MUSINGS ABOUT MUSIC

The Lost Irony of an Australian Cult Hit

Roland S Howard and “Shivers”

Written by iconic post-punk guitarist Roland S Howard at the age of just 16, “Shivers” is one of the most popular cult hits in Australian music. It’s my favourite Australian song and has nothing to do with Ed Sheeran’s song of the same name.

Many consider “Shivers” the reason for the Boys Next Door/Birthday Party and Nick Cave’s success. The “Shivers” original, recorded by Howard’s band, the Young Charlatans, in 1978, appears to have an entirely different meaning behind the song. In later years, both Howard and Cave distanced themselves from the song. But there’s no doubt that “Shivers” is an enduring underground masterpiece about the adolescent agony of being in love.

When you hear Cave’s famously pained delivery on the Boys Next Door version, you may not realise that Howard intended the “Shivers” original to be humorously ironic. Howard was a teenager when he wrote the song, surrounded by kids navigating their first romances.

“‘Shivers’ was intended as an ironic comment on the way that I felt that people I knew were making hysterical things out of what were essentially high school crushes.” Roland S Howard

Howard found his peers’ reactions to love and crushes “incredibly insincere and blown out of proportion.” This inspired the cynical lyrics and delivery of the “Shivers” original version.

Composition and recording

Howard composed “Shivers” on his Ibanez Gibson Firebird copy, the same electric guitar he later performed the song’s first known recording. In 1978, the Young Charlatans recorded “Shivers” as part of a series of unreleased demos. The recordings featured Howard on vocals and guitar, Ollie Olsen on guitar, Janine Hall on bass, and Jeff Wegener on drums. Au Go Go Records co-founder, former owner of the Tote, and RRR broadcaster Bruce Milne recorded the Young Charlatans demos for a future single on his label.

Young Charlatans version

In the late 1970s, the Young Charlatans performed the “Shivers” original live at the 13 concerts they performed over their career. They released a recording in April 1981 on Fast Forward 004, a cassette compilation put out by another of Milne’s projects, Fast Forward Magazine. By that time, the Young Charlatans had disbanded. The 2006 compilation CD Inner City Sound: Australian Punk & Post-Punk also featured the “Shivers” original recording.

The Young Charlatans version of “Shivers” is much rawer than the Boys Next Door version. The guitars are jangly with a definite punk influence. And you can hear the irony in Howard’s vocal delivery.

1978 was an eventful year. Howard wrote, recorded, and performed the “Shivers” original with the Young Charlatans. The group disbanded, and he then joined the Boys Next Door as their guitarist. The new lineup performed “Shivers” live with Howard on vocals and Cave on guitar.

The Boys Next Door recording

In January 1979, at Richmond Recorders in Melbourne, the Boys Next Door recorded “Shivers” during sessions for their debut studio album, Door, Door.

Engineer, Tony Cohen, suggested Howard perform the vocals since he’d already been singing the song live and his voice best suited his own composition. But Cave was the Boys Next Door’s regular vocalist, and he insisted on singing on the recording. In hindsight, Cave said Howard’s vocals should have been recorded, as he was “never able to do that song justice.”

“Shivers” became the tenth and final track on Door, Door, released on Mushroom Records. In May 1979, the song was released as the album’s only single, with “Dive Position” on the B-side. The single quickly went out of print, requiring a second pressing later that year.

“Shivers” received critical acclaim and became a major underground success in Australia. Cave cited the song as the main reason behind the Boys Next Door’s eminence.

“It’s impressive how, even at this early stage, Nick Cave was a confident and unique singer, perfectly aware of the strengths and limitations of his voice … he knows how to come across in a scary and theatrical manner that perfectly complements the music. Nowhere is this more apparent than on … ‘Shivers’, an unashamedly melodramatic example of post-adolescent anguish.” Will Lerner, AllMusic

According to Stereogum writer Dan Lawrence, “Shivers” and other songs written by Howard were “crucial to guiding the band in the darker, wilder direction” that defined both the Boys Next Door’s and the Birthday Party’s music.

