) seems to veer towards misogyny, it's with a twist
towards lightness and satire rather than serious intentions. The title of the album can also be taken as a kind
of metaphor; Chilton, Jim Dickinson and their cohorts were themselves like flies on the great big "sherbert"
of kitshcy Americana, where pop music was concerned. This album is about "roots" retooled, and mixes
covers like "Girl After Girl," "Alligator Man," and even K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes," with
unsettling, drunken Chilton originals like "Hook of Crook" and "My Rival." Chilton's songs have an undertone
of violence here which is lacking on the Big Star albums for the most part: he sings "I would kill to pursue my
will," or "my rival/ I'm gonna stab him on arrival/ shoot him dead with my rifle." Still, the feel of the album is
jovial, and Chilton sounds (somewhat unlike on the Big Star albums) like he's thoroughly enjoying himself.
Chilton mixed the album himself, and in true, edgy "junk-heap" fashion, stray "white noise" and detuned
instruments are let in to enhance the ambience of intoxication and the outre. The major piece Chilton
recorded himself in NYC, "Bangkok," fits neatly into this vein; it's an exploration of sleazy, deviant sex done
up in rockabilly finery. It also functions as an embrace of kitsch (which could be taken as a rejection of the
Big Star ethos): "Margaret Trudeau, Jackie O/ Madame Nu and Brigitte Bardot/ Bangkok!" Chilton was
clearly frustrated by the inability of "serious" material to sell (Sister Lovers wasn't even released until '78), so
that diving into the frivolous was a kind of escapism for him and his Memphis cohorts.

The music Chris Bell was recording all through the Seventies in Memphis was much more earnest and less
demented than Chilton's. Bell stayed in confessional mode after he left Big Star. He also converted hardcore
to Christianity. A song like "Better Save Yourself" is dark to the point of bleakness, also uses arpeggiated
guitars placed up in the mix, and represents a state of torment which gives a clue as to why Bell died at a
young age (27) in 1978. Bell's recordings have an interesting ambience, as he was dedicated to studiocraft
as well as songcraft, and the airiness he built into Big Star's #1 Record is present on I Am the Cosmos, too.
But he doesn't twist things the way Chilton does, and his edge has to do with psychological collapse and
ambivalence: "I really want to see you again/ I never want to see you again" he sings on the title track.
"Speed of Sound" manages to sound lush in spite of Bell's torment, and the acoustic guitars are miked in
such a way that they define a large amount of auditary space. Clearly, Bell was attracted to how Big Star's
#1 Record, the one on which he played the largest role, sounded, and his solo recordings are a natural
companion to #1 Record.

In terms of "post-avant" rock music, others in the Seventies, from Fripp, Bowie, Eno, and Byrne on one side
to punk and New Wave on the other, were attracted by a post-avant approach. David Bowie, in particular,
made a conscious attempt not to put out anything that didn't demonstrate some kind of edge, and for Bowie
(whose intentions were at least partly commercial) this was a risky move. Chilton and Bell didn't not bear the
weight of holding up a commercial edifice the way Bowie did; they were safely tucked away in the margins.
They worked without being "welcomed to the machine." As such, they had almost complete artistic freedom.
What they chose to do with that freedom carried with it the extremity of their personalities, and the extremity
of the Memphis subculture which gave birth to those personalities. Mid-Town Memphis, in the Seventies,
was its own nexus and its own center of gravity. If it remains worth looking into, it's because it had its' own
way of nurturing talent, and the musicians drawn like flies to both the auto-destruct and the twisted
ambience of the place produced works of popular musical art rich enough to be called sherbert. William
Eggleston's "Dolls '70" proves conclusively that this ambience was felt by other artists in other disciplines as
well; whatever it is, it's something about America, freedom, sex, despair, and good times which won't quit.



























Narrative Development: Third/Sister Lovers


I have already put into print the notion that, for me, Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers is the greatest rock album
of all time. The caveat enjoined has to do with sequencing- that Sister Lovers takes its position at the top of
the hierarchy only when put together in a certain way. Tracks like "Downs," "For You," and covers of the
Kinks and Jerry Lee Lewis need to be dropped, "Nature Boy" slotted between "Holocaust" and "Kangaroo,"
the album end with "Take Care," etc. The miracle of I-Tunes is that anyone can accomplish this for
themselves in 2012. What I want to offer here are some further notes as to what I have noticed about Sister
Lovers as I continue to listen to it closely. What I've previously surmised is that the narrative of Sister Lovers
involves a love triangle between the unnamed protagonist (Alex Chilton) and two female characters, Lesa
and Dana. It now seems signifcant to me that "O, Dana" follows "Femme Fatale"; Dana's position vis a vis
Alex Chilton is that of an unattainable femme fatale. The protagonist/ Chilton character is more richly drawn
than at first appears; he sings to Dana in "O, Dana," "you seldom know what things are/ do illusions go very
far?" He's spiritually and emotionally wise; thus, the logic behind the inclusion of "Nature Boy." One of the
mysteries of Sister Lovers thus becomes, why does a protagonist this sensitive, this wise, and who is
already involved with the Lesa character, fall for someone as hard and clannish as Dana? The simple
answer is that this character has an Achilles' heel: he's a masochist. He likes to be abused.

One pursuant thing which emerges from "Holocaust" is that this protagonist has a tendency to wallow in
negative emotions, which Dana and her friends reinforce. He sees through Dana (whose eyes "couldn't hide
anything" in "Kangaroo" and who "seldom knows what things are"), but likes to be hurt by her anyway, and
ignore Lesa into the bargain, thus incurring Lesa's wrath. The album is resolutely first-person and personal;
we never really hear Lesa and Dana's thoughts. Only one song features a significant reversal and
recognition at once: "Nighttime." What the lyrics hint at obliquely is that Alex attempts to introduce Lesa to
Dana and her clan, and Lesa rejects them out of hand: "get me out of here/ get me out of here/ I hate it here/
get me out of here." The song concludes on a note of devotion to Lesa, and the way the album ends ("Blue
Moon" into "Take Care") reinforces this. The album begins and ends with Lesa, and is occupied with Dana
and her posse in the middle; that's the structure. If Dana and Lesa are both rejected by the end, it's because
the protagonist is too sensitive to extend himself anymore. The aimless drift of "Big Black Car" returns at the
end, with more focus and pathos. If the album has one central lyrical message, it's this: to be touched is to
be hurt. The resolution isn't particularly comforting, and is manifestly uncompromising. The staunch avant-
gardism of the music makes Sister Lovers a package girded against crass commercial success. The irony is
that Sister Lovers, musically, is not only melodically rich but melodically stunning. "Holocaust," in particular,
would not be so haunting if the melody and chord changes weren't as instantly memorable as anything Paul
McCartney or Brian Wilson ever wrote.

