Echo & The Bunnymen: "Never Stop"

7 July 1983

"With a bit of cello, heartfelt vocals, some disco percussion, a name-check for Russian writer Maxim Gorky and what sounds like someone tapping out a tune on the ribs of a skeleton, this is probably the finest Bunnymen single ever."

— Dave Rimmer

It has now been just short of a year since I first launched VER HITS and we've already come across a few acts more than once (and that's not even including the so-called "cop" picks I've been making). In these cases, it's been interesting seeing how each managed to progress — assuming, of course, that's what they were striving for. ABC's second effort ramps up the loucheness of their first, while Kim Wilde's second kick at the SOTF crown is a tinkering of her patented gloomy song stories that had made her a darling of the Smash Hits staff. The Jam were progressing towards their demise, "Beat Surrender" being as far as they could possibly go. (Only Bobby O's pair of star singles hints at a static level of creativity; for all I know, he could well have cut his two entries at the same session)

Clearly, I am still several years away from growing disillusioned by having to write about five Cure singles (even if they were all pretty good) or four by Billy Idol (and only one of them was dreadful) or another four from Manic Street Preachers ("Motorcycle Emptiness" aside, I don't give a shit about any of the others). Oh the days when doing this blog was a pleasure and not a burden. It seems like such a long time ago.

We last encountered Echo & The Bunnymen here back in September with David Hepworth anointing a SOTF upon "The Back of Love" which also happened to be their first hit single. I describe it as a "breakthrough" for the Bunnies and Heps seems particularly pleased to discover that they at last seemed "fed up with loitering in the backwaters of hipness". Jump ahead eight months later (fifteen if you insist on going by what the calendars recorded) and there's Dave Rimmer pleasantly surprised that they've finally come out with something you might want to dance to rather than ponder over. Ian McCulloch and his Bunny chums seemed to have a lot of trouble shaking their reputation for making music that isn't necessarily to be enjoyed but should make their fans feel vastly superior to those poor, uninitiated sods.

This was never the case with a group like The Jesus & Mary Chain, perhaps because the Reids never considered themselves to be above it all. By contrast, the Bunnymen always seem to exist in a world in which they might enjoy the music they make and they may respect their ever loyal fanbase but they really don't seem to have much regard for anyone else. Pop stars are throwaway, stadium rock acts are self-important and indie artists are so pathetically tragic. And all of this may be true but it applies all the more to this Scouse act who managed to be throwaway, self-important and pathetically tragic all at once. But good on them for recording a handful of brilliant pop songs. I'd even dance to something like "Never Stop" if I didn't think that dancing was so stupid.

Rimmer is so pleased by this apparent shift that he might be guilty of overdoing the praise a touch. While it's hard to disagree that it's "probably the best Bunnymen single ever", I don't know that I'd go so far as to describe the opening as "joyous" or that I'd sum it all up by saying that it's "sheer bliss". Nevertheless, there's plenty here to admire. Musically damn-near flawless (now who's overselling), the cello, disco percussion and "what sounds like someone tapping out a tune on the ribs of a skeleton" manage to overshadow some fantastic Will Sergeant guitar playing (the instrumental break in which he does some fast-paced chugging followed by some fun with a whammy bar is remarkable). Rims is also taken by McCulloch's "heartfelt vocals" but they sound like Mac doing what he always did (and probably still does): a more powerful Terry Hall, a less melodramatic Bono, a Robert Smith you can relate to (yet, strangely, not close to as compelling as any of them). Distinctive enough — when a random song comes on I certainly know when it's not him — if not exactly individual, his histrionic wail couldn't have suited the Bunnymen sound better. If he's heartfelt on "Never Stop" then he's equally affecting elsewhere. (Still, I suppose it provides the only Top of the Pops clip of McCulloch untucking his shirt mid-performance — or is it? — so perhaps that gives his nibs points on the soulful scale)

As stated above, I'd only been at this Singles of the Fortnight blog for about a year when I got to "Never Stop". How it never occurred to me, then, that it is a pretty obvious steal from Haircut One Hundred's "Love Plus One" (a fellow SOTF from a few months' earlier) is anyone's guess. Rimmer doesn't seem to notice it either. Did Ian McCulloch think that Nick Heyward's songs are "woolly"? It feels like something he'd say. Not that I don't blame him for pundering such a fine pop song (one that I had already claimed owed more than a little to Paul McCartney's "Listen to What the Man Said"). You do you, Ian.

