Lloyd Are You Ready To Be Boozing Again?

An examination of the lyrics of Lloyd Cole and his fondness for drinking references 1984 to 2013

Rattlesnakes was an absolute classic right out of the box.

That was Lloyd Cole and Commotions, later as Lloyd Cole solo his song writing just got better. I have been listening to Cole for a long time and right throughout I have always been intrigued by some of his lyrical quirks including the incidence of booze to cheer up a line or two. Or sometimes to evoke a late night feel to the protagonist and their place in the song’s tale.

So here it is an examination of all those lines and maybe what it means.

Rattlesnakes is the first album and song two/line two is all it takes: ‘Speedboat’ with a nod to the Renata Adler novel of the same name sneaks in “Wine and cigarettes and we’ll never get no sleep.”

It is young people in the daze of bright lights, long nights and channelling some Leonard Cohen. However that is it for this album of essaying a bunch of characters who aspire to modern literary lives. There is bound to be a drink or two in the background of any student circles but they are not overt here.

From that low alcohol start though, bigger binging emerges.

Easy Pieces is the second album and following up a modern classic was always going to be a challenge.

Nonetheless this is a fine album that has aged well. Song one ‘Rich’ is actually rich and luscious with a bolstering horn section that pumps the track along. It is a tale of lament and failure. The protagonist not only fell off the wheels but also could not face: “… the thought of another day without a drink.”

The second song ‘Why I Love Country Music’ is of course a tale of woe with beautifully understated backing. Cole is in fine form narrating the drinking of Spanish wine and seeing to the empty wine and whisky bottles as part of the clean-up. ‘Lost Weekend’ is a gem of a song. It beats along at a jaunty clip to counterpoint the dark lyric. It has some of Cole’s finest verse-making therein.

Whilst there is no direct mention of the booze it is a lost weekend in a foreign city overcoming the breakdown of a relationship … I will take that as implied.

Album three for the student bedsit eighties heroes begets, Mainstream.

This has them sounding a little jaded. Gone is any pomp of horn sections, and the overall feel is a reflective ennui, coming down from some success hangovers maybe. This is no more so than on the song ‘29’ which refers to someone on the cusp of thirty in age and heading into a more mature life, no longer needs the hanging around in back street bars. That is a lament many of us can relate to now.

The title track ‘Mainstream’ delivers another languid ode and has the marvellous: “Riding the elevator shafts with your hip flask …” Not sure shaft/flask has made a rhyming couplet before.

With that pop star adolescence is put to bed.

A new decade, a new country and city (New York) has Lloyd solo and “… trading holy water for cheap wine” on ‘Waterline.’

The protagonist is also running out of time and “… trading my whiskey for your wine.” This is the stunning first up solo album with Robert Quine on guitars, Mathew Sweet on bass, and Fred Mather on drums and production that opens with the guitar shimmering ‘Don’t Look Back.’ Cheap wine appears to suit the moody looking cover photo. On ‘Mercy Killing’ the opening line is “Shirley, I love you ’til I’m drunk” and descends into the uncoupling of a relationship gone bad.

The album is simply called Lloyd Cole.

Still with the same team of musical talent 1991’s Don’t Get Weird on me Babe continues a fine song writing run.

‘Butterfly’ is an unusual keyboard/strings driven tune with sparse percussion. It is a haunting tune and lyrically dark with the love interest finding that love and pain are “… just like wine and champagne” and the tour de force line: “You could drink a little more, then you hurt a little less.” Which leads later in the album to track eight: ‘Weeping Wine.’

This one has it all - the protagonist is a love interest hard to impress and she is: “… drinking on borrowed time” whilst the narrator laments that he is “… the last thing you’ll need is me and my weeping wine.” The song fades out with the backing vocals on a cadence of “weeping wine” but there is surely a lyrical pun and inflection that the narrator is a weeping whine ….

Finally on this album the lot of the narrator gets no better with ‘To the Lions.’ In between some tasty and mean guitar licks he is down on his luck, losing the girl, the church, and work, so what else to do but “… drinking’ about noon.” It does not get better as the week progresses, hitting the bar on a Sunday and selling his soul to a mean bartender.

Few do down on your luck stories as well as Lloyd Cole and an ace band behind him.

Into the 1990s and Lloyd is looking more moodier and thoroughly backed into a corner on the cover art to Bad Vibes.

