Nothing's Going To Happen - Tall Dwarfs

Nothing's Going To Happen - Tall Dwarfs

3:54

Three Songs, 1981

Written by Alec Bathgate and Chris Knox

I really love the Elf Power version of this song (it's more fierce and exuberant), but this is the original.  It's stripped-back, lo-fi, and has a slow, almost menacing tempo, and the song is quite dark and cynical, speaking to a general sense of alienation and ennui.  A primitive guitar riff, a shaken tambourine, some ghostly "la la la"s.  Perhaps, the narrator muses, at some point somewhere children might be entranced "Because of some beauty / That has not been altered, damned or pointed out / By the clumsy dark oafs that train them."  But then again... 

Don't Let Go the Coat - The Who

Don't Let Go the Coat - The Who

3:49

Face Dances, 1981

Written by Pete Townshend

This song is said to be about Townshend's guru Meher Baba, as in clutching to the hem of his robe, or hanging on to his teachings.  This, of course, brings to mind the famous scene in Mark 5:25-30 where a woman touches the hem of Jesus' robe.  But more generally, it seems to be a metaphor for finding comfort.  This is a song about loneliness and missed chances.  "No one locked me out because I failed to phone up / I can't bear to live forever like a loner."  He hasn't been frozen out by anyone, he's the architect of his loneliness.  "Every lonely wife knows the way I feel."