Sinister: Quiet Heart

[Lawrence Mikkelsen]

I bought my first Go-Betweens album eight years ago. It must have been
around this time of year, as I remember it was a chilly autumn Sunday
afternoon. I'd just met my friend David Poppelwell for the first time
at a cafe called Alleluya on K' Road in Auckland, where'd we'd
awkwardly talked about Belle & Sebastian, Hal Hartley films, and
skirted around the issue of whether meeting people on band chatrooms
was really a good basis for a lasting friendship. (As it turns out, it
was.) Afterwards I wandered down to the old Record Exchange where I
picked up a tatty copy of the "1978 – 1990" compilation. I'd read an
interview with Stuart Murdoch, where he'd extolled the virtues of The
Go-Betweens and, despite my reservations (I assumed John Wilsteed to
be the lead singer, based on his position in the main photo – you know
– that one where they're all in a doorway – and, with his bleached
hair and granny glasses, I was a little worried) Anyway, I paid the
requisite $15 and took it home. On first listen the music was
maddeningly stange. There were these slick, almost MOR pop songs like
"Streets of your Town" and "Bachelor Kisses", but interspersed between
them were these weird, angular songs like "Hammer The Hammer" and "The
Clarke Sisters". It took a bit of perseverance to really get into that
album, but over the next few months it became a regular companion on
my bus rides into the city on those chilly mornings, and something of
an obsession. "Streets of your Town", which usually arrived as the bus
was climbing the Harbour Bridge, sounded perfect on those mornings
where the air temperature is sharp with chill, and yet the sun shines
down on near-cloudless water so it looks like you're suspended above a
sea of diamonds. When that little Spanish guitar solo kicked in, I'd
feel like getting out of my seat and dancing, like that final scene in
"The Last Days of Disco".

A few months later I found cheap second-hand CDs of "16 Lovers Lane"
and "Liberty Belle & The Black Diamond Express" at Real Groovy
Records. Hearing some of those already much-loved songs in the context
of their parent albums made them sound even richer, and I started to
get a feel for the differences in Robert and Grant's songwriting.
Generally Roberts were the weird, odd ones, and Grant's were the more
melodic, poppy and poetic ones. I guess Robert's image and style
always appealed a little more to me, but Grant's songs were the ones I
found myself singing along to. I quickly bought up the rest of the
bands' 80s catalogue, and traded and begged to get my hands on as many
rarites and b-sides as I could. The Go-Betweens were one of those
bands with a small but perfectly formed back catalogue. A band who
traded on the quality of their songs, not on any notions of hipster
cool or indie cred. A band with a core duo of two men who looked like
secondary school teachers, but who could melt your heart with a chord
change or a casually tossed lyric like 'his father's watch, he left it
in the shower'. A band that few of my friends cared that much about. A
band I could clutch tightly to my chest and keep to myself for those
times when no one else mattered.

Since then, of course, there have been three new Go-Betweens albums.
Unlike most reformations, each one has been worthy of the name and the
legacy. There have been few moments or memories since 1998 that which
haven't been soundtracked to a Go-Betweens song. And, of course, there
was that unforgettable night at the St. James in 2002. I feel so
fortunate to have seen Grant and Robert play live, and to have met and
talked to Robert afterwards. I only wish I'd met Grant that night too,
if only to tell him that "Love Goes On" is the greatest album opener
of all time.

Now there will be no more Go-Betweens albums, because Grant McLennan
died in his sleep three days ago.

I remember what I was doing and where I was the day Kurt Cobain died
and the day Elliott Smith died. But those two men were troubled souls
whose time on earth was always going to be cut. Nothing compares to
this. Honestly, I still can't really believe it. Grant wrote some of
my favourite lyrics of all time. "Dusty In Here", "Magic In Here",
"Cattle and Cane", "Bye Bye Pride"… He wrote about Australia, and
being Austrailian, in a way very few have ever matched.

Farewell Grant McLennan.

Lawrence
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