Date: Oct 28, 1978
Weeks: 1
Now here's a nice, solid, pleasant pop/rock song. For some reason, I'm still surprised when a nice rock song rises to the top in the 70s. I really shouldn't be, because I know there was some excellent rock and roll being made in the 70s, and the music of the 80s had to evolve from somewhere. But stuff like this seems to rise to the top so rarely when I get to the 70s, that I often wind up surprised to discover it.
At any rate, this song benefits from a refreshing simplicity. It's a nice guitar line, quality drums, restrained and clever use of synth, and one of the best bass lines I've heard. The sound mix is just stark enough in the verses to show off the bass, but it builds into a full sound in the chorus that features all the parts working together to create a wonderful whole. This is great stuff here, especially in the bridge where the lead guitar really opens up and shows off.
The vocals don't work quite as well for me. Gilder's voice is quite high-pitched that the listener can't help spending at least some energy trying to figure out the gender of the singer. It's not a huge issue, and his vocal range fits fine with the music, but it's honestly a little distracting. I'm also not sure if I like the chorus singing the verse. It sounds like a lot more voices than one would get in a typical 4-5 piece band, and as a result the track feels just a little bit overproduced, like someone was trying desperately to make that chorus sound bigger than it needed to be. This song derives a lot of its appeal from its relatively raw sound, the sense that the song could conceivably be performed live by a small band without any alterations, and the idea that somebody organized a chorus just to make it sound bigger contradicts that. I appreciate the desire to make the chorus sound bigger by getting additional vocals to pitch in, I just think it would be better to keep it to the rest of the band pitching in a few backing vocals. Or possibly that's all that's happening and I'm not hearing it right.
As for the lyrics, the song seems to be about a pretty young woman that is admired by the boys in town. She may be a runaway teenager. The song isn't entirely clear about that, except for the fact that even the title calls her "child." But then comes "Come on down to my place, woman, we'll make love." Is she a child or a young woman? That lyric sure suggests that she better be a young woman.
Well, according to Wikipedia, Gilder claims the song is intentionally written about teenage girls getting into prostitution, and the song is written from the perspective of a "lecher," as he puts it. So at least the contradiction I pointed out earlier makes sense within that context. I'm not sure it really comes across in the lyrics that this is intentional, but at least I was able to pick up on it. Maybe I've just been used to dealing with too many songs like "Honey" to realize that somebody was being patronizing to a young woman as intentional satire.
My verdict: Like it. The music is too compelling for any nitpicks about the lyrics or the vocals to matter. It's a great bass line and a very well orchestrated song.
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