I get the feeling that hacks at ver Hits really had high hopes for Echo & The Bunnymen and that goes some way to explaining why they held their weaknesses — the ultra-hipness, the penchant for philosophy — against them so much and celebrated when they were able to overcome them. From the perspective of three and a half decades on, it's difficult to fully comprehend why they were so esteemed. A fine frontman, an inventive guitarist, a tight rhythm section, sure, but there's something missing that kept them from being special. McCulloch may reckon that they could have easily been U2 but I'd say it's much more likely that U2 could have been Echo & The Bunnymen.

Oh, my one substantive point on the Bunnymen. U2 could have been them. I'm proud of this observation even if I've never heard anyone agree with it or (imagine that) quote it back to me. In all honesty, I just wanted to write an essay in which I could use it. What else is there to say?

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Prefab Sprout: "Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)"

"Doubt they'll get far with a name like that," pipes Rimmer, who was getting this 'Prefab Sprout is a crap name' obsession underway as early as possible. (For the love of god, Mark Ellen yammers on about it to this day) This idea that their name held them back from becoming a bigger deal is nice and all but it ignores Paddy McAloon's rather impenetrable compositions. Scritti Politti were only a little more successful and they had Green's Michael Jackson-like falsetto to aid their cause and mask his love for Derrida. McAloon composed "Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)" as little more than an exercise to try to spell out LIMOGES, a town in France. His melodic gifts were already on display, though they would only get better, but so too was his attraction to obscurity, no matter the name of the band he has been fronting.

(Click here to see my original review)

Prefab Sprout: "Hey Manhattan!" / Bomb the Bass: "Don't Make Me Wait"

29 June 1988

This entry is the start of an occasional series in which pop groups review the singles and fail to agree on a favourite. The results of this are mixed but Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles of The Communards prove up to the task by choosing the two best records available. This would also prove to be one of they final print appearances together. Somerville would release a pretty good solo album a year later and Coles would go on to becoming a renowned man of the cloth.

~~~~~

"People may say they're namby-pamby but I love them!"

— Richard Coles

They may deny it now but 1988 in Britain was all about loving America. People were flocking to Disneyworld and spurning France and Spain as holiday destinations. American football was growing in popularity and looked to be the next big thing. Pop stars and famous actors who would visit the UK were treated like royalty and even someone as innocuous as Sylvester Stallone's mother fawned upon on the popular talk show Wogan. American-themed restaurants were all over the country too. And if all this wasn't enough, I was subjected to the question "are you Amer-eee-can?" (emphasis on the third syllable just as they liked in Essex) wherever I went.

Rock and roll being American, it's easy to see why so many British pop stars fell for the US. Many of them live there, including some who've moaned about the UK being too American. The Rolling Stones embodied the idea of being English yet wanting to be a Yank but luckily they had Mick Jagger to send it up even as they were drowning in Americana. Others haven't had lead singers as clever. Being pro-American is one thing but losing one's Britishness is another.

America has always been at the heart of Prefab Sprout's work. Paddy McAloon's heroes are Burt Bachrach, Brian Wilson and Phil Spector so this would naturally have led him to look across the Atlantic. At first, references to the US were subtle. Their debut album Swoon includes a song about chess legend Bobby Fisher ("Cue Fanfare"), as well as opening with a puzzling number about their neighbour to the south ("Don't Sing": "don't blame Mexico"). "I Never Play Basketball Now" deals with a popular sport that the British hadn't really taken to. Their follow up album Steve McQueen had been named after the great American actor and it opened with a number "dedicated" to country crooner Faron Young (a SOTF back in 1985).

But it was on their third album From Langley Park to Memphis that America became the focal point. "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" would prove to be their biggest hit and it dealt with an aging rocker still clinging to fame due to his one novelty hit. Its subject may or may not be American (I suspect he's British which makes the whole tale even sadder) but it is loaded with references to the US. "Cars and Girls" was an undeserved flop that took the mickey out of Bruce Springsteen. And with "Hey Manhattan" (aka "Hello Manhattan" as Smash Hits erroneously has it) you've got a wide-eyed youngster who has just arrived in New York and has big plans for success — or so he thinks.

What makes this trilogy wonderful — you know, aside from them all being brilliant songs — is how distinctly British their take on America is. The British singer from the fifties with that one solitary hit probably never went to the US — or he flopped spectacularly if he did. Springsteen did much more than make records about "Cars and Girls" but that was the reputation he got lumped with, especially on the other side of the pond. NYC was this destination where dreams either came true or went to die and this is what's celebrated here. The hopeless hopeful who arrives in the States is initially "star struck, Uncle Sam" before admitting that his struggles and failure is down to "bad luck". The promise of making something of himself is dulled by the feeling that he's already being chewed and is about to be spat out by the Big Apple.

"Hey Manhattan!" gave Prefab Sprout their third Single of the Fortnight but once again it failed to connect with enough people to get it into the Top 40. It's difficult to say whether their less-than idealistic take on the American Dream kept the punters away since they'd had plenty of flops that didn't hit a similar nerve. If anything, it only reinforced the narrative that they were "too clever by half" (whatever that means) and that they were only able to capture fellow musicians and pop critics. There was already a small but loyal cult of Sprout out there and it's one that remains to this day but they couldn't quite catch on the way we all thought they deserved. Oh well, it's their loss.

