Song Of the Day: November 8, 2005
The 6ths - Rot in the Sun
Merge 45, 1993
In the '90s, Stephin Merritt was so productive that at one point, he had four different bands going (the Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, the Future Bible Heroes and the Gothic Archies) and he was still churning out songs faster than they could get onto CDs. A blasé but devastating kiss-off to an ex who's run off to Hollywood to sell out, set to a lo-fi collection of synths and rhythm boxes that sound like they're decaying as they play, "Rot in the Sun" is primal Merritt from the period well before his gradual conversion into his generation's Irving Berlin. The song's only release came on the b-side of a fairly rare Merge 7" that predates the 6ths' first album by over a year. The a-side is an early version of "Heaven In A Black Leather Jacket" with the Bats' Robert Scott on lead vocals. The main oddity of this song is the fact that it's one of the rare occasions when Stephin Merritt drops his normal deadpan vocal style: on the tart, bitchy first verse in particular, he sounds genuinely pissed off at someone for perhaps the only time in his career.
-Srewart Mason
posted by Jon Harrison at 9:05 AM
4 Comments:
Wow, thanks for this one. I'm always glad to find an unknown-to-me Stephin Merritt song. It sounds like a sister song (well, I guess it could be a brother song) to "Famous" from Get Lost.
Hiram
Yes, I've often wondered if "Rot in the Sun" was a first draft of "Famous"! It's a pity this wasn't more known, but I think that great line in the first verse, "You get signed to a major Top 40 label/Blow David Geffen, blow Seymour Stein" was probably seen as impolitic by the folks at London Records...
Turntable's a bit fast...
wow, i can't believe this is still available 2 1/2 years later. Great song. I have this on vinyl (b/w robert scott's heaven in a black leather jacket.) Incidentially, wasps nests was the very last cassette I ever bought - the store had no cd's of the album, and i had to have it because of the dean wareham track. anyway, thanks for posting this so long ago...
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