User Profile

I'm pretty much obsessed with this song lately, despite that it only has two chords and he seems to be making it up as he goes. At about 1:45 I swear he improvises the central lead-guitar riff, and like a kid with a new discovery he can't help showing it off for the next minute. Then comes a surely freeform and seriously strange solo with a mistake in the first ten seconds. But he doesn't care; like he says, he loves to wander. And by 3:30 he's discovered a new riff and proceeds to hammer us with it, faster and faster, before the breakdown and the simple-beautiful backing vocals. "And so it came to pass / That is, once upon a time..." And as we fade he's off soloing again. Who cares if it sounds like a Velvets outtake? To me Tom Verlaine is God's guitarist: I can hear all my eighties postpunk heroes in his style. And he's free! Unfettered! An abstract expressionist. The band rocks too. Weirdest singing style ever of course, but I'm even warming to that a little. Forget "Marquee Moon", this is Verlaine gold.