lloyd cole: in his american circumstance

If someone had asked me some years ago to write a piece on Lloyd Cole, I would have imagined sitting in a European cobblestone walk café–not Paris, but maybe Lyon or Brussels–scrawling furiously over a small notepad, circa 1940s newspaper reporter–while simultaneously working through strong black coffee and cigarettes (even though I don’t smoke, I’d have to just to make the image complete). That’s what I would have thought necessary to do justice to Lloyd Cole and his music and his lyrics and his particular, well–image. 

I wouldn’t have imagined trying to write from our shores–in middle class Buffalo suburbia–in my living room on my word processor with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter grabbing my Lloyd Cole CD jackets and announcing to her eleven month-old sister, “This is Lloyd Cole. He is a nice man,” over and over ad infinitum to the point where the Rain Man references are only half in jest. 

But that’s what I have to work with, so that’s what it will have to be. 

My image of Lloyd Cole was likely burned into my brain a good ten years ago–the image of Lloyd Cole as a hip, cosmopolitan world trotting musical ice man–extreme coolness, without needing jazz to pull it off. The cover shot of 1991’s Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe shows Cole standing out alone in some isolated parking lot behind, what, a gas station? Roadside Mexican restaurant? Laundromat? Hole in the wall tavern? 

Whatever. 

Just standing there as though stuck in a David Lynch film–looking off to into the distance like he was hoping to escape that-away–out of the frame and the imposing attention of the camera lens. Blue suit. No. Blue jacket and pants. White button down shirt.

Maybe it’s linen–and it works for him. He’s thin. Cigarette thin, with a rumpled pressed white shirt (definitely linen) under a cold blue jacket in the desert somewhere. Hair like black leather Elvis and, probably, perfectly worn black suede shoes. And I thought–now that is what cool is. Why the hell can’t I be cool like that? How come I can’t pull that off? Why is it when I wear a linen shirt I just look disheveled and overweight? 

I had been a fairly loyal fan of Lloyd Cole since Rattlesnakes, the 1984 debut album from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, which included guitarist Neil Clark, bassist Lawrence Donegan, keyboardist Blair Cowan, drummer Stephen Irvine and guitarist and lead vocalist Cole–a twenty-three-year-old philosophy major from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. 

Rattlesnakes was that kind of perfect first college album where you found something truly different behind that weather beaten door on its cover. A sound that was so original, that when you listen to it now you don’t just get taken back to a certain era, but rather to the exact moment when you discovered it–early alternative pop songs featuring lyrics that you’d only really heard from the likes of Dylan before. Take, for example, the description of the heroine of the title track (“she looks like Eva Marie Saint in On The Waterfront as she reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance”), the object of his desire in “Perfect Skin” (“she has cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin and she’s sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan”) or the object of his day-to-day loathing in “Four Flights Up” (“You have absolutely no common sense, yes I know that’s your charm…why must you tell me all your secrets when its hard enough to love you knowing nothing?”). 

Then that final track, “Are You Ready to be Heartbroken,” with its unforgettable opening melody of harmonizing acoustic guitars and, again, the lyrics–either evoking images of hip sophistication or satirizing the path some believe will get them there: 

Lean over on the bookcase
If you really want to get straight
Read Norman Mailer
Or get a new tailor
Are you ready to be heartbroken?
Are you ready to bleed?

Then the song’s ending with a swirl of strings that takes it beyond a simple pop track and on into the small sea of signature compositions–one of those that holds a certain grace and timelessness. 

A sampling of internet sites will tell you about Cole’s journey from the folk-rock inspired, jangling guitar pop sound of the early Commotions work to the lush strings and cabaret style fare characterizing his solo work and back again–all the while with his rich, yet easy vocal style. Some of the musical influences may be apparent–Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, the Beatles, but his lyrical influences are harder to narrow. References to Jules and Jim,Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Simone de Beauvoir, and Miss Lonelyhearts are sprinkled throughout his work. It is also harder to make comparisons between Cole’s music and other artists. How about Billy Bragg? Elvis Costello? World Party? The Connells? REM? Dylan, again? Or perhaps Roger McGuinn meets Paul Weller, Mark Knopfler, or even Chet Baker? None seem to fit, exactly. 

Anyway. 

Lloyd Cole stood there on stage in Toronto on a Wednesday night in Lee’s “Palace.” I am sure the irony wasn’t lost on him–maybe he purposely chose the venue because it was nothing more than an Old Pink Flamingo with a sufficient stage. In other words, a dive–but a good dive for this kind of show.

He stood there and played before 300? 500? Only around that number. Acoustic show. One night. And he played the whole catalog spanning 17 remarkable years as an singer-songwriter who, astonishingly, has just never seemed to turn that corner to stardom in the U.S. But (all Jerry Lewis jokes aside) they truly love him in France, where he can’t walk down the street without being recognized. 

He played solo–just he and his acoustic guitar. And his two notebooks. One full of his songs, the other full of those, like Dylan and Cohen, who had influenced him. Both the songs and the songwriter stripped down to the bare essentials. And it was a truly great show. 

Many of his songs were perfectly suited for this type of presentation. Songs like the obscure “2cv” from Rattlesnakes, “Hey Rusty” from the Commotions underrated last album, Mainstream,“Undressed” and “Don’t Look Back” from his 1990 solo debut, and covers like Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” and Cohen’s classic “Chelsea Hotel” (you can find Cole’s cover on the I’m Your Fan tribute album). Also a trio of acoustic tracks from 1995’s Love Story (the album which reunited him with former Commotions guitarist and collaborator Neil Clark)–“Trigger Happy,” “Love Ruins Everything,” and “Unhappy Song”–were nearly perfect in this setting. 