Owing to John Fry's engineering, Alex Chilton's voice is high in the mix, and the production values around
Sister Lovers are quirky but immaculate nonetheless. There are even a few virtuosic touches like the
"walking" bass on "Femme Fatale." Between the density of the lyrics and the richness of the music, there
would seem to be few rock albums which Sister Lovers does not dethrone. Recent attempts to do something
similar, like the Decemberists' The Hazards of Love, falter around unattractive, melodically unmemorable
music, and overblown lyrical conceits. The albums I have recently spoken of as cohesive (Strange Days,
Satanic Majesties, Sgt. Pepper, Velvet Underground and Nico) are only semi-cohesive in comparison with
Sister Lovers, even if they reflect upon broader, more political themes. Other rock "relationship albums," like
Blue, Rumours, and Layla, don't sustain any narrative intensity, or any narrative at all, for that matter; each
song is its own entity, even if all the songs are thematically similar. What's interesting about Sister Lovers,
other than the fact that the songs "talk back" to each other, is that though it's a cult favorite, not many people
have noticed that much to distinguish it. Works of art which grow slowly and quietly often start that way.
Sister Lovers does in fact have the rare potential, for a rock album, to keep generating surprises after a
hundred listens. It offers a protagonist as Southern, and Gothic, as any created by Faulkner or Carson
McCullers. "Holocaust" sounds so claustrophobic partly because it's meant to represent Southern heat- a
swampy, sultry, sick, drunken Southern night. Of such nights is Sister Lovers hewn.

























































Interiors: Sister Lovers and the 70s


One facet of the rock master narrative that's never changed is this: in the early 1970s, a group of singer-
songwriters came to prominence (James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Leonard Cohen,
Jackson Browne) who conflated introspective tendencies with the desire to "confess" in their lyrics.
Interestingly, this confessional trend mirrored something which had happened in English-language poetry
ten years prior- New England poets like Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman had
made successful a highly stylized version of extreme Romanticism- first-person narratives which brought to
light personal tragedies and vulnerabilities in an unmediated way. In the translation from "haute" to popular
culture, the bathos of Lowell became the bathos of James Taylor- a song like "Fire and Rain," his break-out
hit, dramatized his personal struggle with accepting mortality after the death of one of his friends. The music
was not the folk-rock of the Byrds but folk-pop: pleasant, major-key, and easy to listen to or ignore. One of
the features of early-Seventies singer-songwriters was a dichotomy between melancholy lyrics and dulcet
music- the sense that sugar-coating could sell bathetic confessionalism. Jackson Browne was the most
extreme (and sharpest) of these singer-songwriters, whose perceptively probing lyrics could be devastating,
but whose music was as sunny "California" as it could be. "Doctor My Eyes," his hit from '72, is a bizarre
mixture of breeziness and the macabre; the dichotomous split between lyrics and music is almost laughable.

The main idea of the singer-songwriters (this is a part of the rock master narrative which makes sense) was
to move inwards, towards a state of self-absorption, rather than extending the communal, countercultural
impulses of the Sixties. The basic gist seemed to be that the communal had failed- but the shattered dreams
of individuals were still worth exploring. If Sixties sociability became Seventies self-absorption, what rock
audiences wanted was to have their concerns (personal relationships and vulnerabilities) mirrored. The
problem is that in 2012, albums like Carole King's Tapestry (a monster commercial success at the time) and
Joni Mitchell's Blue (a monster critical success over the last forty years) now sound tepid and self-indulgent,
wrapped up in their own platitudes. A better, sharper, more imaginative version of Seventies self-absorption
was Big Star's Third/ Sister Lovers, recorded in Memphis in the mid-Seventies but not released until '78. If
the album has a centerpiece, it's "Holocaust," which is both musically and lyrically extreme in a manner that
the more mainstream singer-songwriters never were. Sister Lovers does have an interesting sense of
musical avant-gardism working in its favor- the way it was produced (by Jim Dickinson), the music is
structured unconventionally to include eerie "breakdowns" or "breakage," wherein songs drift into periods of
inchoate discord or dark hushes. The extremity of Sister Lovers accounts for the fact that there is no
dichotomous wall separating lyrics from music- both are strange and haunted.

What Alex Chilton, the avatar of Sister Lovers, confesses to is multiple- within the context of a love triangle,
he confesses not merely to an inability to relate but an inability to transcend venomous self-loathing (which
engenders perpetual self-abasement.) That's what "Holocaust" is, lyrically- an exercise in self-loathing. The
best rock lyricists of the Sixties (Davies, Reed, Jagger, et al) were not big on self-abasement and self-
hatred; nor, incidentally, were confessional poets like Plath, Sexton, Lowell, and Berryman. Even at the edge
of the abyss, Plath mythologizes herself as "Lady Lazarus," a kind of reverse goddess. If Chilton cuts deeper
than these poets, it's because he speaks out of a context he created on Sister Lovers (the love triangle with
Dana and Lesa), rather than wallowing. This context, however strange Sister Lovers is, is dynamic; it places
Chilton's self-abasement, self-hatred, and self-absorption within something. If you put Chilton's Seventies
centerpiece against some Sixties centerpieces ("A Day in the Life," "2000 Light Years from Home"), what
comes across is that the protagonist of "Holocaust" is not a space-cadet or an Everyman; he's someone so
submerged in his interiority that it's difficult to sense how he appears on the surface. Sister Lovers is "music
from the depths"- it's uncompromising in a way that the more commercially successful singer-songwriters
were not willing to be.

