Pynchon Music: Yo La Tengo

Pop culture references usually abound on Yo La Tengo track listings, and continue here. “Last Days of Disco” is a modal pop song, Ira Kaplan reminiscing about a distant first meeting, his vocals and guitar cruising lightly over Georgia Hubley and James McNew’s polyrhythmic underpinning. “The Crying of Lot G,” title suggestive of notoriously Byzantine author Thomas Pynchon, is ironically the most lyrically naked and literal song on the album. It’s also the most direct paean to the internal ebb and flow of love they’ve ever written, with Kaplan speak-singing “you say all we do is fight, and I think, gee, I don’t know if that’s true…” over an ambient 50’s-style weeper. A cover of disco hit-maker George McRae’s “You Can Have It All” follows, and features Hubley sleepily declaring her heart over Kaplan’a AM-radio ba-ba-da’s ping-ponging in the background and funky soul string accents (courtesy of engineer David Henry and his cello). The band’s approach to disco cheese is loving and un-ironic and raises the song above its station in pop’s hierarchy; it could be a Yo La Tengo song, whereas the next song, “Tears Are In Your Eyes” sounds achingly classic enough to be a cover of a lost country ballad.

…this song is from the 2000 album And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out which is an example of the Venn diagram-crossover between Pynchon fans and The Simpsons fans (Pynchon himself being in this latter fandom) with the original temp titles for all the demo tracks for the album sharing a name with a film or tv project that character Troy McClure had acted in. The only song to hold on to its temporary name was “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House,” named after one of Troy McClure’s more prestigious charitable television fundraisers.

What did I miss here?
What can’t you take anymore?
Expecting a whisper,
I heard the slam of a door
You say that all we ever do is fight
Gee, I don’t know that that’s true.
then I wonder, am I right?
or is that part of our problem?
Maybe I’m out of my mind.
Maybe I’m blocking out the truth.
But it seems like just a little thing,
like you don’t want to listen,
and I can’t shut up.
You don’t have to smile at me.
we don’t have to talk.
all that I ask is you stop,
and remember, it isn’t always this way.
You have the problem,
it comes with our private jokes.
when you’re in a fury,
laughter gets stuck in my throat
Sometimes I wonder why we have so much trouble
cheering each other up sometimes,
when one or the other of us is down.
Instead it’s like, when you’re in a bad mood
I look at you and I say, maybe she’s knows something
I don’t know, maybe I should be upset.
You don’t have to smile at me
We don’t have to talk.
All that I ask is you stop
and remember, it isn’t always this way.
The way that I feel
when you laugh
is like laughing.
The way that I feel
when you cry
is so bad.

1. Everyday (6:32)
2. Our Way to Fall (4:18)
3. Saturday (4:18)
4. Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House (4:59)
5. Last Days of Disco (6:28)
6. The Crying of Lot G (4:45)
7. You Can Have It All (4:37)
8. Tears Are In Your Eyes (4:35)
9. Cherry Chapstick (6:12)
10. From Black to Blue (4:47)
11. Madeline (3:37)
12. Tired Hippo (4:46)
13. Night Falls On Hoboken (17:42)

Musicians
Ira Kaplan—lead vocals and backing vocals, guitar, keyboard.
Georgia Hubley—drums, lead and backing vocals, percussion, keyboard.
James McNew—bass, guitar, percussion, keyboard, lead and backing vocals.
David Henry—cello (7).
Susie Ibarra—percussion (1, 3).