Music

You Need to Hear this Song #8

Heavy Rotation — Nothing Lasts Forever, Echo and the Bunnymen (Evergreen 1997)

Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that one way or another got a lot of airplay. It referred to the large amount of rotation that a particular record got on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.

Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, though in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.

For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song that you come back to from time to time and still feels just as good.

This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.

Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, a bit about where the song fits into its history and where the song fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?

I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a YouTube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.

What song is in your head right now? Here’s one that won’t leave mine today:

#8 — Nothing Lasts Forever, Echo and the Bunnymen (Evergreen 1997)

Echo and the Bunnymen had been around a long time — since the early 80s in fact — before I caught up with them in the late 90s. I was vaguely aware of them but only insofar as their cover of the Doors’ “People are Strange” from the Lost Boys film soundtrack.

It was perfect timing for them to enter my life because both the (Seattle) Grunge and (Manchester) Britpop that had been filling my ears were, for all intents and purposes, almost completely played out by then.

Echo and the Bunnymen had been a part of neither of these scenes, a fact which by the end of the decade, served them well.

Right around the time Britpop was exploding in the early 90s, they had already imploded after their first 6 albums, which featured such “alternative” new wave / pop legends as Lips Like Sugar, Bring on the Dancing Horses, The Cutter, and The Killing Moon, on the back of the vocals and songwriting of Ian McCulloch and the guitar playing of Will Sergeant.

But jump ahead and now it was 1997 and Echo and the Bunnymen sensed the moment, reminding us of the earlier greatness with Evergreen, which would be a comeback album of sorts for them. Slickly produced, full of straight ahead power pop classics, it is an album that I can listen to start to finish, 25 years later, and feel like I still get what they were going for in all the songs.

A standout track of the year, for me, was Nothing Lasts Forever, which stood out as well from the rest of the album as a bit of a slow churner.

Whereas the thread of most of the other songs on the album is one of optimism and looking forward to better days, Nothing Lasts Forever has McCulloch coming at the listener at his world weary, end of the century, jaded best. He has seen it all.

An intro of acoustic guitar and soft brush drums bring us to the first vocal at 00:14 “I want it now / I want it now / Not the promises of what tomorrow brings”. He’s not interested in what may or may not come and he’s also just “trying to / trying to / trying to forget”. The past is no good either.

The first chorus comes in at 1:12 and yes, that is indeed Liam Gallagher on backing vocals, probably at the height of his powers at that time. Good ear. A string arrangement and the message that “nothing ever lasts forever” soars. It matches the raw melodic power of McCulloch’s distinctive Liverpool voice.

A piano bridge at 3:00 and a final reminder that good or bad, you have to live right now. “All the shadows and the pain / are coming to you”, so sit with them a bit, whatever happened. They won’t be there forever.

It’s a beautiful song with a simple message. McCulloch and Sergeant have made 6 more albums since Evergreen (more than in their first go around) and are still touring. Maybe things can last a little longer still.

The live version here says yes.

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