Something I Learned Today

Punk Rock and Other Assorted Bullshit

Big Black - Heartbeat

This one is for my wife, who never reads this blog anyway ( and is yelling at me to come to bed )

Big Black - Heartbeat.mp3
Man, I love Big Black. Only they could take a sweet, quiet Wire song and do such damage: drum machine, buzzing guitar, powertool bass. An upbeat dirge. Not the best Big Black song ever, but the one that popped into my head today. This was the “A” side from a 7″ released in 1987 or thereabouts, somewhere between their two great albums Atomizer and Songs About Fucking. One of the best parts of getting a Big Black record was reading the “liner” notes - the true stories behind the lyrics. I still to this day have the story behind in “Jordan, Minnesota” and “Grinder” stuck in my head. Hopefully the CD’s have preserved this album feature. “Heartbeat” can be found on Rich Man’s Eightrack if vinyl aint your thing.

Dementlieu has a nice breakdown on the band ( including some of the liner notes)

1 Comment so far

  1. Simon October 19th, 2004 7:24 pm

    Absolute quality.
    On the downside though, after years of lovingly reading all those liner notes on the Big Black releases (same as you), i thought i’d dive into this digital revolution thing and buy the Cd’s too…(something i said i would never do is duplicate stuff… but there are the odd exception!)
    Anyway… no liner notes on the Cd releases, makes me feel sad for the people who love the Cd’s but are missing out on so much i.e inside info and commentary on the tracks etc….
    Like you the notes to Jordan are going to stay with me forever…

    Simon
    x

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