Review of Car Button Cloth
by Dan McGarry from Yale Herald, 31st October 1996
Hide your daughters
Evan Dando's free and feeling poetic
The official Lemonheads press biography
instructs you to "crank up your stereos and hide your daughters--the
Lemonheads are back!" car button cloth is their first full-length release
after two years of respite and recovery that followed national overexposure
("Mrs. Robinson," "Into Your Arms") and arduous touring.
One of their interim projects involved appearing on the My So-Called Life
soundtrack. That was a sappy, melodramatic show that found music to match
from a sensitive-guy band like the Lemonheads. Most of the songs on car button
cloth would fit a cheesy date movie even better, something like Singles or
Reality Bites. The first single, "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You,"
would start to play just after some Brad Pitt storms off after a tiff with
his Gwyneth Paltrow, and then instantly regrets his insensitivity as the song
croons on about friendship and love and all that mushy stuff.
Lemonheads pilot Evan Dando has used his time off to mold his new role as
dreamy-poet-hunk/rock star. Being chosen last year as one of People's 50 most
beautiful people certainly didn't hurt, and neither did collaboration with
fellow heartthrobs from Oasis and Spacehog. The songs on car button cloth
make concerted efforts to be introspective. The Lemonheads' former lightheartedness
has acquired maudlin gravity that borders on sickening. The sagging, standard
pop arrangements suck the life out of promising songs like "C'mon Daddy"
and "It's all True," though the nagging feeling persists that this
time the lyrics might actually have some substance.
A bit of the old wit shines through at times, with lines like "Your place
or Mein Kampf / Now I'm giving the dog a bone." "The Outdoor Type"
features
a wimpy narrator confessing
his shortcomings to his significant other. He "can't grow a beard or
even fight," and he can't go "away with [her] on a rock-climbing
weekend / What if something's on TV and it's never shown again?"
With sobering lyrics sprinkled carelessly over a handful of chords, "Hospital"
stands out in its ability to set a mood with words alone, almost regardless
of the band. "Knoxville Girl" also deserves a second listen: this
traditional country ballad conceals the story of a grisly murder in standard
cowpoke whine. "Tenderfoot" also works, probably because it sounds
more like old Lemonheads than anything else on the album. The lyrics, however,
were written in the years off--lines like "I'm past the bleeding / It's
not the tracks, it's where they're leading" and "I'll do it again,
the error of my ways / Maybe one of these days" betray a darker sentimentalism
born of reflection.
Now that he's finished rehab, Dando apparently is embracing the "poet"
side of his persona more purposefully. A few years of soul-searching were
bound to bring some changes in the finished product. Lemonheads fans will
have no problem with car button cloth, but the rest of the world should get
more than its fill from hearing "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" all
over MTV and its vassal radio stations across the country.
car button cloth broke into the charts at 130, somewhat disappointing for
an established act like the Lemonheads. Maybe the producers hope to milk a
third gold album out of Dando by capitalizing on his sex-symbol status as
much as his music. As the official Press Biography puts it, "Hey ladies...he's
alive...he's single," oh, and by the way, "he's got a new record!"