Sister Lovers shares with Ray Davies a stance against engaging the topical- but (usually) from a first-person
perspective. Because the songs are affixed to a plot which thickens and concludes (in some sequences), we
sympathize with this protagonist, as we do with the narrators of many Davies songs. He has an interior and
an exterior life. Where Lou Reed is concerned, the only thing which seems to be deviant about this character
is his degree of self-loathing. The funny thing is to put Alex Chilton up next to the complacency of James
Taylor or Cat Stevens. Complacency is one of the reasons critic Lester Bangs found James Taylor so
annoying- however much he whined, he himself was never the problem, and what he confessed was tainted
by this syndrome. The dichotomy of "shallow depths" disappears in Sister Lovers into a realm of genuine
emotional torment. Public mythologies are prevalent around the making of this record- that Alex Chilton was
non compos mentis on drugs most of the time, and that his relationship with Lesa Aldredge exacerbated
this. Alex Chilton, in '74, was living out what James Taylor was faking. Considering what had happened to
the Sixties stalwarts by '74 artistically (especially the Stones and Kinks), Chilton was by then the most
relevant figure in rock music, even if no one knew it at the time. Bruce Springsteen's eruption the next year
in some ways worked as an American renascence to the Ray Davies "manner"- but confessional rock
reached its apotheosis in Sister Lovers. Between Chilton and Springsteen, America in the Seventies had
produced two rock songwriters who upped the ante against countercultural conformity, clannishness, and
elitism.















































Big Star and America Pt. 1


There is a video floating around YouTube (under the mysterious moniker trogg1980) of a young Alex
Chilton, singing with the Box Tops, a pop-group that sounded like the Monkees meets Wilson Pickett.
The song he is singing is The Letter, the Box Tops biggest hit, a number one single in 1967 (which
everyone remembers for its unforgettable opening line, Gimme a ticket for an aer-o-plane.) Watching
young Chilton, it is clear immediately that something is amiss. The Box Tops were put together (as the
Monkees were) by producers looking to make money with songs they had written. They knew that in Alexs
voice, they had hit pay-dirt. Teenage Chilton (just 16 when The Letter hit number one) had a voice to rival
that of the young Elvis: gravel-y, husky, throaty, just a little dangerous sounding. It was the voice of a much
older, much more experienced man; somehow, a 16-year-old was able to channel decades of experience.
But, as with Elvis, the songs were not his own. In this video, teenage Chilton manages to convey direct
engagement, ironic disdain, and hipster cool at the same time. He is miming; after a certain point, you can
tell that he is deliberately fudging his attempts to mime. When Elvis looked at the camera, there was
innocence, open sexuality, and a desire to win people over. When Chilton looks at the camera, face often
hidden by bangs of long hair, he looks as if he is daring his audience to engage a threat that he is sending
out. Elvis was happy to maintain the established order, and sneak sex and rebellion in the back door;
Chiltons truculence is right up front, as is the spectre of a dark, brooding sexuality (somewhat shocking to
see in a 16-year-old, but extreme precocity turned out to be Chiltons fate and his bane.) About ten seconds
before the clip ends, Chilton breaks into a grotesque, absurd parody of teen dancing; it is as blank a
statement of complete alienation as one is likely to encounter in popular culture. Yet it is done seductively;
there is a magic to it that suggests how deep the sex and the perversity ran in him. In short, the Chilton we
see in this clip is a kind of beautiful creep. His stance before the world is fully established, but he is yet to
pen the songs that give vent to the demons of precocity, too much too soon ennui, and effete perversity
that will become his legacy in a few years.
It is important, of course, to remember that the Box Tops were, in fact, from Memphis. They were
themselves weaned on Elvis; were nurtured by the community that nurtured Elvis; were white boys whose
musical career hinged on an ability to sound black. Chiltons father was a jazz musician; his mother ran an
art gallery. Thus, employing alienation techniques was second nature to him; he had experience of both high
and low idioms, where art (specifically, musical art) was concerned. On a certain level, Elvis would have
been afraid to express the kind of open disdain that Chilton did; Elvis wanted the money and the fame too
badly. They seemed like a substantial reward to him, something that would make him important. Presleys
America had everything to do with the classic, tried-and-true American dream formula: rags to riches, poor
to rich, unknown to famous. Chilton grew up middle-class and in an artistic milieu; his vision of America was
haunted by higher purposes and designs than Elviss was. Coming from a stable, if not monied background,
Chilton was accustomed to finding himself at least on a level with anyone he might happen to meet, if not
superior. He had no need to rise in society; in fact, downward mobility came to represent his metier, on
several levels. What is specifically American about Chilton is the confluence of influences that created him
and his best music: painting, jazz, Memphis soul, and, perhaps most importantly, Chiltons encounter with
British rock and the British Invasion bands that dominated the rock scene when the Box Tops hit it big in the
mid 1960s.
This level of Chilton-as-signifier cannot be underestimated: Chilton (along with Chris Bell, who we will meet
shortly) represents the first, and best, American response to the British Invasion bands, most specifically the
Beatles, Stones, Who, and Kinks. Though the American Byrds were also a powerful influence, Chilton
managed to find a Golden Mean between Memphis Soul, British Invasion rock, and his own perverse muse.
But, back to the Box Tops. The Box Tops enjoyed several hit singles following The Letter, most notably Cry
Like a Baby. However, Chiltons disdain for this kind of success (and himself as a kind of slacker Elvis,
singing someone elses songs) was mounting. After a certain point, he quit in 1969. He found himself in a
strange, liminal position; he was not exactly famous, and though everyone was familiar with his voice, no
one was familiar with him. His voice had been exploited for someone elses gain; he had been used, been
made to do what he did not want to do so that someone else could make money. Elvis wound up exploiting
himself; Chilton was used as a puppet. Chiltons precocity, the depth of his singing, belied an essential
naivete about how the music business worked, and Chilton felt stung and cheated. On the other hand,
Chiltons dedication towards music was increasing exponentially; he taught himself to play guitar, at which
he showed a natural aptitude, and began writing songs. Chilton was not about to let himself be pushed out
of the music business because it had bitten him; he was too curious about all the different directions in which
he could develop. Chilton was an ambitious artist; he set goals for himself and tried to achieve them. His
choices could be baffling; but he did little randomly. Unlike Elvis, it was Chiltons fortune and misfortune to
never establish a safety-zone.
Chilton spent about a year in New York City (where he apparently spent some time picking up tips from
another Beatles-besotted musician, Roger McGuinn), but his path was still undefined. His voice was
undergoing a big change; the gravel, dirt, and throatiness were replaced by a sharp, piercing higher register,
a little bit Paul McCartney, a little bit Tim Buckley. He had also become a capable lead player. When he
returned to Memphis in 1970, he found the city more than happy to embrace him again. His voice was
widely known, he was not; but in Memphis, he was a star. As such, recording time was always available.
Chilton took advantage of this to record the tracks that later came out as 1970. The songs show Alex trying
to alchemize British influences with Memphis sleaze, with a few surprising forays into total cuteness (see
The Happy Song). What is most important to notice about these tracks, the best of them, is their musical
complexity, the deft way that Chilton has with chord progressions, his facility with melody, and the way that
they get delivered as a kind of total package. Chilton does not yet have the key to his own aesthetic; it is still
developing, but the seeds are there. This album is really the beginning of Anglo-Pop, of American rock
musicians transmuting the transmutations of their British fore-runners. As such, this is America-via UK-via
America. Its a natural progression; the strength and beauty of the best British rock assured that eventually
American rock musicians would want to work with its raw materials. It is especially interesting that this
happened in Memphis, where rock and roll itself really began; and its probably not an accident. British rock
changed American music forever; Chilton (and Big Star) were the first and greatest manifestation of this
change yet. But we are not there yet; it will take the arrival of Chris Bell to really start the ball rolling.