~~~~~

"Ah, this is more like it. A great dance record. Fab."

— Jimmy Somerville

The singer from The Communards is none too impressed with "Hey Manhattan!" and opts instead for the second single from Bomb the Bass. A project helmed by young DJ Tim Simenon, it first came to attention in the early part of 1988 with "Beat Dis", a sampled-filled acid house single which reached number 2 on the charts. Coming in between "Pump Up the Volume" by M|A|A|R|S and "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express, it should have joined them as chart toppers but it failed to dislodge Kylie Minogue's massive "I Should Be So Lucky" from the top spot.

Being DJs, Simenon, Mark Moore, The Beatmasters and Coldcut struggled to make pop music a top priority. They had raves to appear at and they were all in demand to produce and/or remix other people's records. They didn't dream of pop stardom and didn't chase it. While Smash Hits and Top of the Pops had difficulty presenting them as performers and pinups, they in turn weren't as accessible and didn't seem aware of how to play the pop game. As a result, follow ups were slow. Not to mention the fact that for the talk of sampling being "theft", piecing together these jigsaw puzzle records proved to be tiring, thankless work. In any case, churning out the product was better left for the likes of Stock Aitken Waterman.

This review of "Don't Make Me Wait" is from the 28 June edition of Smash Hits. The single, however, wouldn't appear on the charts until just shy of two months later, debut at 20 in the last week of August. Did ver Hits get their copy too early? Did Bomb the Bass' record label Rhythm King decide to hold it back? Or were they trying to build up hype? It's impossible to say but it's more than a little odd that a "group" that was taking its time releasing records would have their hotly anticipated second single delayed.

There's another curiosity surrounding this release and that's the status of the other song. The single would eventually be released as "Megablast"/"Don't Make Me Wait" and was a double A-side. Somerville doesn't mention this other track, nor is its title printed on the singles review page. To be fair, I don't blame his nibbs from The Communards. "Don't Make Me Wait" is absolutely superb and it didn't need another tune on the flip to prop it up. A case could even be made that "Megablast" itself was more than good enough on its own and they wasted two potential Top Ten hits by throwing them onto the same record.

Being potentially viewed as "Beat Dis, Part 2" may have made those concerned cool towards "Megablast" so I suppose the more pop friendly "Don't Make Me Wait" had the upside of being something different and unexpected. That said, the former also had a radically different version with British rapper Merlin (who introduces it by asking "who's in the house?" which will crop up when he guested with The Beatmasters the following year) which could also have had single potential of its own. Nevertheless, the single version of "Megablast" is extraordinary and could have been the single of the year had it got the notice it deserved. It is an absolutely thrilling record with all the samples placed with care

Though I do prefer "Megablast" there's no arguing with "Don't Make Me Wait" either and the two could very well be the finest double A-side cut by anyone since The Beatles. With Lorraine McIntosh (not to be confused with the singer from Deacon Blue) on vocals, it has the appearance of a pop song but this can't disguise the devastating sounds within. Simenon would go off the rails slightly with the follow up — a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Say a Little Prayer" — but this once he found a balance between sample-heavy house and dance-pop. Somerville wants nothing more than to dance to it but it's also a great pop song that can be appreciated by those of us who have no interest in doing so. Though they were slow to take to the pop world, the house DJ's of the time proved more than capable of bringing the clubs and the raves into our homes.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Special AKA featuring Ndonda Khuze & Jonas Gwengwe: "Free Nelson Mandela"

