I started a music WhatsApp group in 2023. I send one song a week on a Friday, with links to both Apple and Spotify, and an accompanying narrative/capsule piece. You’ll read it here on a Sunday. If you want to engage about a song, get a playlist or just get in touch, email me on [email protected].
Many of you will have your own picks and tell me I’m wrong and that I should have opted for Midnight Oil, AC/DC, The Bad Seeds, Hoodoo Gurus, The Waifs or some other band. That’s okay. For me however, when push comes to shove, it boils down to two bands when choosing Australia’s “best”: The Triffids or The Go-Betweens.
And there are people in this group who would say that I’m wrong (again) by not choosing the former, but for me without a doubt, The Go-Betweens are the best of them.
Recently emerging from weeks of debate with Jay (also in this group) trying to distil each of our best 16 tracks, I listened to some choice songs again this week.
The Go-Betweens centred around songwriting pair Robert Forster and Grant W. McLennan, who wrote albums worth of great material, both in the band and during solo careers. Forster endures, while McLennan passed away 20-odd years ago in his 40s. They were – in their own way, though obviously not as poppy – rather like the Australian Fleetwood Mac: lovers who joined, got involved, split, veered between love and acrimony – and as all this was going on, wrote and recorded perfectly crafted moments of musical brilliance.
From McLennan’s big-sky, open-field return to the farmlands of Cattle and Cain, to Forster’s heartbreak lament, Part Company, to Bachelor Kisses, Spring Rain, Right Here and Streets of Your Town, four of the most fabulous pop songs committed to tape, the depth of music and lyrics is mouthwatering.
From McLennan’s pop musicality to Forster’s flattish, almost off-key vocal, Brisbane’s finest spread their genius across nine albums with very few duds on them. For today’s Friday song, take a listen to Love Goes On! from the last album before the first break-up, the coherent, melodic 16 Lover’s Lane.
This track has everything: thrashing acoustic guitars, McLennan (the better singer) in full voice, perfect harmonies, a string arrangement by Amanda Brown, a brass section, melodic bass, a Spanish guitar interlude and basically the whole, but perfectly ordered kitchen sink.
While it’s a great song, the real reason that I chose it as opposed to any of the others on the album, which are just as good, is that it’s the first track and hopefully will be adequate impetus to get everyone to listen to the whole of this most perfect of pop records as one will ever find.
Happy Friday (on a Sunday)!
Listen to Love Goes On! on Spotify here.