Some songs, however, did lose something when stripped down of some of the lush and complex arrangements from their album versions. Songs like “Brand New Friend” and “Lost Weekend” seemed to be missing important instrumental pieces which gave them a European café flair on the Commotions sophomore effort, 1985’s Five Easy Pieces. And “No Blue Skies” without its backing rhythms, vocals and organ missed its atmosphere of layered melancholy. 

Surprisingly, Cole acknowledged as much on a few songs, stopping mid-song to humorously describe what the audience would have been hearing if he had a full complement of musicians in tow. One such moment occurred during the opening song, the afore- mentioned“AreYou ReadyTo Be Heartbroken”–the song many consider to be his best and most enduring composition. Cole himself claimed the intro sounded like “crap” without Neil Clark’s guitar contribution. Once he finished playing it, the ovation proved that most of the crowd disagreed. But it would have been something if a rumored reunion with Clark (who lives inToronto) would have taken place that night, even for just that one great song. 

But as Cole played on, leaning heavily on his post-Commotions solo repertoire, I thought back a few years, shortly after the release of Love Story. “Like Lovers Do,” to date one of Cole’s most infectious singles, was getting decent airtime on Toronto’s CFNY, and Cole appeared on David Letterman to sing “Sentimental Fool” (songs which garnered enthusiastic responses from the crowd on this night). Back then I thought, “finally, he’s going to hit the Big Time.” But somehow the message never got out. He stepped off the Late Night stage and…

Five years passed.

No Big Time.

In 2000, he quietly released a CD with a new backing band, aptly named “The Negatives.” For if there has been one constant in Cole’s career it has been his lyrics–often steeped in melancholy, irony and cynicism–songs full of lost opportunities, unrequited love and self-doubt bordering on self-loathing: 

Cut off my nose despite my face And I will not more longer wait Or should I laugh or should I cry Or should I part my hair behind or should I laugh or should I cry As I become all I despise. 

When you’re nothing to no one And your less than you cared And your looking for someone Who won’t cling to anything…I used to wake up early. Now it’s hard, hard enough to sleep…

But despite such a view on the world around him, his gift was the ability to wrap these words in melodies and rhythms and orchestrations to make them sound joyful. If you don’t believe me, try a spin of pure pop cuts like “Four Flights Up,” “Jennifer She Said,” “Weeping Wine,” or “Unhappy Song”–each defying their lyrical pessimism through upbeat musical arrangements. And despite his cynicism, Cole spoke of lost weekends in Amsterdam, Arthur Lee records, Pirelli calendar girls and walking with Jesus and Jane in the pour- ing rain–and made you want to find a way to be there to experience it for yourself. 

Anyway. 

The release of the Negatives album received little, if any, fanfare. I simply stumbled across it during one of those hopeful music seeking expeditions, checking the bins of old favorites to see if there were, by some chance, a new release or an old live show. To my surprise, Lloyd’s bin provided exactly what I sought, in the form of a new CD on a French label in a cardboard package.

I purchased it and fell in love with several of the tracks–“Past Imperfect,” “Impossible Girl,” and “What’s Wrong With This Picture.” The latter is a song that transformed a typically mundane morning commute into a memorable drive along the lake under perfect, blue fall skies: 

Monday morning,
Feeling alright
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing at all.
Open your eyes, there’s nothing but blue skies.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing at all.

And in these few verses it was clear the man who sang of “No Blue Skies” in 1990 had changed his tune–and now had found nothing but. Cole was happy, simply, and not afraid to say so. So there I was in Toronto watching Lloyd Cole go through his amazing catalog of seventeen years and appreciating just how much unheralded talent was on that small stage–a sentiment echoed by those around me.

And then, Lloyd Cole, stripping away any remaining pretense, told the crowd that one of the reasons that he was out on tour was because he needed the money. And so, now, with two kids back at home, out on the road he’s gone again, this time with his acoustic guitar and a new love for what he’s doing–paging through those two notebooks and playing the original acoustic renditions of all those songs about his travels from Buxton, England, to Glasgow to Amsterdam to New York to Massachusetts–to these people who really appreciate him. 

And then Cole admitted one more thing. Here in a place where the artist’s dressing room was a closet and the artist’s bathroom was just the communal “men’s” room–he admitted that he realized a few years back that he wasn’t nearly as hip or as cool as he had believed himself to be He even shaved his once signature mop of coarse black hair to a buzz-cut look, because he thought his ever lengthening grays (especially the shock of gray in the front) looked somewhat foolish at forty. 

As he bides his time toward 2004 (when the rights to the songs on his 1984 debut will, finally, revert back to him), he now seems less affiliated with the “American circumstance” he sang of in 1984’s “Perfect Skin” than the one he describes on 1995’s Love Story: 

Living on juice
Eating out of tuna cans
Mobile home
With my Dairy Queen…

But all seemed strangely OK to this guy–this dad–just out doing his job, continuing to compose and perform music that he hopes will reach an appreciative and yes, larger audience.

So, while I’ve long since resigned myself to the fact that I won’t ever attain that level of coolness that Lloyd Cole projected, strangely enough he has too. But I realize we do have one thing in common. We’re both just two dads doing what we do–trying to get our kids to the Diary Queen and back. 

The moral? To paraphrase Lloyd, perhaps the moral is that there never has been one. Or perhaps it’s simply that Lloyd Cole has made seventeen years worth of songs for any mood. Great songs. Do yourself a favor and check him out.

in print discover issue three