There is now one Big Star song that has entered the common American idiom, one that everybody knows.
The song is called In the Street, and a version (inferior to the original) by the Illinois band Cheap Trick is the
theme song to the hit Fox comedy That 70s Show. Why didnt the producers use the original? Probably
because there is a line in the song (wish we had/ a joint so bad) that the producers deemed inappropriate,
which is strange because the characters on the show smoke pot all the time. In any case, Foxs choice of
theme-music for an unusually racy show about libidinous teens entrenched in suburbia is entirely
appropriate. The world that Big Star establishes on their first record (entitled #1 Record) is a suburban world,
complete with adolescent delusions of grandeur (Big Star did, in fact, believe wholeheartedly that this would
become a #1 record), innocent imitations of the Beatles, Stones, and Byrds, and pristine production, the
result of many years of studio training. It is a vision that Chilton contributed to immensely; nevertheless, the
architect of this initial salvo, which failed to hit the intended mark (owing to distribution problems and poor
timing), was Chris Bell, who co-wrote In the Street with Chilton. Before he met Bell, Chilton was a
blossoming talent, but still unfocused; it was Bell who gave Chilton the push to explore his fascination with
British rock. Bell was the catalyst for Chiltons transformation from singer-songwriter to Anglo-Pop maestro.
Bells history, though less remarkable than Chiltons, is nonetheless revealing, and puts another piece in the
Big Star jigsaw puzzle into place. Bell, unlike Chilton, was actually born and raised in the suburbs. Also
unlike Chilton, Bell went to college after he was finished with high school. It was there he met Andy
Hummel, who wound up playing bass on the first two Big Star records. Chiltons experience of music was
broad, and inclusive: singing blue-eyed soul made his voice famous, but he liked British rock, and he was
raised in a milieu where jazz was always prevalent. Bell was a musical Anglophile, pure and simple. He had
no interest in soul or jazz. For Bell, the Beatles were a religion. Also unlike Chilton, Bell was fascinated with
the possibilities of the recording studio. As such, the arrival of Ardent Studios in Memphis was a God-send
for him. Ardent was a studio that was loosely run, enough so that Bell could sit-in there and study studio-
craft. Bell had visions of himself as a complete auteur. He played in various bands while also attending
college and spending as much time at Ardent as he could. He was writing songs, too, and making demos.
So when Chilton blew back into Memphis in 1970, the stage was more or less set. Before long, Chilton and
Bell were musical brothers-in-arms, and had forged a partnership that they hoped would be their version of
Lennon-McCartney. Chilton had new songs that topped anything on 1970; Bell had compiled a handful of
superb demos, which only needed polishing. Hummel, Bells college buddy, had been recruited to play bass;
Jody Stephens had joined as a drummer. The new, as yet unnamed band was doing regular sessions at
Ardent. They needed a name. One night, they were sitting outside the studio, killing time, and they looked
across the street and saw a sign for a Big Star Supermarket. They decided on Big Star as a moniker, and
the world seemed to be theirs to conquer.
It is important to note that, at this point, both Chilton and Bell were banking on a huge Big Star success. The
potential hubris in calling their album #1 Record was not at all intended ironically; they were completely in
earnest, and fully expected to become superstars immediately. Thus, the Big Star myth has as an important
component part the notion of dashed expectations. There is a cockiness to parts of #1 Record, a bit of
razzle-dazzle show-off, as Bell in particular shows what he can do. There was also an essential clash
between Bell and Chilton, right from the start; Chilton wanted to play live, to tour, while Bell envisioned Big
Star as (in the mold of the late-era Beatles) a studio band. The clash between Bell and Chilton highlights
one of the fundamental things that British rock changed in American music; through the Beatles, American
musicians began to see rock music as more of an art-form, and less as entertainment. The Elvis myth has
very little art as such in it (and Chilton had, in his own way, lived out the Elvis myth); the Beatles myth had
in it the transformation of popular music from entertainment to art, and the Beatles own transformation from
entertainers to artists. Chiltons upbringing had prepared him for this switch, so he did not resist Bells initial
entreaties to focus on studio work; yet Chilton could not envision a future that did not include the stage, and
live performance in general. This all occurred in 1972; ten years before this, the idea of a band holing up in a
studio without performing would have been unthinkable. Yet all across the country, mavericks like Philly-
born Todd Rundgren were spending exorbitant amounts of time in the studio, trying to re-live for
themselves the Beatles myth of transformation-into-artistry. This vision was a mania for Chris Bell; Chilton,
typically, wanted the best of both worlds. The seeds of acrimony had been planted, on more than one level:
Bell and Chiltons expectation of complete success, along with the clash between studio and live work, put
the band on unsure footing almost as quickly as it had found its feet.
The other thing worth noting about #1 Record, before I go into the individual tracks, is the element of self-
consciousness audible throughout. Big Star, and particularly Chris Bell, were self-conscious creators; there
always seems to be an assumed grasp of convention, and each musical detail that pays homage to the
Beatles (or Byrds) is done meticulously, so that it cannot be missed. I would like to opine that this self-
consciousness invaded all forms of popular music after the Beatles, and the combined influence of the
Beatles and Dylan made the myths that Elvis had promulgated (albeit unwittingly) seem retrograde. Now
that rock stars viewed themselves as artists, and, more importantly, viewed their creations as works of art,
the flood-gates opened for these musicians to make musical and lyrical STATEMENTS. So, #1 Record
opens with Feel, which rips its horn section straight from Savoy Truffle from the White Album. Bell (this is
Bells song) assumes a few things; that his audience will most likely have heard Savoy Truffle; that paying
homage through deliberate imitation is a viable strategy, when it is done with subtlety (the horns are only
featured briefly in the song); that he is joining the line of musicians that started with the Beatles by pulling
this move; and that, as jazz-men used to say, if it sounds good, it is good. I would not be writing this if I
thought that this were an isolated incident; but I find Chris Bell to be no less representatively American than
the young Elvis and, for college-educated youths such as he was, the Beatles spelled a pass-key into
serious art and serious myth simultaneously. Bells entire approach was an attempt to re-live the Beatles
myth; that he tried and failed demonstrates the heterogeneity of music at a time when things (with Dylan
semi-retired and the Beatles defunct) were up for grabs again. But Big Stars eventual emergence as cult
heroes is no accident; American indie rock, from the 80s onward, shows a heavy Anglo obsession, and
prizes the willful eccentricity of fabled talents like Lennon, Townshend, and certainly Ray Davies. But we
have left off with the first track; diving deep into #1 Record, a distinct vision of America does present itself,
and makes a bridge from Anglo form to American content.