A well-intentioned remake to mark Nelson Mandela's seventieth birthday but one that doesn't come close to the original "Nelson Mandela" from four years' earlier. There are some good ideas present and Jerry Dammers was right to bring in some African vocalists for this re-recording but it doesn't work. He may have been better off handing everything over to a crack group of singers and musicians from Africa to see what they could make of it. There's also a too-obvious attempt at keeping things current with some house music that just doesn't fit. The excitement of the original is nowhere to be found here but hopefully it still played well at the Mandela Tribute concert that summer.

Ramones: "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" / Prefab Sprout: "Faron Young"

3 July 1985

"Ah, they don't make records like this anymore — unless, of course, "they" are the Ramones who continue to thrash away in their leaky jeans and unhygenic [sic] sneakers as if it were still 1976."
— Tom Hibbert

It had been nearly ten years since the release of the first Ramones album, no great amount of time looking back now but lengthy enough while it was happening. During that time, they had overseen the invention of punk, played about in a New York scene featuring groups that couldn't have been more different from them, witnessed the UK punk revolution take off (then saw it rapidly crumble), saw off contemporaries who all went the pop and/or stadium rock and happened to be not too far away as hip hop began to take off. Everything changed but them.

But not really. They went through drummers, their sound got poppier, they had to endure the trauma of having Phil Spector produce them with firearms present (and possibly aimed in their direction), normal rock star shenanigans. But their core remained with each member retaining their distinctive traits (Joey's deadbeat guttural vocal, Johnny's whiplash buzzsaw power chords, Dee Dee's perceptively dumb lyrics). They were very much still the Ramones.

"Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was seen as a huge departure because it dealt with Ronald Reagan's controversial trip to a German military cemetery in May of 1985. While the visit was reputedly to commemorate the end of the Second World War, the American president drew the ire of many for laying a wreath near the burial sites of actual war criminals. Surviving victims of the Nazis were upset, as were many in Israel, as well as veterans back in the States. And one Joey Ramone.

The Ramones didn't do politics. (For all of that "left wing entertainers" stuff you hear about, the only member of the group who happened to be open about his political tendencies was Johnny who was never shy of praising Reagan or George W. Bush) Their debut single "Blitzkrieg Bop" borrows from Nazi bombing raids but it's a song about idiots falling in line. Idiocy was their bag. They weren't idiots themselves but performed from the perspective of them. Though college kids would eventually become their core audience, they were really singing to lonely youths from broken homes who dropped out of school, committed petty crimes and were losers — people just like the Ramones.

A good thing, then, that "Bonzo..." isn't quite as political as you might think. In reality, it's about watching the evening news and being dumbfounded by it. Joey looked at Reagan giving a speech at Bitburg and asked himself, "what the fuck is he doing?" but didn't have an answer. Perhaps not knowing quite what to say, the song was co-written by Dee Dee and Jean Beauvoir of The Plasmatics. Having three authors could have reduced the impact of the song but I think they only ended up making it more disjointed. The verses focus on the absurdity of political home truths ("you watch the world complain but you do it anyway"), the chorus is focused on taking shots at that B movie actor currently in the White House and then there's its extension ("my brain is hanging upside down") that sums up a ludicrous situation that leaves everyone in a state of helpless stupidity.

