The Gaslight Anthem Band • Page 166

Colour Me Black is my least favourite, but it’s still a good enough song. Sleepwalkers is just an amazing album in general. Such a great variety of songs so, they are almost all favourites and really good songs on the album.

 

Proof of life is my least favorite for sure.

 

I feel like Proof of Life is the closer for the first half the album, and made sense on an album with Neptune, Watson and Sleepwalkers.

 

Yep, me too.

 

Get Hurt is crazy underrated.

Great, great album. Like all of Brian's.....

Like others have intimated, if I could pick my own 12-13 track version of those 16 songs, I think it would be right in line with their other material in terms of quality. It suffers maybe a little from being long and having a few of the lesser songs in the canon all on one album (not that ANY of them are bad).

For me, I would dump:
Stay Vicious (my #1 least favorite Gaslight/BF song)
Stray Paper (like I've said before - Gaslight by numbers, feels uninspired to me)
Halloween (had already been released, don't love it)
Ain't That A Shame (fine song, nothing special)

I think Red Violins and Selected Poems are ridiculously underappreciated. Dark Places is an all-time TGA top 10 (maybe top 5) song, and Break Your Heart and Have Mercy are great "Slow Brian" songs

Sweet Morphine and Mama's Boys probably don't really fit on the album, but I don't care, those are damn good songs so they stay.

 

I feel like so many people have so many differing thoughts on this album lol.
I love Stay Vicious, Stray Paper, and Aint That a Shame.
Helter Skeleton is the one song on the album I really really dislike.

It's definitely an album where the individual songs seem better than the sum of its parts. Agree with most that the sequencing leaves something to be desired. Its a good album to shuffle but not to play start to finish.

 

I understand why some people don't like Stray Paper but I don't get calling it "Gaslight by the numbers"...the lyrics and structure of that song are more atypical of Gaslight than anything else on the album, save maybe "Underneath the Ground".

Obviously it's still an angsty lost love song but the imagery in the verses always struck me as new and interesting for Brian. My only criticism of it is that it feels like he briefly went in an interesting direction but didn't flesh it out fully. Needs another verse or something before the "love becomes blood on stray paper" ending.

 

I think those are all fair points

 

Not sure I agree there. To me Stay Vicious and Underneath the Ground are very very UN typical Gaslight and so are Mama's Boys and Sweet Morphine.....

Maybe "Gaslight by Numbers" is the wrong explanation.........maybe I just don't like it that much, but it feels very lazy to me. Feels like a song Brian could write in 5 minutes. I DO like how he sounds vocally in the verses, that Brian yowl is great.

Don't like the chorus at all and the "blood on stray paper" links 2 of most highly overused Fallon pieces of imagery into one sentence. I'm surprised he didn't get "the radio" in there somehow too for the holy trinity. Just kidding.

Not a bad song. Just not a good TGA song (for me), with all the expectations that come with that.

If I were to name my 5 least favorite BF songs, from the 8 albums........Stray Paper and Stay Vicious are both definitely on that list. Don't think I could get to a top 10 because the man is just so consistently great.

 

What's your beef with Helter Skeleton out of curiosity?

 

I absolutely LOVE "Stay Vicious" & "Helter Skeleton", and I can't stand "Stray Paper". It's one of only two Gaslight songs I can think of off the top of my head that I actually dislike and think are bad, the other being "Desire".

I can sort of see that "Sweet Morphine" doesn't exactly fit perfectly on the album, but it is just too damn good of a song not to find a place. I love "Mama's Boys" as well and really think it should have found its way onto a divorce / breakup album like Get Hurt.

And "Have Mercy" is not only one of the best Gaslight songs of all time, but one of the best songs Brian Fallon has ever written across any of his projects.

 

Unrelated to this discussion but I think Brian's most under appreciated song is Low Love off that Georgia EP

 

In a related turn of events, I think Georgia is the most underrated song. I LOVE it and don’t listen to it nearly as much as I wish I could.

 

Both "Georgia" and "Low Love" are absolutely fucking phenomenal and should have found their way onto Painkillers.

 

Agreed. Easily should have replaced Mojo Hand.

 

I like Mojo Hand, but I could imagine that song on an album like Sleepwalkers recorded in New Orleans.

At this point, I consider it all the Brian Fallon umbrella of music.

Gaslight, solo, The Horrible Crowe’s, Molly and the Zombies.

 

I really like Mojo Hand. Doesn't really fit on the album (would have made a great add-on B side after the closer) but I think it's a great song.

As for Get Hurt I also find it interesting how everyone has different songs they don't like. My least favs are definitely Stay Vicious, Stray Paper and Helter Skeleton.
Selected Poems is probably the most underrated TGA song (although I might choose Too Much Blood for that honour).

Even if you keep the tracklist the same without those three songs the album would work okay imo. 1000 Years could be a good opener. Get Hurt at 2 might be a momentum killer but would signal the band's new approach lyrically and sonically. Dark Places has to stay as the closer.

 

really love mojo hand

 

I separate TGA but put everything else under the Brian Fallon umbrella.

 

Outside Sink or Swim (either the exception of 3 songs), there feels like a lot of similarities and growing.

I still think parts of Sleepwalkers reminds me of American Slang. Maybe it’s the Clash influence.

Here Comes My Man (Handwritten) and Rosemary. National Anthem is Americana which was the music inspiration of Painkillers.

Underneath the Ground and Have Mercy have a poppier Horrible Crowes vibe.

I realize Gaslight was four guys, and Horrible Crowes two. But I’d still say Ted Hutt has produced for each of those 3 Brian projects, so that adds some familiarity.

 

If the song "Georgia" had been recorded in the studio with Butch Walker producing, my version of Painkillers looks like this:

1. A Wonderful Life
2. Painkillers
3. Among Other Foolish Things
4. Mojo Hand
5. Smoke
6. Low Love
7. Nobody Wins
8. Rosemary
9. Red Lights
10. Georgia
11. Honey Magnolia
12. Open All Night

 

I thought this was a ranking at first and almost screamed with Open All Night last lol.

Track list looks good. 8-12 is insanely good.

 

HA! No way! "Open All Night" is top-tier Brian Fallon for me. I don't think I ever listen to the album without going back and playing "Open All Night" again as soon as it ends.

I love "Mojo Hand" as a song, but I don't like it at all as track 11 right before the amazing closer and coming after "Honey Magnolia".

 

I love Brian’s updated versions of The Blues, Mary and Tin Pan Alley. They are both great enough to have been on Painkillers. I think familiarity is the only reason they were held off (which I do t disagree with).

I wish all those Painkillers b-sides were released digitally.

 

I love both of those songs as well. I still don't have a good quality rip of "The Blues, Mary". I would kill for them to get a high quality digital release. I'd pay big bucks.