As has been stated, Big Stars first release was accompanied by high expectations from the band,
particularly from Chris Bell and Alex Chilton. It did not perform as expected; Big Star were signed to
Ardent, a subsidiary of the famed Memphis label Stax, which had put out many of the soul records that had
kept Memphis on the musical map after Elvis Presley put it there. Ardent had minimal distribution and zero
market power; thus, the album, though generating a handful of excellent reviews (including one in Rolling
Stone), sank without a trace almost immediately. It is important to note that these reviews almost
unanimously singled out Chilton for praise, and ignored Bell. Having had a few hits with the Box Tops in the
60s, Chilton was a familiar voice, a hook that reviewers could use to find an entranceway into Big Stars
music. However, Chris Bell did not see it that way. To him, this was his band and his vision, and the notion
that Chilton should be consistently singled out was painful to him. Bell was, in fact, the member of the band
who took the records failure most to heart. He suffered something close to a nervous breakdown;
hospitalizations ensued. Yet, without knowing it, Big Star had paved the way (almost singlehandedly, at this
point) for the phenomenon of indie rock, as it has been practiced right up to the present day in America. The
idea of rugged musical individualists, willing to brave an indifferent public and low sales figures for the sake
of creating unique music, has become as important a myth to American rock musicians as the Elvis myth,
and has spawned an entire culture of zines, venues, little record labels, radio stations, and web-sites. Put
simply, along with the Velvet Underground, Big Star are the original indie-rock American heroes. The
principles and ethos that were Big Stars m.o. (clever, studied song-craft, original synthesis of diverse
influences, outsider status in a given music scene, complete self-sufficiency, lack of interest in the show-
biz level of rock) has been carried over by many generations of American indie rockers, and among the
most obvious graduates of this school would be R.E.M., Husker Du, Replacements, and token Scots
Teenage Fanclub.
But back to #1 Record. Following the modulated assault of Feel, with its overt nod to White Album-era
Beatles, come two songs that are as quintessentially American as anything in the rock catalogue. Alex
Chilton has never specified exactly why or how he wrote The Ballad of El Goodo; what is certain is that this
is the song on which one can hear the full debt that Chilton owes to Roger McGuinn, and to Notorious Byrd
Brothers-era Byrds. The song, does, however, go beyond mere Byrds homage; it appears to reflect the
feelings of a draft-dodger, someone who is fighting the powers that be, paying the price in bruises and
strains but standing his ground nonetheless:
Years ago my heart was set to live, oh..
Now I been trying hard against unbelievable odds
Gets so hard at times like now to hold on..
The guns cant wait to be stuck right, and at my side is God..
And there aint no one goin to turn me around,
aint no one goin to turn me round.
Theres people round, wholl tell you that they know..
And places where theyll send you, and its easy to go
Theyll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row..
But you know you dont have to, you can just say no
And there aint no one goin to turn me around,
aint no one goin to turn me round.
I been built up, and trusted
broke down and busted
but theyll get theirs and well get ours if we can
just hold onhold on
Whats magical is that Chiltons version of the American myth (as expressed in individualism and rebellion)
is transparent and opaque at the same time. Given his autobiography, he could be singing about the
producers that tried to keep him in the Box Tops, or literally about being drafted, or about the Big Star record
not selling, but what is unmistakable in his voice is that he means it. Unlike in his often half-hearted solo
career, Chilton sings this song with complete conviction. The opacity of the lyrics makes sense, because
they are sung with such intensity that the lyrics do not need to be more specific. Chilton is singing about
entrapment, and his own ability to liberate himself from entrapment, and Bells background harmonies make
the whole thing stick (putting into place a haunting reminder of what entrapment feels like.) The very down-
bound quality of the Big Star myth gives this song added mystique; these are guys that had to be persistent,
because nothing came easily to them. The rags-to-riches of 50s Elvis had given way to entropy and
dissension; the idealistic dreams of the 60s were frayed, and rags-to-riches would have seemed archaic to
Chilton and the rest of Big Star. They wanted the riches without ever having lived in rags; they were not
innocent. As such, Chiltons voice expresses a complex reality, and a complex set of circumstances. He is
able to reference McGuinn while maintaining his own individualized take on American manhood. It is a
dramatic rendering; the way Jody Stephens sets up the chorus with drum-rolls and fills, the twangy cowboy
licks that Alex throws in at the end, the way Bells background vocals weave in and out of the mix. It is the
drama of a kind of last stand; Chilton, via those cowboy licks, emerges victorious, his own man at last.
Despite tragic overtones, its a song of American triumph.
A different kind of triumph against authority is won in Thirteen. Ballad of El Goodo addresses adult authority,
an experienced world; in Thirteen, we enter the world of the American adolescent. It is a world with blatant
sexual overtones, but they emerge innocently and organically (as innocently and organically as Elviss
sexuality emerged) from circumstances and, in this case, from an engagement with sex-in-music, as typified
by the Rolling Stones:
Wont you let me walk you home from school
wont you let me meet you at the pool
maybe Friday I can get tickets for the dance
and Ill take you
Wont you tell your Dad get off my back..
tell him what we said bout Paint it Black..
rock and roll is here to stay, come inside where its OK
and Ill shake you
Wont you tell me what youre thinkin of
Would you be an outlaw for my love?
If its over, let me know, if its No well I can go
I wont make you
American adolescence is now punctuated with foreign accents; rock and roll is here to stay not because of
Elvis (or Buddy or Little Richard), but because of Mick, Keith, and Brian. The instrumental accompaniment
here couldnt be more American, the scenario is as classic suburban Americana as it can be, and, willy-nilly,
the British Invasion has made its way into the American heart-land. The boy in the song, whom we may
assume is actually thirteen, or thereabouts, gets sexual confidence, which is transmuted into the confidence
to rebuff authority (in the form of his girlfriends Dad) from listening to the Stones. It stands to reason that
when this boy grows up to make music of his own, that it must, of necessity, be of a more polyglot nature
than music his spiritual fathers and grandfathers made. American musical culture has lost its autonomy;
Chilton enumerates this in his rendering of horny, confident-yet-slightly-diffident suburban teenagers. This
song has the most gorgeous melody of any song on #1 Record; in a perfect world, it would have become an
instant classic, something to sing around the camp-fire (though the sexual overtones might have made
certain counselors uncomfortable!) Elliott Smith, one of Chiltons most brilliant disciples, did in fact cover
this, as did Evan Dando of the Lemonheads and a host of others. In any case, this song is a hands-down
classic, a true gem of the rock era and easily as good as the vast majority of songs by Lennon-McCartney,
Jagger-Richards, Ray Davies, or Dylan. Listen to the smoothness of the guitar break in the middle, the
seemingly effortless key changes, how they melt into the great last verse, with one of the most memorable
tag-lines in all of popular music (would you be an outlaw for my love?), and listen to the Bell-Chilton
harmonies at the end of each verse. The song is, in its own way, a tear-jerker, not out of its sadness but out
of its pure musical and lyrical delight. It is, indeed, a delightful performance on every level. Nothing else on
#1 Record quite lives up to these two tracks, but they take on the quality of genre exercises, and I will
investigate the kind of generic territory that Big Star claimed for itself in the next installment.