And that's the genius of the Ramones — and I don't even like them all that much.

~~~~~

"This is an English truck-drivin' song about having to eat Yorkie Bars in the horrific surroundings of "service areas" and listening to the ghastly weepies of country crooner Faron Young on a crackling in-cab radio. At least, that's what I think it's about."
— Tom Hibbert

America, America, America. The British love America. Even when they tell you that, in fact, they're very anti-America, there's a sense that they just don't like the brand of America that's being currently forcing itself upon them or that they feel let down that the country they look to has lost its way and has left them adrift.

Pop stars from the UK tend to make no bones about their debt to the US. A lot of them move there (even when they've never attained Stateside success), they all jump at doing vast American tours of cities major and minor (my Law of Tour T-Shirts states that you'll always find the name of at least one town in Oklahoma or South Dakota that no one has ever heard of on it) and some even get into the dodgy business of mythologising it. Because nothing says stick to your roots like pretending to be part of a culture that you don't belong to while ignoring the one you come from.

One may never be more British than when they're to be trying to be American but if one is to do so then the best strategy is either to not be overwhelmed by the influence or to get it completely wrong. Don't go the route taken by U2 (yes, I know they're Irish but it still applies) and pull a Rattle & Hum: soak up Americana if you must but don't act like you're an integral part of it, steep yourself in old school soul and country and rhythm 'n' blues but don't lose your own sound in it, visit Muscle Shoals but don't forget you come from Melton Mowbray.

Paddy McAloon is a gifted figure and has gradually become recognised as one of the UK's finest musical talents after a few years there in the eighties in which he was considered to be, in Tom Hibbert's words, "flitty and too clever by half". Perfect pitch, prodigious talent, songwriting skills to die for are among his strengths. What he doesn't possess is an understanding of America and doesn't pretend otherwise. While he would later explore it in greater depth on the 1988 album From Langley Park to Memphis, "Faron Young" is an early example of coming to grips with not quite getting America. (Even earlier dry runs, such as "Cue Fanfare" and "I Never Play Basketball Now", appear on Prefab Sprout's first album Swoon)

The truck driver here may indeed scoff Yorkie Bars in service areas in the middle of Northumbria while listening to old country laments, as Hibbert states, but he's at a loss. Not because of his job or strife with his family but because the tunes on the radio that are supposed to mean something to him don't, as Morrissey would sing a year later, say anything to him about his life. Where's the disconnect? Hauling crates of orange squash all over the Britain is not unlike the American trucker on his way through the mid-west, shouldn't the very same songs move them? (Changing stations on the radio dial is obviously not an option in this narrative)

McAloon is projecting but it's more than a little condescending to assume that the working class will react to a careworn country ballad in the same way. Having grown up near the petrol station that his father ran, he may have known more than a little about the tastes of your average trucker and that they might fly in the face of our expectations. Speaking of which, the fact that he was raised in such a working class environment goes against the image of a cozy, middle class youth who studied to be a priest and listened to "Georgie" Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim. 

Expectations are further left like roadkill on the M6 by the song itself. Knocked for preciousness, being too bloody clever for their own good and some impenetrably hard to decypher lyrics, Swoon wasn't appreciated by many at the time. Determined to get people to appreciate what they were trying to do, the Sprouts delivered Steve McQueen, a lush album-of-the-year (well, probably the runner-up to Hounds of Love by Kate Bush) produced lovingly by Thomas Dolby. "When Love Breaks Down" impressed critics (though never quite enough to get them another SOTF) but failed so they doubled-down on the surprise factor with the hard hitting country swing of "Faron Young". It's hard to imagine McAloon and his chums really thought it stood a better chance than the gorgeous single that just flopped (even though it did enjoy a modest chart improvement, at least until its predecessor got released) but it does a great job of proving that they weren't wimps, weren't above doing supposed workingman's music and understood America. Only Prefab Sprout seemed to know that not understanding it is much more interesting.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Sparks: "Change"

I get the feeling it's much easier to get into Sparks retrospectively. You can dabble in various periods and phases and not feel much of an attachment to any one particular Mael sound. Hibbert seems to miss the Sparks of "Amateur Hour" and "This Town Ain't Bit Enough for the Both of Us" but their ambitions are way past that point. Cluttered, sure, but Ron and Russell Mael were never exactly minimalists and something like "Change" is all the better for being loaded with ideas. Perhaps knowing that their days as serious chart contenders were up, they throw together some sweet European synth-pop together with a bit of mid-eighties production and even a tasteful guitar solo. It's now thirty-five years on and they just  keep changing. All hail Sparks.

