A1: Five Miles Of You
A2: Let Go The Mansion
A3: Travelling
A4: O Foolish Heart
B1: Dissolve/Reveal
B2: Miss Emily
B3: Rotation
B4: Swim
I was thumbing through my record collection yesterday and stopped at this all-but forgotten LP (at least by me, anyway), Cover by Tom Verlaine. I originally bought it back in 1984 having heard Verlaine interviewed on the radio with a couple of the songs from the album being played. I didn't really appreciate who he was, although obviously I was aware of the band Television and had heard their supposedly seminal Marquee Moon, an album which never really made an impact on my consciousness. However, this solo outing for Verlaine, I absolutely loved and it was in frequent rotation on my turntable for quite a few years. Cover is actually Verlaine's 4th album of 10, but I confess I've never gotten around to listening to anything else by him.
"Five Miles of You kicks" off side 1 with a barrage of chiming guitars and a strong well-rounded bassline from former Television colleague Fred Smith. Verlaine's unassuming vocals are instantly recognisable from his Television days. My favourite part of this song is the guitar solo, which always feels somehow devastating and unexpected - no matter how many times you've heard it before. "Let Go The Mansion" is a nice little piece with sparse verses - just Verlaine's vocals with some minimal guitar riffs and keyboard, before a more confident chorus kicks in. Things take off a notch with "Travelling" with its intro of crazily scraped strings on a fuzzed-out guitar, funky bassline and chugging rhythm guitars. "O Foolish Heart" slows down the tempo again, over a simple drum machine backing and on a chorus played on what sounds like a cheap 1980s Casio keyboard, Verlaine croons "O foolish heart / Silly thing / You hear any old toon / And you sing ... you sing". Simple lyrics but ever so catchy. What with these, the jazzy guitar solo, and the aforementioned Casio keyboards, it sounds like a recipe for a 1980s song that could not stand the test of time, but somehow manages to still sound fresh all these years later.
Side 2 opens with "Dissolve/Reveal", a tapestry of little guitar riffs and keyboard parts which combine together with increasing complexity towards the songs end. It's "math rock" before anyone ever thought of the term. And just for good measure a thunder sound effect is thrown into the mix. The song contains another gorgeous twangy/trebley/jazzy guitar solo from Verlaine - I'd quite forgotten how good his playing was. "Miss Emily" begins with more of that scraped string sound and then chugs along nicely with a driving bass, layers of chiming guitars and a strident fuzz guitar solo. "Rotation" is underpinned by a lazy jazzy riff, washes of keyboards, and features another - short but sweet - guitar solo, upon which I can't decide if Verlaine is playing slide or else using the guitar's vibrato arm to create a pitch-shift - it has a glorious pedal steel effect to it. Bringing the album to a close, "Swim" starts with Verlaine's spoken-word recitation of an excerpt from his "I Am Daylight" monologue from 41 Monologues over a minimal background of a simple guitar line and drum beat before the song itself begins. And quite lovely it is too with the repeated chorus of "I could swim / I could swim / I could swim in your love / In your love / In your love / I could swim in your love..."
Throughout the record are Verlaine's slightly nerdy, not altogether confident sounding vocals, which work beautifully with the instrumentation and the lyrics themselves.
Although I've owned this record on vinyl since 1984, someone gave me a CD copy of it about 15 years ago (I didn't have a record deck at the time). For some reason Virgin Records decided to use the extended 12" single version of "Five Miles Of You" in place of the original album version, but - on my copy at least - the song is abruptly and rudely cut off at the 4:20 mark over a minute before it was due to finish. To me, this managed to spoil the whole release. I couldn't tell you if this problem is common to this CD release or if just mine was faulty, but I can't believe the record company would have been content to release the CD in this condition. Surely someone would have listened to the final masters before reproduction?
I've really enjoyed revisiting and listening to this record again. I'll try not to leave it so long before I give it another spin. By the way, I have no idea why the album is titled Cover, it's not as if it contains any cover versions, but - on the subjects of covers - the cover artwork is worthy of note featuring a photo looking down at Verlaine who is holding onto a street lamp while standing on a road traffic island at a street junction (somewhere in UK). The photo makes it look almost as if he is sailing a small yacht - a theme that is reinforced by the car turning at the same junction and which has a windsurfing board strapped to its roof. This has to be the best record art featuring the performer on a street crossing since Abbey Road!
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