The remainder of the tracks on #1 Record weave a diverse course through a number of different styles.
Dont Lie To Me, which follows Thirteen, is a simple, rather brutal Chris Bell rocker. It is noteworthy, in the
context of this record, because it shies away from Beatles and Byrds references, instead offering a bit of
Stones, and some nifty Clapton-style guitar licks. It is the only song in the Big Star catalogue that actually
fits comfortably into the Southern Rock niche that was created in the early 1970s for bands like Lynyrd
Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band. Big Stars diversity dictated that they at least nod in this direction,
even if the general direction of the band was more towards British Invasion and other Anglo influences.
Another Chris Bell song, My Life is Right, shows Bell deriving inspiration from a band that got famous for its
close ties to the Beatles: Badfinger. Badfinger molded a sound that had a lot to do with the look and feel of
early Beatles, but was played with the crunch and bite of 70s hard rock. Their signature song, No Matter
What, is one of the glories of its era, a tight, compact, gleaming gem of a song that fits two worlds together
(pop and hard rock) seamlessly. Chris Bell was clearly an avid follower of Badfinger; My Life is Right is
paced very much like No Matter What, and the aching stretch of the melody line (you give me light/ you are
my day) sounds near-lifted from a Badfinger record. This is important to note; that not only did Big Star learn
from the Beatles, they learned from some of the Beatles brightest disciples. Lyrically, these two songs are
rather rudimentary; a domestic quarrel in one, a standard Getting Better tale of redemption in the other. Bell,
as a stylist, was more concerned here with assimilation of influences than in making original statements. To
fit Bell-Chilton into the Lennon-McCartney mold, one would have to say that Chilton, with his superior
lyrical abilites, would have to be Lennon, and Bell, with his penchant for assimilation and pastiche, would be
McCartney.
Among Chiltons other songs on #1 Record, Watch the Sunrise is remarkable for its implicit darkness, the
way brooding edges are revealed that undercut the ostensible meaning of the song. You have to hear the
lyrics a few times to appreciate how creepy they are:
I can feel it, now its time,
open your eyes,
fears be gone, it wont be long,
theres a light in the skies,
its OK to look outside,
the day it will abide
and watch the sunrise
So, it would seem that, for the protagonist in the song, during nighttime it is not OK to look outside. Night, it
is suggested, is a time of fear, uncertainty, and chilling possibilities. The fact that the song heralds the break
of day does not alter what seems to be a kind of neurosis in the protagonist. This is important, because it will
be developed in later Chilton classics like Nighttime, Holocaust, and Kangaroo. What is Chilton afraid of,
which lurks out there in the night? What does he find so creepy, that he is communicating (albeit in a back-
handed way in Watch the Sunrise) to us? Musically, the song is interesting, with another solid melody and
employing an open-G tuning on the acoustic guitar. Just the usage of the open-G tuning in interesting, in
and of itself, because it could have come into Chiltons musical vocabulary from a few different: perhaps
from Keith Richards or Ry Cooder. Richards learned the tuning from Cooder, and promptly made it famous
in Stones classics like Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, and Street Fighting Man. In most cases, it could
be taken for granted that an early 70s rock guitarist would have learned the tuning from Richards. However,
Ry Cooder was a legendary figure in Southern music, and it is likely that Chilton had at least heard of
Cooder and might have met him. This is another jumbled instance of spot-the-influence: are we getting
Chilton regurgitating back Cooder via Brit-rocker Keith Richards, or did Chilton get the goods straight from
the man himself? When My Babys Beside Me, an up-tempo Chilton number, also flirts with the dark side of
things. Like My Life is Right, this is a simple redemption story. However, Chilton is incapable of playing is
completely straight, as Bell does:
Dont need to talk about doctor,
dont need to talk about shrink,
dont need to hide behind no locked door,
I dont need to think..
Cause when my babys beside me
I dont worry,
when my babys beside me
all I know..
This outward admission of neurosis is quite unusual in the context of a song that aims, musically, to maintain
an even pop-rock keel. This is one of the first hints of something slightly twisted in a Big Star song; usually,
in a classic redemption scenario, we join the protagonist in exploring how bad things used to be, and how
good they are now, owing to the intervention of the fabled princess. Chilton, however, presents a first stanza
that is (again) a little creepy, a little nightmarish, especially if you flip the scenario around. Take out the
fabled baby, and you have a protagonist that needs a shrink, hides behind a locked door, and cant handle
his own thought processes. The heaviness of this lyrical succession undercuts our ability to believe the
chorus, that this woman has magically transformed our heros life; when a song (especially a rock song, as
rock songs tend to be direct and immediate on the surface) fights this hard with itself, twists itself into this
bizarre of a shape, we realize that Chiltons perverse muse is beginning to rear its head. The seeds planted
here will bear fruit further down the line; for now, an early listener of Big Star could be forgiven for thinking
that this is just a nice uptempo pop-rocker, with a stunning guitar break. Musically, the track owes a little to
Todd Rundgren, but remains substantially Chiltons own. Chilton has moved beyond Bell; his sophistication
is beginning to emerge.
The India Song by Andy Hummel is an interesting diversion. Hummel is an unsung player in the Big Star
story, but an important one: beyond crafting this gem, he wrote or co-wrote almost half the tracks on Radio
City. This song is interesting for its arrangement, its instrumentation (flutes, giving the song a blatant 60s
feel, which by 1972 would already have been considered retro), and also for another (this time bemused)
nod at 60s counter-culture, much of it derived from the Beatles influence. The Beatles, after all, did actually
go to India, as Hummel fantasizes about doing here. As light and humorous as the song is, it does serve to
illustrate the way in which All-American music-makers could no longer maintain their autonomy. India Song
would have been unlikely-to-impossible had British rock not made raga and sitars fashionable in the 60s.
Hummel is taking the piss out of rocks obsession with all things Indian, but in a loving way. There is a
genuine lightness to this song that is not found anywhere else on #1 Record. Hummels key role in crafting
Radio City would seem to exempt him from playing George Harrison; the remarkable nature of his bass-
work on Radio City would also argue against this placement. In any case, between Bell, Chilton, and
Hummel, we have three distinct personalities. As we move towards Radio City, we will see how the
disappearance of one (Chris Bell) allowed the blooming of the other two to occur, in a way that would have
been otherwise impossible.