The Birthday Party

In 1980, the Boys Next Door moved to London and changed their name to the Birthday Party. Their recordings of “Shivers” are credited to the Boys Next Door. As the Birthday Party, the band performed “Shivers” with their standard line-up of Cave on vocals, Howard and Mick Harvey on guitar, Tracy Pew on bass, and Phill Calvert on drums.

Blacklisted by Molly Meldrum

While neither the single “Shivers” nor the album Door, Door sold in massive numbers, their impact was both immediate and lasting. “Shivers” set Cave up with a gothic persona and angst-filled voice that served him well throughout his music career.

Australian music stalwart, Molly Meldrum, blacklisted the song due to the subject matter of the opening line, but this did nothing to dim the popularity of “Shivers.” The 7″ release was in such demand that it didn’t go out of print for nearly ten years.

Video clip

In 1979, Australian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer Paul Goldman directed a music video for “Shivers” for a first-year assignment at the Swinburne Film and Television School.

I’m not sure if this is the music video Paul Goldman directed, but you can still admire a young, goth Nick Cave.

Differences between the versions

The Boys Next Door version of “Shivers” is certainly more polished than the Young Charlatans' version. It opens with piano instead of guitar and, to me, sounds more goth than punk like the “Shivers” original.

What did Howard think of Cave’s delivery of his song? Years after “Shivers” was released, he said that as a result of Cave’s vocal delivery, the song was:

“… interpreted completely differently and now the song, to most peoples’ minds, is something completely different from what I intended it to be.” Roland S Howard

Impossible to distance

Howard distanced himself from “Shivers,” but it remained his most requested song throughout his lifetime. He felt frustrated that “Shivers” overshadowed all his other work for a long period.

“I have just tried, perhaps finally successfully, to divorce myself from the song. It’s impossible for me to recreate what I was trying to do when I wrote that song so whilst I can see that people have an attachment to it, I don’t. I feel like, when I did use to do it in shows, I was doing a cover of some song that had been around forever. That’s how it felt. And I guess that is a strange way to feel about a song you wrote, so yeah, I am happy to not have to do it these days.” Roland S Howard, October 2009

It makes sense that an accomplished musician in his 40s wouldn’t want to be remembered for a song he wrote as a teenager, but it’s still a heck of a good song.

Other covers

Various artists covered “Shivers,” including Marie Hoy (in the iconic 1986 film, Dogs in Space), Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace, the Screaming Jets (bringing the song mainstream in 1992), Courtney Barnett (produced by Jack White), and Divine Fits.

Roland S Howard’s legacy

Howard made significant contributions to the Australian music scene over his 35-year music career. And “Shivers” is part of those contributions. I love the Boys Next Door version and Cave’s delivery, but I prefer the Young Charlatans’ “Shivers” original. It’s raw and sung how Howard intended it to be sung.

“Rowland Howard’s (RIP) ability to write utterly haunting tunes was just magical. Totally one of the most important figures in the history of indie rock and a LARGE part of why Nick Cave has had such a successful career.” Tyler Kasuboski, YouTube comment

Roland S Howard passed away in Melbourne in 2009. He was 50 years old.

I talk more about Howard in my interview with Plethora of Pop’s Charlie Cole.

References

Celebrating 40 years of Shivers by the Boys Next Door

Courtney Barnett and Jack White give us Shivers by tackling an Australian classic

Is this our best song of all time

Shivers (The Boys Next Door Song)

A note on the text: I published an earlier version of this article on my old website, unknown-original.com. I’ve since let that site expire and am transferring the articles to this platform. However, someone has re-registered the domain and plagiarised a badly-written and bot-edited version of my articles, including this one. I am the original author of both this article and the one on unknown-original.com. Don’t read the other article.

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