It's So Hard To Love When Love Was Your Great Disappointment

I found this review of Rattlesnakes (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions that I wrote in February 2006, which I wanted to share.

The review's opening comment about my youth being firmly in the past is felt evenly more keenly by the sobering realisation that Rattlesnakes celebrated its 40th anniversary last year.

Anyhoo... over to my younger self.

A twentieth anniversary reissue for the band’s debut album, more evidence that my teenage years are rapidly retreating into the past. It’s difficult to place these songs in the glossy mid-1980s, thanks to a combination of sharp lyrics, an unusual (for a mainstream UK ‘pop’ band) predilection for country music and deft production from Paul Hardiman. 

During my “headphone years”, when songs were played in a dimly lit bedroom and the narrative meant as much as the melody, Rattlesnakes ranked up there with The The’s Soul Mining and The Smiths’ Hatful Of Hollow and, on reflection, has stood the test of time.

There’s no sense of filler, with ten songs clocking in at just over half an hour and a near flawless running order. The statement of intent is there from the outset, with Perfect Skin's declaration that 

I choose my friends only far too well 

I’m up on the pavement

They’re all down in the cellar 

with their government grants and my IQ

It was perhaps inevitable that, like The Smiths, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions would be pigeonholed as ‘student bedsit soundtrack music’, given the lyrical references to Norman Mailer, Love’s Arthur Lee and Eve Marie Saint, and love songs about girls with “cheekbones like geometry” who “know how to spell ‘audaciously’”. 

Yet Cole’s admittedly maudlin delivery is balanced with humour and strong melodies, arguably equalling The Smiths in this respect. 

Speedboat is a great example, with it’s swampy sound underscored by the narrator’s admission that 

It was just not my style to find surf in my eye

It was much more my style to get sand kicked in my eye

Another is closing track Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?, where the central character, “pumped up full of vitamins”, is advised “If you really want to get straight / read Norman Mailer / or get a new tailor.” 

Writer Julie Burchill dismissed them at the time as a “country and western Velvet Underground”, though this is a fair – if simplistic – description. 

The second CD is a curiosity, containing demos, live tracks, radio sessions and B-sides from the era. The live tracks demonstrate that, as a performer, Cole sounded every bit as uncomfortable as his characters, but it’s interesting to hear an alternative take on Charlotte Street, with awkward, excess verses that were thankfully excised from the superior studio recording. 

The BBC Radio 1 sessions are enjoyable, particularly Forest Fire and Speedboat, but again do not surpass the originals. The B-sides themselves are mostly forgettable, with a few exceptions, notably Andy’s Babies and Jesus Said, though there’s no sense that the Rattlesnakes album would have been stronger for their inclusion. 

In that sense, the Deluxe Edition works well, by keeping the original album intact and separate from the generous quantity of bonus tracks. Another plus is the lavishly illustrated booklet, which features song by song commentary from the band members. 

There are some great quotes throughout, my favourite by keyboardist Blair Cowan, describing an encounter with goth gods The Sisters Of Mercy whilst recording Charlotte Street: 

“The [Sisters Of Mercy] were in the same studio 

and on a scorching summer afternoon 

we played them at tennis. 

We were in shorts, t-shirts and trainers 

and they wore Cuban heels, black drain pipes, 

black polo necks, black everything. 

They beat us.”