Mott the Hoople, "I Wish I Was Your Mother" (1973)

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Sometimes I get the feeling this song might have fit just as neatly on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde—Ian Hunter clearly was a student, and this is pretty well imbued with various familiar Dylan tricks and stylings, such as the phrasing, and the way he pushes the vocal from just below his throat, giving it a strained and exhausted feeling, not to mention of course the whole upside-down, inside-out, and vaguely surreal thrust of the lyrics, which effectively free-associate off a theme that would seem to trace back most directly to classic Freudian preoccupations (I'm not sure how often Dylan actually went Freudian quite this explicitly, but set that aside for the moment). Most of all, as I realized the other day walking around with the tune stuck in my head but not sure for a few minutes what it was, it sneaks up on you in the form of a gentle lullaby, inflected by gorgeous mandolin textures. That's at least disconcerting in the context of the album it comes from, Mott, an extended, determinedly narcissistic meditation on the foibles of glam-rock and maybe, by extension, a wider rock 'n' roll lifestyle then extant. Hotel rooms, airports, 'ludes, your instrument, and the notebook you write in. It's a perfect ending to a very good album, reaching deep and offering parallels in the most unexpected places. Today it occurred to me that, in a way, it throws a spotlight on Lillian Gish in Intolerance (and, later, in The Night of the Hunter), rocking the cradles of history and longing and human foolishness on the porch of time, suffering the pains and secret joys only parents know truly. The rest of us, like Hunter, can only gape in yearning, and maybe someday write a song as complex, profound, and beautiful as this.

3. Mott the Hoople, "Ballad of Mott the Hoople (March 26, 1972, Zurich)" (1973)

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In one way or another I frequently seem to be writing about one of these last three songs, even as they lean decidedly toward the margins. This is likely the least obscure anyway, a landmark of '70s glam. I spun the name for this blog out of it, and later, to be clear, threw up a clarifying verse when I realized how many people took me for a dedicated fan of the Who. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I'm more a dedicated fan of this particular song, with its many great turns of phrase ("I wish I'd never wanted then what I want now twice as much") and with its luscious mood of weary introspection, its brooding considerations of the various satisfactions and dissatisfactions. It focuses on a rock band touring act but the psychic place it describes could as well be a frazzled Fellini production shot in Italy, a grifting traveling carnival show in the mid-century Midwest, maybe even (a stretch) circuit riders, horseback and camping at night, out saving souls in slave-owning frontier districts of the old South. Or it could be your own interior life, trying to keep it together day to day. It's a place that lives for the extremes of ecstasy and despair, most poignantly at the crack of dawn. It's there in every line, from the highly particular ("Buffin lost his child-like dreams / And Mick lost his guitar") to the most broadly general ("Rock 'n' roll's a loser's game / It mesmerizes and I can't explain"). It calls the whole thing a circus and then calls it a night. Beyond exhaustion and directly into clarity. Out of the mouths of babes. A magic trick. A guide to the construction of one's own life and myths, a place to go get lost for a lifetime, and eternity, all wrapped up into one.

"All the Young Dudes" (1972)

81. Mott the Hoople, "All the Young Dudes (Nov. 4, 1972, #37)

This is almost surely the best song David Bowie ever gave away, and Ian Hunter and his mates prove in a matter of three and a half minutes that they were just the ones to step up and knock it out of the park. No one, not even Bowie, does or has ever done this song better. Mick Ralphs's plaintive guitar opens and already it's a heartache. Then Hunter arrives at the mic, mumbling about suicide and kicks in the head, with a melody line that falls face-forward in slow motion, and the sweet pathos is underway in earnest. By the time of the chorus, one of the great moments of '70s rock is pealing forth like doves released from a box, the point where anyone with any sense is reaching for the volume control to turn it up and furthermore trying to match the notes at the top of their lungs. The song materialized in the glam era, and it's all about putting on a good show, but it comes with its own bag of tricks too, chipped in by people wearing their shades 24/7, doubtless up for days on end weary and ragged from speed. They fit it out with hand-clapping, a homely, rolling drumkit, and a lovely droning organ. The totality of it busies itself sending a message, and here is that message: "Carry the news ... Boogaloo dudes ('stand up, come on')." You could put an entire choral choir behind this and it would never get any more majestic than that. Extra credit inspirational verse: "Television man is crazy, saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks. Oh, man, I need TV when I got T. Rex?"

Mott (1973)

"Ballad of Mott the Hoople (March 26, 1972, Zurich)" First I liked the inside out libido of "I Wish I Was Your Mother," its plaint nearly overwhelmed by Irony but not quite, and with the beautiful mandolin touches. I often sat through the whole album just to get to that. Then of course the album opener "All the Way From Memphis," which also opened one of those oddball non-gangster Scorcese pictures of the '70s, Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More (which few can forgive for the TV spinoff). Finally, I caught the perfection of the loser apotheosis in "Ballad" with all those amazing lines: "Rock’n’roll’s a loser’s game / It mesmerises and I can’t explain / The reasons for the sights and for the sounds" and "Oh I wish I’d never wanted then / What I want now twice as much."

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