Between the commercial failure of #1 Record and the recording of Radio City in 1973, Big Star dissolved
and reconvened. The departure of Chris Bell put the bands career in jeopardy; he had been the leader and
the driving force, though Alex Chiltons songs proved to be both more durable and more extraordinary. Big
Star remained in limbo until a collection of rock journalists decided to hold a convention in Memphis, and
asked Big Star to headline the convention. It is important to remember that Big Star were critics darlings,
right from the beginning, and were held in high esteem by the rock cognescenti. In any case, Chilton talked
things over with Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens and they collectively decided to go ahead and play the
gig. The gig was successful enough that the band felt justified to continue, if only in the short term. A new
batch of songs came together very quickly, and Big Star spent the autumn of 1973 recording them. Without
Chris Bells intervention, Chilton and Hummel were free to indulge themselves. The result was an album that
often makes critics and aficionados Top Ten lists. While #1 Record put together strains of the Beatles and
the Byrds, Radio City pulls off a more interesting feat; it melds the jangle and melodic deftness that
characterized #1 Record with the crunch, solid riffs, and lustful strut of the Rolling Stones. No one, before
or since, has put the Byrds and Stones pieces together in quite this way; the key is Chiltons guitar playing.
Chilton was often photographed at this time playing a Gibson Firebird; I am not sure what he is playing on
this record, but the sound is unique, crystalline and full-bodied at the same time. Chiltons fabulous guitar
work here runs the gamut: lead-breaks that approach Clapton and Mick Taylor; arpeggios that extend the
vocabulary of rock guitar playing; seldom-used chords that the give the record, for all its All-American sheen,
an exotic quality. This is the kind of album that you can play air-guitar to; yet everything is played with a light
touch, so that the light/heavy dichotomy becomes very apparent. It is also worth noting that this album was
extremely influential for the whole sound and feel of American indie rock of the 80s and 90s. From Peter
Buck straight through to the Gin Blossoms, this is the sound of an American summer, American roads,
driving around with the top down, etc. This album, more than #1 Record or the equally excellent Sister
Lovers that is to come, encapsulates the sound of a distinct, entire, circumscribed America that is Big Stars
own. Many others followed Big Star down this trail, but is was Alex, Andy, and Jody that blazed it.
The record establishes its uniqueness instantly. The first chord on the record is an Amaj6, a very seldom
used chord in popular idioms, though often found in jazz. I can think of only three occasions that a maj6
chord appears in a rock song: Hendrix uses one in Up From the Skies, Jimmy Page uses one in What Is
and What Should Never Be, and the Beatles end She Loves You with a harmonized maj6 chord. The Amaj6
soon modulates up into D, leading us to believe that this will follow some variant of a twelve-bar blues
format; however, things halt on E into more involved riffage and the pattern breaks. Even more important
than the maj6 chords is the sound of the band itself. Jody Stephens entrance on drums is wild bordering on
drunken; once the band starts to chug, the energy generated seems almost out of control, like it could fly
apart at any moment. Hummels funky, syncopated bass line heightens this impression. Between Hummel,
Stephens, and Chilton, a unique chemistry is generated, that has a special charisma, an X-Factor that is
impossible to definitely pinpoint. It has something to do with ragged edges meeting sophistication head-on.
This is unusual. When you think of a band like Steely Dan, sophistication and perfection, slickness, and
sheen go hand in hand. Likewise, if you think of the Stooges or the MC5, ragged edges mean sloppiness,
carelessness, bum notes, and a bad attitude. Somehow Big Star manages to capture both, sophistication
and ragged edges, at once, and uniquely so. Most of those who have followed in Big Stars footsteps have
picked up the sloppiness without picking up the sophistication, not understanding that it is the synergy
between the two elements that really makes Big Star tick.
This opening track is called O My Soul and, if you just listen to the first thirty seconds, it would be easy to
mistake the track for a simple groove-rocker. However, as the track continues, something strange happens:
the track refuses to fall into a predictable pattern. It appears, eventually, to seem like two or three songs
pasted together. However, this is done without ever leaving a solid groove. It is easy to see why Big Star
became a cult favorite among critics and musicians: unlike in most pop music, even in good pop music, you
have to pay attention to notice whats happening. The structure of O My Soul is absolutely, wildly
idiosyncratic; what melds the disparate parts together is the steady interplay (as the song goes through its
different phases) of Hummel, Stephens, and Chilton. If these guys were poets, they would have been avant-
gardists; there is nothing easy about this track except the lyrics, which do border on the inane (a trend that
reverses as the album continues.) It is also remarkable just how baroque Chiltons guitar work can be, even
in a track as funky and gritty as this. Most rock guitarists either just play chords or just play riffs; Chilton is all
over the map, with chords, riffs, and quirky arpeggiated patterns that are the musical equivalent of question
marks. It also goes to show just how quickly Chilton developed into a stunning guitar player; he began, in the
Box Tops, not knowing how to play at all. By Radio City, he has hit on a style perfect for his partnership with
Hummel and Stephens: jangle, grit, and strum, all shot through with a penchant for weird asides and bizarre
outbursts. We are very far away from the over-disciplined, over-controlled aura of #1 Record; Radio City is
the album in which Big Star established their own musical universe.




