Painting Smiles on a Dead Man (Lolita; (French) 5005) - 1983 .

Where the songs came from

by Joe Nolte

Oh dear, this one. In the wake of our "Summer of many fifth members" in '81, we realized we'd better do something before we were forgotten entirely. We began working on a demo tape in early Fall at Radio Tokyo studios (the "Red Demo" tape), only to have brother David quit on October 24, after completing his bass tracks We finished the demo at the end of March 1982 (in the process sneaking down to Orange County Recorders in mid March to redo two "Look Again" songs - "Everybody Had It With You" and "Snake in the Grass" - with up and coming producer Randy Burns) and shopped it. No one wanted it. We subsequently took three songs from the full demo to release as the "Up In The Air" single in November of '82, went back to Radio Tokyo to record "It Had To Be You" for the studio's upcoming compilation, and in the process got Ethan to let us tape one more new song - "Lightning Strikes". By this time Vitus had hooked up an 8 Track setup at the Venice garage we practiced in, and I had gotten word that Rhino was planning a "Best of Louie Louie" album. The perverse idea of doing to "Louie Louie" what we'd done to "Be Bop A Lula" seemed irresistible, so we inaugurated the new machine with a gothic, dirge like version. It made the album. A year or two later, after all hope was pretty much gone, a French label called "Lolita" (subsidiary of Eva Records) expressed interest in releasing a new Last album. So we took the aforementioned mess and gave it to them. We pretty much knew we'd failed by this point, and it was only a matter of time before the band as it then existed began to dissolve. Knowing this, Vitus and I concocted some rather hilarious liner notes, chronicling the various member departures and band debacles that underscored the recordings on the record. Our manager at the time, Rhino's Gary Stewart, subsequently (I'm fairly sure) convinced album artist Don Brown to render the colors in such a way that the offensive liner notes would be unreadable. I have provided brother Dan with a "color corrected" version.

You see, it was too little too late. These were recordings that we were not particularly proud of, but it was all we had. Since I'd abrogated control of the band in the Spring of 1980 (for which I unfortunately must take full responsibility, though I assure you it will never happen again), we'd been rudderless, without purpose, without plan. The idea of releasing by now three year old recordings that weren't that good to begin with, the idea of passing a bunch of failed demos off as new product, seemed ludicrous, like trying to . . . like trying to . . . Like trying to paint a smile on a dead man. Hence the title. .

WRONG TURN Listen to a clip of this song: (MP3) .

(written Dec 10, 1980) A very appropriate title, and possibly a good alternate title for this album! We were, in late '80, indeed about to embark on one wrong turn after another, leaving first the hardcore and then the pop scenes behind, eventually sinking into a swamp of our own creation by the mid '80s, unnoticed, unseen, unknown, and unmissed. We'd just dumped Mike in the fall of '80 - our second mistake (the first was letting Jack get away a year earlier). The "Look Again" album had, as the year waned, proved itself unmarketable. Our master plan had failed, and we noticed that attendance had been dropping off a bit during the last six months. It was a disturbing time, and I wasn't feeling much like writing. For some reason, as November turned into December I began to write furiously, not really knowing why. I had about three songs done when I heard the news about John Lennon . . . Of course, five minutes after hearing about that I discovered that Darby Crash had also died, and this song wrote itself. The opening riff is stolen from the Germs' "Gimme Gimme", there's a melodic riff stolen from the Beatles' "Help" (about 1 1/2 measures' worth), and at the end I started singing lines from Lennon's "Starting Over" and the Germs' original fadeout to "Forming" - both of which were left out of the final mix, unfortunately. Darby is "the one whose name was washed away by stars more visible", and the third member of this "trilogy of infamy" is JFK, whose assassination helped create Beatlemania in America, and whose dabbling in Southeast Asia would unite a generation against an unpopular war. Hence the line about the ghosts of all the dead soldiers who "will not be denied the right to ask him why they had to fight". My songwriting flurry continued throughout December, though all subsequent songs came out sounding a bit too much like vintage Beatle outtakes from 1963. It seemed appropriate at the time, but this batch was used against me later by fellow band members as proof that I was losing my touch. Hell, by that point, I'd lost everything. .

IT HAD TO BE YOU Listen to a clip of this song: (Real Audio).

(written Feb 16, 1981) I was on the verge of a musical writer's block that would last from early '81 till about July of 1987. I didn't stop writing, per se, but I wrote fewer songs than before, and most of them were more calculated, less genuinely inspired than the stuff I've done before or since. A dark period, creatively. This is probably one of the first of those "manufactured" songs (though honors for my first abrogation of creative duty must go to "Isn't Anybody There", coming up next). The chorus was put together out of two musical phrases that had been lying around for some time, and the verse was musically a fairly wooden attempt to invoke the spirit of "She Don't Know Why". Lyrically, I have nothing to say. It's a fake song about a fake relationship, and was written just to write something. Needing a riff, we took a non-recorded Vitus song (called "In Her Eyes"? - have to check), and he did it as a flute instrumental for the opening and the middle part. My girlfriend at the time was Gwynne Kahn, who reminded me after the fact that her grandfather had written the original "It Had To Be You". Interesting . . . .

ISN'T ANYBODY THERE .

