The End of the Eighties, Track 34

“Sin”
Nine Inch Nails
Pretty Hate Machine
1989

The original two-disc compilation I made for the Bowling Green collection each carried its own subtitle. And, like Track 09 of this playlist, the subtitle for what was the second disc was taken from a Nine Inch Nails song. This time, “Sin”. And while the previous subtitle (“Just a Fading Fucking Reminder of Who I Used to Be” from “Something I Can Never Have”) is open to all sorts of interpretation, this one’s a bit more straightforward. After all, college (and the reminiscences of that experience) is about nothing if not “stale incense, old sweat, and lies, lies, lies.”

“Sin” is a song that always reminds me of John, if only because I know it’s his favorite track off Pretty Hate Machine. It’s a nice little nihilistic ditty about giving everything – sexually, I assume – and not having the emotional weight of the encounter reciprocated by the partner. Like much of the album, “Sin” takes life experience and runs it through the buzz saw angst of young adulthood to blistering effect.

The End of the Eighties, Track 32

“Fish”
Throwing Muses
Lonely Is an Eyesore
1987

I picked up Lonely Is an Eyesore in the import case at Digital Daze before I ever started working there. I listened to Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil prior to this album, but here is where I connected the dots identifying the ethereal, atmospheric sound typical of the 4AD label. Of course, this compilation does its damnedest to disassociate itself from that description by also including Colourbox’s “Hot Doggie”, Clan of Xymox’s “Muscoviet Mosquito”, and Throwing Muses’ “Fish”.

While “Muscoviet Mosquito” is the track I remember hearing played at Thursday’s, the military drums and surreal lyrics of “Fish” are intertwined with both my Akron punk friends and Bowling Green. Back at the CD store, I put this album into rotation as much as any other of the era when it was my turn to pick what we listened to. And, we would sit in my friend Nancy’s basement bedroom and listen to this album alongside Christian Death’ The Scriptures and Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Kaleidoscope and Juju.

Once I got to Bowling Green, Throwing Muses became an integral association with Jennifer for me. She played “No Parachutes” off of that same year’s Hunkpapa LP, and the ridiculous obviousness of that song’s opening line (“Pushing a ribcage / Makes it hard to breathe”) quickly seared itself into our lexicon. As far as the band’s Lonely Is an Eyesore cut goes, it sort of became our group of friends’ unintentional theme song. There were three items on our mini-fridge that freshman year (The Year of the Fish?) that tied directly and not-so-subtly to fish….

First, there was a blue crayon rubbing John did of the word “FISH” from a headstone in Oak Grove Cemetery on campus. The cemetery itself was over a hundred years old by the time we arrived. It had a low stone wall along Ridge Street, just west of the Student Rec Center (where I had racquetball class), Moore Musical Arts Center (where I took multiple classes and first met Maria), and the Student Health Services building (where I had to go once freshmen year when I got crazy sick). Oak Grove was a wonderful place to go and wander. I spent plenty of days among the peaceful quiet of the headstones, both alone and with various members of our circle of friends.

Next was a yellow and blue and red handmade construction paper fish by our friend Erin. Last was a handwritten and illustrated fish-related joke from me: “Q: How many surrealist artists does it take to change a light bulb? A: The fish!” I don’t remember where I originally heard the joke (my apologies if you’re reading this and you’re the one who told me it), but it lived on for years in our world.

Throwing Muses lyricist and lead singer Kristin Hersh is just this side of crazy (she’s been very public about her bipolar disorder struggles), and because of that I’ve always given her a pass for her songwriting eclecticism. Much like that opening line from “No Parachutes”, the opening whimsy of “Fish” is one that has always stuck with me, an absurdist statement I have rolled out on numerous occasions (“I have a fish nailed to a cross on my apartment wall / It sings to me with glassy eyes and quotes from Kafka”). And the compilation album’s title is from this track: “Lonely is as lonely does / Lonely is an eyesore / The feeling describes itself.” A wonderfully twisted sentiment.

(Quasi-related side note: Years after college, an installment of Adam and Jeff’s ’80s Alternative Rewind took place when he, his wife, and I saw Bob Mould at the Grog Shop in November 2005. Hersh opened for him with a solo acoustic set. It was a train wreck. We weren’t there to see Hersh, and unfortunately the vibe from her performance carried over for us and Mould’s set ended up being a bit of a disappointment, too.)

The End of the Eighties, Track 21

“Burn-Up”
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Peepshow
1988

Freshman year at Bowling Green, I roomed with John. It wasn’t all easy going. We tried each other’s patience and strained the limits of our friendship during that time. But our friendship ultimately survived, despite my handily kicking his ass at a year-long game of Rummy. Down the hall from us, our bear of an RA, appropriately named Mark Justice, kept watch over the floor. Mark is one of those guys who, though physically intimidating, is completely approachable and quick to put you at ease.

