Didn’t Fight At All

They went down to the river
On a warm summer night
The air was thick with the
Smell of temptation

He said why don’t we lay in the water
Let the water run over me
And she grinned and she said
Now she said now she said

Now that’s a good idea
She said she said
Now that’s a good idea
She said she said

He held her head high in his hands
He held her down deep in the stream
He saw the bubbles and matted hair
Mixed in with seaweed
She started to scream

Was it something I said
Was it something I said
And she said and she said
And she said she said

Now that’s a good idea she said she said
To be alone with you she said she said
I’ve been waiting for years
And I’d rather be dead

That’s a good idea he said he said

He held her down in the river
He held her down in the water
Another river of mud
Wash away those tears
He said and he said
Now that’s a good idea

He said now that’s a good idea
He said now that’s a good idea
He said now that’s a good idea

I saw them from the ocean
She didn’t seem to mind
Didn’t fight at all
She didn’t fight it at all

Some things are best left alone
Sometimes I’m best left alone
And sometimes I see you in the water
At night at night at night

Yup, Sugar A Good Idea is just the classic old story that’s been told a million times before, you know the one.  Boy meets girl, boy takes girl down to the river, girl in a quasi-suicidal state of ambivalence allows her head to be held under the water, boy drowns girl, boy has absolutely no regrets at all, slightly shady observer passes comment.  Sorry for getting all self-indulgent with all the lyrics first, but I couldn’t think of a better way of doing this little ditty.

I love this record as much today as I did when I first heard it back in 1992 and I was getting my kicks from the Pixies Doolittle, having just ‘discovered’ them at least three years after everyone else; although my own copy of this 12″ was snapped up in a second-hand shop in 2002.  Okay I accept that it is virtually a Pixies pastiche, but I would argue that if any man alive had the right to do this it was Bob Mould, having been part of Hüsker Dü a band at least 50% responsible for Pixies’ DNA.  Anyway, who gives a flying funk when the result is this good anyway?

That bass, that guitar, those drums, that delivery – worth the price of admission for Mr Mould’s lingeration over the word ‘temptation’, alone! More to the point you just have to love the moral ambiguity hereabouts, the whole song has the air of a tragic tale from a small town Oregon newspaper.  You can virtually see the boy’s wet flannel sleeves, the railway bridge in the distance, wan moonlight slanting over the now still water, smell and sound of the saw mill a mile off in the background, the boy’s wet fingers on his cigarette, the white and dark shape face down in the shallows … the later recriminations, a total lack of remorse, grieving parents, distraught classmates, witnesses to their last drive, all seem an eternity away suspended in some unimaginable future.  He can’t run, why would he?

The second-to-last bit up there (I pruned out a lot of ‘that’s a good idea’s and ‘she said’s) I think betokens an observer, someone who saw but didn’t intervene, but later is haunted by what he saw, or just his own inaction?

Heavy.  Now chuck it on the turntable again, so we can jig about a bit more!

The B-sides? three live tracks, none of which grab me at all, the last of which is a Sugar-fied version of The Who ‘Armenia City in the Sky’.  It’s all a bit muddy and non-essential.

Now chuck the A-side back on the turntable so I can jig about a bit more, Mr DJ!

334 Down.

P.S – I would like to stress that no Lego ladies were hurt during the making of this post, although one did get a bit soggy.