O My Soul establishes the dominant strain of Radio City: idiosyncratic, musically sophisticated pop-rock,
with visible jagged edges adding a hint of incipient darkness. That darkness is bourne out towards the end of
the album, but the second track, Life is White, manages to be both jagged and spry. There is an angularity
to the track that makes it seem, at times, close to the threshold of chaos. The track opens abruptly with Alex
Chiltons voice singing over a plodding admixture of chunky rhythm guitar, bass, and thudding drums.
However, only one line into the song, an effect is added that gives the track its special ambience; it is Chilton
doing a kind of drone-effect on a harmonica, in such a way that you can imagine him sputtering and
wheezing after the magic take. The harmonica-drone works, partly because it provides counterpoint to the
plodding, thudding rhythm, partly because it gives the track a kind of primitivism, and uniquely so. When the
Velvets used drones, they employed guitars, violas, and organs (not to mention Moe Tucker banging on a
trash-can); no one, to my knowledge, has used this kind of harmonica-drone, before or since. Yet it is a feat
of wacky imagination rather than technical virtuosity. As the jazz musicians used to say, if it sounds good, it
is good. Lyrically, this is a step above O My Soul, and the kind of vicious vindictiveness expressed is vintage
Chilton:
Dont like to see your face
Dont like to hear you talk out loud
I can be with Anne, but I just get bored
cant even bring myself to call
and I dont want to see you now
cause I know what you lack
and I cant go back to that
Whatever, its all the same,
now theres nobody who knows
and I cant recall, recall your name
all I can say is So?
Your life is white
and I dont think I like
you hangin around
Many Big Star fans have pointed out that this seems to be a reply to Chris Bells My Life is Right from #1
Record. The title is a pun, and the lyrics (though displaced and directed towards an anonymous Anne) are
Chiltons terse fuck off to Bell. I do not know that this has ever been established with Chilton, but it does add
an interesting meta-dimension to the song that wouldnt otherwise be there. Chilton, all through the Big Star
years, is wont to cannibalize other peoples song-titles; Whats Goin Ahn from Marvin Gaye, Blue Moon,
Shes A Mover, but this is the only time he cannibalizes another Big Star song. What exactly happened
between Chilton and Bell? What went wrong? Chilton famously said in a 1980 radio interview, Big Star
broke up because Chris Bell was a homosexual. It has been confirmed by family and friends that Bell was,
in fact, gay, but why Chilton would find this problematic is unclear. Is there a gay subtext running through the
Big Star oeuvre? This claim has been made not infrequently in profiles of the band. While I would certainly
not deny its importance if I did, in fact, see it, I cant say that a gay streak is noticeable to me in Big Star.
There seems, oddly enough, to be more of a homoerotic current in Chiltons later solo material, like Bangkok
and No Sex, then in Big Star. It would seem instructive that, in the context of Life is White, Chilton inserts a
womans name so that whether or not the song is an anti-homage to Chris Bell remains in doubt. Who
knows? The most likely explanation is simply that Bells gayness made Chilton uncomfortable. During the
time this record was being made, Bell was beginning to struggle, and it is not unlikely that Chilton felt the
need to distance himself, albeit in a sideways fashion in this track.
Oddly enough, for a song bitter enough to be a companion piece to Sexy Sadie, the song seems to bust its
sides laughing at itself. After the second chorus and the bridge, we get a honky-tonk piano break out of
nowhere. The combination of the honky-tonk piano and the wheezing harmonica drone is like a musical dirty
joke, especially because once again Jody Stephens gets drunken to fit in with the mood of the track. The
song is produced in such a way that the sound is extremely bright, trebly, and sharp, and this is one of the
few songs on Radio City that is not completely dominated by guitar. The honky-tonk piano break, which
causes a rupture in the rhythm of the track (though the rhythm never actually abates), has the effect of
taking something (relatively) straightforward into a realm (once again) of total quirkiness. Yet the culmination
of the track is extremely muscular and satisfying, the punch of Alexs voice straining to hit I dont want to
SEE YOU NOW, and the slight variation (lyrically) in the last line of the song (which sounds to me like an ad
lib) and I cant go back to that now gives the track heat, punch, and depth. It is important to note that quirk,
in reference to popular music, is often synonymous with insubstantiality, and lack of muscle; that is by no
means the case here. The magical tension between Chilton, Hummel, and Stephens has an explosive
quality, so that when these guys hit a crescendo, it registers as visceral (even when they seem to be goofing
around.) This ability to meld goofball musical humor with precision and power is the reason Ive written this
post in the first place. Whats so American about it? Thats difficult to explain. Maybe its the humor, the
drunkenness, and the sophistication that its shot through with; maybe its Chiltons voice. Whatever it is,
many generations of American musicians have responded to tracks like this, though defining what makes
them representatively American can be difficult. The track that this leads into, however, is so quintessentially
American that even its title reeks of Americana: Way Out West.
Adam Fieled, 2012
****These pieces are derived from the blog Adam Fieleds Fair Game****