(written Oct 13, 1980) An isolated piece, since, as previously stated, I was not writing much throughout the latter half of 1980 until the end of November. Our manager suggested one afternoon that I try to write a song with a story, so I came up with this completely manufactured piece of drivel, laden with deliberate and manufactured hooks, about a runaway who meets her fate in the Horrible City. An abysmal concoction of cliches, but some people liked it. I always dreaded doing this song live. Not that it's musically bad, per se, but it wasn't really something I wanted to be doing. All too soon, I would be doing nothing that I wanted to be doing. .

LIGHTNING STRIKES .

(written Jul 4, 1982) Musically, written for "D", who I would later marry. Lyrically, well, at the time I was incapable of writing lyrics. Truthfully. We would rehearse this and others with me just uttering strange syllables into the mike. I finally dashed off some very manufactured lyrics when it was time to record, and consequently I couldn't tell you what they were to this day, though I remember lyrics written ten years earlier with absolute clarity. Musically, the chorus came first, and I do have some affection for it. The verses are filler material, though I do like the riff that augers in the subsequent chorus. This was to be my creative method of operating during the grim early '80's - occasional moments of melody sinking under a sea of filler. You know, doing notes for this album is really getting depressing . . . .

LOUIE LOUIE Listen to a clip of this song: (Real Audio).

(arranged mid to late '82) I found out in mid '82 that Rhino was going to put together a "Best of Louie Louie" album. We were shopping the "red demo" (the bulk of this album) at the time, and I was beginning to realize that a magic record deal was not necessarily on the horizon, and that we still had not released anything new since '79, with the sole exception of Bomp's "Fade to Black" ep. I was inspired to do to "Louie Louie" what I'd done to "Be Bop a Lula" - i.e. turn it into a minor key, gloomy, gothic mess. We recorded it right away, and played it for Rhino's Harold Bronson, who was delighted. We were in. To the inevitable question: "Well, why didn't Rhino do a Last album?" I can only respond with: they knew better. .

DECEMBER SONG .

(written Dec 4, 1980) The only song from the aforementioned December songwriting flurry to make it on this album that was actually created before John Lennon's death. It was, even then, a gloomy time for me, and a gloomy song seemed gloomily appropriate. Obviously, it's indirectly about suicide. .

EVERYBODY HAD IT WITH YOU .

(written Spring 1980, revised to its detriment late 1981) Exactly the same song found on "Look Again", but I changed the beat to give it a new feel, probably indirectly inspired by Great Buildings. Not as good as the original, I'm afraid. .

WEEKEND GIRL .

(written early Fall 1978, rewritten Spring 1980, revised Summer 1981) The original was written about a girl I worked with ("P", I think) at a burger joint. It was an exploration of the love/hate compulsion that draws one to that sort of girl one knows in advance is going to lead him on, then reach in and pull his heart out unmercifully, stomping all over it before waltzing away laughing. You know the type, I'm sure. We know better, but, especially on Friday nights, they are so often irresistible. We are but moths drawn irrevocably to the flame. I completely revamped the song for "Look Again", changing almost everything, and now it was about "G", who I could never hook up with since she only went to pop shows and I only went to punk shows. (A year later she only went to punk shows and I only went to pop shows.) We recorded it for "Look Again", but it didn't make the cut. I therefore revised it yet again, probably to its detriment, for the "red demo", and that is the version heard here. It's mostly the same as on "Look Again". .

FAILING HEART .

(probably written mid '81) Vitus wrote this. He was now writing on guitar, and demoing his songs with our drummer, John Frank, who clearly enjoyed playing just with Vitus than with the band as a whole. I should have turned the band over to Vitus and walked away gracefully. At any rate, I never liked the Vitus guitar songs nearly as much as his earlier keyboard songs, but as my current stuff was execrable I really didn't have a case to make. .

LEPER COLONY Listen to a clip of this song: (Real Audio).

(probably written mid '81) Vitus wrote this with Kjehl from the Urinals (aka 100 Flowers). As with "Failing Heart" and others, not my cup of tea, but fine for what it is. The song is based on a true story. Vitus (in '76 or '77, I believe) was journeying through South America to visit a German uncle. He had to cross a piranha infested river on a rickety raft, vying for space with many peasants. Halfway across, the raft fell apart, leaving Vitus to swim for his life while hearing the cries of the drowning and dying behind him. .

WHAT IS IN THERE Listen to a clip of this song: (Real Audio).

(written Dec 19, 1980) The lyrics to the original song were written by brother David in '77, while he was still in the Descendents. I wrote music for it, and liked it enough to steal it from the Descendents. We never recorded it, though, and in my December flurry I took the chorus and added an all-too Beatleish set of verses. I don't know if a tape exists of the original . . . .

UP IN THE AIR Listen to a clip of this song: (Real Audio).

(I believe written Fall '81) Another Vitus song. I like this one 'cause I get to do a bloodcurdling scream halfway through. As originally written, the riff for this one turned out to be "Rock Lobster", so Vitus went back and came up with a new one. Another true story - one of Vitus' relatives (grandfather, I believe) was anti-Nazi, but stuck in Germany during World War II. One day, he'd had enough, and so when the next air raid hit he calmly opened the door to his house and walked outside . . .