My Top 2000 Songs #1086: Pink Turns To Blue

Fourth Hüsker Dü track on the list, and seems pretty clear my sympathies lean towards the Grant Hart side of the equation (not that there's been any shortage of Bob Mould appreciation in these parts). Particularly when it comes to 1984's Zen Arcade. I recognize the double LP has its afficionados, but I find it largely unlistenable, way too noisy and shrill and largely devoid of recognizable hooks (in contrast to the massive 1985 one-two punch of New Day Rising & Flip Your Wig, which won me over to the band). The bright spots on Zen are plainly Hart's. The jangly, acoustic "Never Talking To You Again" sounds like nothing else in their catalog, and is quite lovely (albeit in large part within the context of breaking up the din of the record). 

"Pink Turns To Blue," in contrast, retains the noisy fizz of the surrounding work, but in service of some catchy dream pop. It feels almost like a prelude to the Jesus & Mary Chain, whose Psychocandy debut the following year would expand on the formula of taking a pretty pop song and burying it in distortion. As with the rest of the Huskers' catalog, I wish it could be remixed to give it a little more punch, so Hart's drums didn't sound like slapping mashed potatoes with a spoon, but as is there's a joy in the melding of fizzy atmospherics with furious post-punk.

Live 1985:

Grant Hart, live 1992:

Cover by Tim Panic:

Very different cover...