Mark was a few years in front of me in the Creative Writing program, encouraged me to be a part of the college’s literary magazine Prairie Margins, and was a member of the infamous BG band The Escaped Fetal Pigs. Mark was the guy who made his way back to the dorm with bags of plastic piggy banks that he found at the Dollar Store, excitedly rambling about how they were going to use them in the band’s stage show. Mark was the guy who, when the ATM across the street from campus ate my card, drove me downtown to the Western Union to collect the money my parents wired me. He was also the guy who would have to come down and police me for blasting my stereo far too loud.

I believe it was the last day before spring break because that is the only time I remember my dad coming to pick me up by himself. Most everyone else on the floor was gone, and I had Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Peepshow BLASTING from the stereo. I probably had my dorm room door propped open as well. Because that was enough to bring Mark down the hall to tell me to turn down the music, I have always associated Peepshow – at least, in part – with him.

Among the brilliant kaleidoscopic vision from hell that is Peepshow, the gothic hoedown of “Burn Up” has always shone a little brighter for me. The static fadeout of Nine Inch Nails’ “The Only Time” is both jarring and appropriate next to the bows-on-strings screeching of the “Burn Up” opening. The song builds with an immediacy as the listener comes to realize amid percussionist Budgie’s raging drums and vicious harmonica that “All fire and brimstone, this Jack-O-Lantern / He likes to watch the buildings burn!” Four-and-a-half minutes later, both the song and its protagonist are raging out of control around a blazing musical bonfire of nursery rhyme as Siouxsie Sioux chants about Jack jumping over the candlestick.

The End of the Eighties, Track 17

“Jump in the River”
Sinéad O’Connor
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
1990

It was difficult not to pick the obvious Sinéad O’Connor song here (like I did with the Cowboy Junkies’ selection earlier on the playlist). “Nothing Compares 2 U” is epic in every way and deserving of its recognition. The strings and verge-of-tears vocals over Prince’s heart wrenching lyrics are a perfect storm of emotion. I remember the video coming on MTV while home from college and calling my mom into the room to watch it, and gushing about how beautiful O’Connor was and those amazing green eyes and trying to put into words the way the song touched me. (The significance of this occasion may be lost over the years, but this was actually an olive branch of sorts – an attempt at connecting with my mom and letting her into my world – given the tempestuous state of my relationship with my parents during my punk phase.) The album that followed shortly after that first proper single was wrapped in stark passion and right in the crosshairs of my musical awareness.

But “Jump in the River” is the one that holds specific Bowling Green memories. Located right on Main Street in downtown BG, Uptown/Downtown was already a ten-year-old fixture in the small college town by the time we arrived on campus. I had no interest in Downtown’s sports bar, but Uptown’s dance club was a perfectly acceptable option.

The ritual of getting ready to go out now seems almost as important as the night out itself was – eyeliner and black lipstick, black tights under ripped jeans, these crazy black boots I had bought the year before, and the black leather motorcycle jacket I bought on consignment in BG (and plastered with NIN and Ministry stickers) all played a role. Throw in a pack of cigarettes and the Zippo lighter John’s dad gave me years before, and the costume was accessorized.

I remember very little about the inside of Uptown other than ubiquitous crowds and sweat and thumping music. I’m pretty sure “college alternative” nights were on Wednesdays back in the day, but I say that without any sense of certainty. I do know we danced at Uptown to “Jump in the River”. The gunshot ricochet opening and driving percussion make it one of the hardest tracks on I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Co-written by O’Connor and Marco Pirroni, he of the seminal punk pedigree, I still love the song’s imagery… 

Real world kisses (“I thought I tasted of too many cigarettes, but you tasted like wine.”) give way to the fascination of a relationship never meant to last (“It’s all been a gorgeous mistake / A sick one, a clean one, the best one God ever made”). Over Pirroni’s screeching feedback guitar, O’Connor describes all the turmoil of young love and lust in a single couplet: “There’s been days like this before, you know, and I liked it all / Like the times we did it so hard there was blood on the wall.” This was music that spoke to me in the same way The The’s Mind Bomb expanded my world.

Originally found alongside the likes of New Order, Debbie Harry, Ziggy Marley, Tom Tom Club, and Brian Eno, the song was the lead off of Jonathan Demme’s stellar (and underrated) Married to the Mob soundtrack, meaning “Jump in the River” was actually released a year before O’Connor’s album.

Among the selections on I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, there are certainly songs I prefer to “Jump in the River” – the slow build from a cappella to the stirring drum and acoustic guitar finale of “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance” springs immediately to mind – but this song makes the most sense based on its ties to nights out at Bowling Green and flow within the playlist.