How Television turned “bad 19th-century poetry” into pure quality
Before the likes of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Swervedriver, there was Television. The definitive masters of the twin guitar assault. The quartet significantly impacted the development of post-punk and rock.
Although their oeuvre is relatively limited compared to their contemporaries, it is undoubtedly one of the more fulfilling by a CBGB-associated band. The vast landscape of guitar music is heavily indebted to Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd and the group’s unique composition. It’s no coincidence that their hallmarks remain ubiquitous to this day.
Primarily, the discussion of the band centres around their masterpiece, 1977’s Marquee Moon. Boasting staples of the era, such as the title track and ‘Speak No Evil’, the record remains as influential today as it was upon release, owing to the grit and originality contained within it. Despite this eminence, the LP often overshadows the brilliance of their following two offerings, 1978’s Adventure and 1992’s Television.
Whilst Adventure is indeed revered, Television, the band’s reunion album, is not as respected in the mainstream, which is a strange reality considering Verlaine and Lloyd’s much darker, mature guitars are more sonically rewarding than on their previous efforts. Delivering cuts such as ‘Call Mr. Lee’ and ‘Shane, Wrote This’, the work represents how a musical return should pan out.
One of the best examples of this matured incarnation is the album opener ‘1880 or So’. Featuring Verlaine and Lloyd’s customary earworms, with momentary flashes to the old west, the song is commended for the vocalist’s lyrical performance, which was inspired by “bad 19th-century poetry”.
Verlaine later revealed that he acquired the idea after reading a magazine for homemakers that published poems penned by its target market. Unsurprisingly, they were awful, which explains mawkish lines such as, “A face that glows in a golden hue / No one in this world knows what they do”.
“They were all kind of kitschy,” Verlaine explained to The Bob in 1993. “But at the same time, the people who wrote them were obviously really serious and they were very well-intended. There was just something about the simplicity of this stuff.”
Although the song is ostensibly rather languid, when speaking to Songfacts in 2018, Lloyd opined that ‘1800 or So’ represents some of his “angriest” playing. He said: “The guitar never does what I want it to do. There’s always a disconnect between what my hands are willing to perform on the guitar and what the guitar actually is allowing me to present through it.”
The punk legend continued: “For instance, I may hit a wrong note that is out of the scale or out of the mode that I’m in. I will often then attack the guitar with a flurry of notes. It’s like a man walking his dog, and the dog is held by a leash and the dog is unruly so he snaps at the leash. I do that to the guitar at times.” Therefore, a strong backbone is needed to tie the tracks together, and the postmodernism of parodying dated poetry does that brilliantly here.