Disheveled and down is now the established motif for many a tune and on ‘My Way To You’ there is redemption in the lines: “When I couldn’t find my way home … When I couldn’t drink myself sober … I found you.” ‘Fall Together’ has a sharp guitar riff and some controlled anger in the spat-out lyrics including, “… now your brokers on the phone/From the land of wine and plates.”

A fine put down of someone not envied.

Love Story in 1995 in delivers well on song three, ‘Love Ruins Everything’ where an acoustic guitar leads the tale of a grown up reflecting on changing circumstances: “… where did I go wrong? Ask all my drunken friends/Who’s going to carry us home? /Who’s going to drink till the morning?”

On ‘Sentimental Fool’ a couple are not in alignment and Cole brings some fine lyrics including rhyming “tale for you/fool” with “Draining the glass for you.”

A new millennium, a new band, Lloyd had been jamming with New York musicians and a new vehicle is formed: The Negatives, albeit dressed in the livery of Lloyd Cole so the album is called The Negatives.

The pickings are slim, but it is a fine album. Only on ‘Past Imperfect’ do we get something with a bartender reference: “I met a bartender at 3 of Clubs/Which is somewhere in LA”. It is a hark back to Rattlesnakes with a short story vignette narrative and just perfect music backing on a low-key track.

Music in a Foreign Language. What an album name and on two tracks we are boozing again.

‘Late Night, Early Time’ has a title of much promise and has quiet low key musical backing to some of Cole’s finest lyrical imagery, how about: “… college graduates acting as would be desperadoes … Failing to pace themselves against the grain/Strung out on semantics.” Ouch!

Later there is reference to the shadow of the minibar. On ‘No More Love Songs’ the musical backing is exquisite, guitar picking and some gentle pedal steel. As in the title it is a lament, and you get: “I gave her whiskey/And she gave me everything” and later “I’ll drink to harmony.”

The mid 2000s gives us Anti Depressant and as for the last album things are still low key.

Of course a track titled ‘Woman in a Bar’ is going to deliver. It is a slow burn narration presented in screenplay or drama play fashion. We get a protagonist with “paper and beer” and the titular bar walk in.

Meanwhile on ‘Everysong’ he breaks down the fourth wall and plays tricks with a reference to being halfway through the song at the same time the protagonists are halfway through listening to a song. It is Dylanesque and harmonica led.

As for the booze? Well it is the wine that is going cheap. ‘Travelling Light’ picks up the ennui of moving through places and the wonderful couplet of: “If not for twisted guidance counsellors in spite/Of sympathetic bartenders intent to do me right.”

Broken Record in 2010 is slim with just the one reference. It is Cole’s bluegrass record which is a long way from Rattlesnakes but not so far from the moody acoustic tunes in the 2000s.

Break out the banjo’s, the pedal steel, the harmony vocals, and put on the pretence of looking a million bucks, “It’s just a champagne party …’ at the ‘Westchester County Jail.”

With Standards in 2013 the music magazine reviewers hailed it as his best since Rattlesnakes, a return to form.

I am not sure he ever lost form just lost visibility to many. Nonetheless it is a fine album and easily up with his best work with a strong collection of songs. None more so than ‘Women’s Studies’ where a return to University lives allows much lyrical splendour set to a tasty guitar riff. It includes the wonderful lines about writing ones’ dissertation: “On the barstools of your neighbourhood/But the bars are full with lawyers …” Along with the lines that sum that phase of life for all of us: “We were young and we were stupid.” Whilst on ‘Silver Lake’ it is back to morbid low reflection and a lot of scope for booze therapy, hence we get: “We’ll go to the racetrack and drink some wine … if we get lucky we’ll go top shelf.”

Judging from the tone of the song they did not get lucky often.

Cole finishes the decade with 2019’s Guesswork and like Standards a strong and fine addition to the canon. The cover art shows an older wise profile than the earlier editions. Alas along with youth the booze has gone too.

There we have it. Whilst Lloyd also likes to reference place (often Los Angeles, sometimes New York, the many literary winks, and the odd nod to fellow songwriters (a Dylan half line here a Johnny Thunders there). It is the drinking and boozing that stood out most for me.

Playing all these songs again and listening intently for those boozing reference I am left in awe of his lyrical deftness, his ear for story telling, and the long legacy of fine lyricism. That’s it, it is closing time …