Prefab Sprout: "Don't Sing"

19 January 1984

"The time changes and chord sequences remind me of Aztec Camera and this can only mean a) a hit; b) a severe rise in credibility; or c) hopefully both."

— Martyn Ware

Patrick sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes. He was up late, much later than usual. He had been engrossed in tales of clergymen in Central and South America and what they got up to so far from the prying eyes of the Vatican. Some drank, some killed, some had sex — and quite a few did the trifecta. Patrick had never been tempted by such things and his only vice had been a bottle of coca-cola every afternoon. He didn't pity these men of the cloth who had strayed but neither did he envy them: he just wondered how they could have possibly existed in such a state.

But he found himself admiring many of these rogue priests. Yes, these bishops and Monsignors had sinned but a great many refused to benefit themselves financially from their situation nor would they toe the line of the French and Spanish and Portuguese colonial masters they were expected to defer to. Priests served their communities and if a little dodgy moonshine, some blood spilled at the expense invading hordes and the odd bit of rumpo during confessional was the price to pay then so be it.

Patrick never went on to become vicar and likely never harboured a sneaking regard for Catholic clergymen in the new world (save for one). He gave up the priesthood in order to follow his ambitions in the world of pop. Patrick McAloon became Paddy McAloon: his music tastes remained catholic and so, too, did his material.

In a recent exchange on Twitter on how overused and tired the term 'underrated' has become in assessing music, pop critic and Hits alum David Hepworth mentioned that "some people still say Nick Drake is underrated. I think they mean he didn't get in the charts". (I'm not at liberty to provide a link but if you happen to seek it out on your own, please note the not-at-all unhelpful comment below from a certain "underrated" blogger) As fans, we tend to have favourites who we feel have been overlooked, either commercially or critically (if not both), which sort of puts them into an unwinnable scenario: we gripe when they aren't bigger but then we bemoan that they've sold out when they attain some success. 

Prefab Sprout wasn't a group I grew up with, keenly followed over the years and gave a voice to my awkward adolescence. Rather, they were the kind of thing I would dabble in as I entered adulthood. I had always had a thing for British songwriters with less juvenile interests and adult themes: my avowed admiration for Neil Tennant's marvellous observations led on to an interest in the tender, grotesque tales of Paul Heaton and then on to Billy Bragg and Morrissey and Paul Weller and Elvis Costello and Andy Partridge. McAloon's material was the next step but I never had a Prefab Sprout phase to obsess over. I'd give them a listen for a bit, move on and come back to them eventually: never fully immersed but never sick and tired either.

Understanding Prefab Sprout is something a lot of people have to work on over the years. Smash Hits didn't seem to take to them from the off (in a previous review of their debut single "Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)", Dave Rimmer remarks that it "sounds like a speeded up Aztec Camera"; it seems that comparisons of McAloon's talents to ver Camera's Roddy Frame were fairly commonplace during this early stage) with jabs at their silly name dogging them for quite some time. Heaven 17's Martyn Ware is by all accounts a clever chap who does well in his turn in the reviewer's chair but he doesn't offer up much by way of analysis of his chosen SOTF, mentioning passing similarities to The Associates ("but without Billy's wonderful voice", he notes) and, again, Aztec Camera. And I'm no better. Those jangly northern bands could easily be lumped together and it's not a slight on any of them.

Baring in mind that this was just the third single from ver Sprouts (and likely the first to get much in the way of wide distribution outside of the group's Tyneside stronghold), few would have had any idea where "Don't Sing" was coming from, assuming they cared enough to find out. Any concept of understanding Paddy McAloon's genius would have been minuscule at the time. Underrated? Hardly. Within a year many fans and hacks would be singing the praises of this unique little one-off band from Newcastle with acclaim far outstripping sales. Misunderstood? For sure. I, for one, am still misunderstanding their brilliance to this day.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Violent Femmes: "Gone Daddy Gone"

You're seventeen and you still haven't snogged a girl, much less touched her goodies. Your best friend may have done (he never got round to spilling the details but who wants to hear about other people having sex when you're not getting any?) and even if he hasn't there are seemingly streets of girls more than happy to do just that to him and these are the very same birds who don't want to have anything to do with you. His girlfriend isn't your type but you can kinda see what he sees in her and, anyway, you wouldn't say no, would you? You've never had anything to do with (The) Violent Femmes before but they're her favourite band and suddenly he likes them and now they're a part of your life too. You feel like you ought to hate them and you tell him they're all right but you like them an awful lot more than you let on even though they're a group for girls who have boyfriends who'll never be you. But, as I say, she's not your type anyway so what difference does it make?