My Top 1000 Songs #216: Some Jingle Jangle Morning

Singer-songwriter Mary Lou Lord has always had a lot of jingle-jangle in her melodic indie folk-pop tunes. Title aside, though, this track breaks the mold, a heavily distorted blast of power pop (overlaying a Byrdsy hook) that betrays more of her proximity to the early 90s Seattle grunge scene (and Kurt Cobain friendship) than her more typical fare. After its initial appearance as a rough-hewn 1993 indie single, it was polished up a bit (while retaining its bubbly energy) for her 1998 debut long-player Got No Shadow, a standout among the album's gentler tracks.

Lyrically, there's a hint of the drugs & darkness that have haunted Lord's life & surroundings, as the song parses through unrequited love and absent friends--"I was too freaked out to deal with it all, and too fucked up to care. I stood right there and watched it fall apart." But with Lord's sweetly girlish vocals out front, it's a hopelessly buoyant tune with a singalong chorus to die for, the rousing melody and fizzed-out guitars barely concealing its sad resignation. "I love to watch you walk, and I love to hear you talk. But there's nothing I can say to make you feel the same way."

The more stripped-down original version:

Live in 1998: