Wrecks by Lach

Wrecks - The Story Behind The Song (Feb.12, 2023)

This is one of my earliest songs. My band, Proper Id, was playing shows at CBGB's, and this was a lyrical snapshot of those nights; while the punked-out G to Am vamp was a nod to Hello, I Love You by The Doors.

I started recording Wrecks a few weeks ago, and parts of the old lyrics seemed dated. I heard Tom Verlaine died while I was reading about Thomas Wolfe's influence on Jack Kerouac. With all that spinning about, Wrecks felt less like a narrative description of a night out at a punk club and more like an abstract canvas holding all these concurrent and old influences together. Thus, the new line "Boys made of neon", as Tom's band before Television was The Neon Boys (The magical drummer for Television, Billy Ficca, was my drummer too). The line "Stumble homeward, sweet angel" is from the title of Wolfe's novel Look Homeward, Angel. I felt the song now needed something French - Tom was named after the French poet Paul Verlaine, Morrison is buried in France, and Kerouac was French Canadian. I looked at the tombstones of the artists involved, but none of the epitaphs translated well. Then I remembered a line that a character in my new novel, Langdimania, quotes, and I added it as the last line of the song. It's from Napoleon's farewell to his old guard.

Then, there's that bizarre sound collage break. Well, as the lyrics were a collage, why not take it one step further? First, I layered five guitar tracks, but knew it needed something else. I wanted a train sound, yeah, that's the ticket, oh wait, ticket - now I also wanted a French conductor asking for tickets, and of course a French woman shouting! I researched movies that are out of copyright and found Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, perfect! I downloaded it, and then I downloaded a French version as well. I watched the English version, taking notes for usable dialogue. Then I found those same bits in the French version and recorded them using my Rhode mic. Then, the old William Burroughs cut and paste at random magic, and voilà!

The train sounds are from 1920s films of French steam locomotives. The cover art features a photo of Margaret Lockwood from the film. Oh yeah, one trick I'm proud of is that I repeated the sibilant "ess" sound at the end of the last "Wrecks" and let it fade into the steaming chug-chug of the train to help carry the listener into the scene.

Lach, founder of the Antifolk movement and star of BBC Radio 4's The Lach Chronicles.

‘Beat-punk-unplugged joy!’-The Guardian UK

‘Splendid! Best of it's kind!’- Mojo

‘Incredibly bright, influential, funny, poetic.’-Suzanne Vega

‘Best punk guitarist since Johnny Ramone.’-Billy Ficca of Televis

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