Draining the POLL for you - ILM artist poll #98 - The Go-Betweens

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#9
Right Here
from Tallulah (1987)

Points: 382
Votes: 18 (0)

Original promo video

Forster has the audacity to complain about the production on 'Right Here'! The synth gloss on Brown's violin is exactly why I return to it

Also: the cruelty of ""I know you're thirty-two but you look fifty-five"! And he loves her anyway!

Just catching up, been busy this afternoon... 'Quiet Heart' and 'Right Here' are nice enough songs but they've never really grabbed me, the choruses in both just don't quite go the distance. Very happy to see 'The Wrong Road' may the top 20 though - features another classic McLennanism in "Handsome is good, pretty is better".

Oh ew what no

Like Amanda's strings/vocals but this is clunky stuff

this is good but too high

All down to taste, I love this while "Quiet Heart" makes me retch.

'Twin Layers of Lightning' is an absolute classic as well, the band at their most Television-esque.

their big pop moments like "quiet heart" and "right here" are easily my some of my favourites, but i've never really got them as a band so that might be why

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#8
Love Goes On
from 16 Lovers Lane (1988)

Points: 450
Votes: 21 (2)

Youtube audio

the fucking bridge on this song

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#7
Head Full of Steam
from Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express (1986)

Points: 458
Votes: 22 (1)

Original promo video

yessssss my #3

Again prefer the single version but this is gold in any form. He's so good at romantic desperation.

steaaaammmm YEAAAAHHHHH

Love Tracey Thorn's part

Yes Tracey Thorn is great on this!

Sidebar: I read she's writing a book about her friendship with Lindy, cannot wait

Tracey sounds like Crissie Hynde on this track.

today i learned tracey thorn is on this song

Head Full Of Steam is a great song that is elevated by how awesome the video is. I could watch the bit where Robert first appears on repeat forever.

No complaints with the top 10 so far. I voted for all these wonderful songs.

Some days these are my favourite Forster lyrics.

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#6
Part Company
from Spring Hill Fair (1984)

Points: 461
Votes: 20 (3)

Youtube audio

Top 6 must be:

Cattle and Cane
Bachelor Kisses
Part Company
Spring Rain
Bye Bye Pride
Streets of Your Town

TOO LOW.

We haven't written enough about Robert Vickers, and I like his bass part here.

took this off my ballot because that high-pitched synth gave me a headache during a nasty hangover--in retrospect, this song deserved a vote lol

the tea kettle synth, as I call it.

I like Part Company and did have it low on my list, but I've always thought it was slightly overrated. Certainly my least favourite song in the top 10.

This is true re Robert Vickers. I also mangled the image code where I attempted to give him some time in the spotlight. Not good enough, on reflection.

Part Company is my no.1, for ever.

Didn't hear it till quite a long time after I got into the band, as Spring Hill Fair was unavailable in the UK for many years. Maybe it's so locked in my affections because it presses buttons while remaining hard to pin down.

'Part Company' was my #1 and possibly always will be. High five to the two others voting correctly.

And sonically, it's just a brilliant construction, tea kettle and all.

Yep!

The tea kettle was confounding on first listen, but is definitely essential

Part Company was my number one, too, though it was a close call between this and a few others.

For what was apparently a deliberate look at the feeling of leaving someone, rather than experience, the lyrics are too good. "What will I miss? Her cruelty, her unfaithfulness/her fun her love her kiss", "that's her handWRITing" in his most Australian of takes... I hear these in my head almost daily.

And like lots of my favourite songs, it sounds like it could circle around forever, like you've opened the door on a band practising in a room for eternity.

It's the best of the Go-Betweens in a nutshell, to me, really: weird and knotty and almost ugly at first, and then over time and many listens, you find an amazing pop song.

Also, it's rumoured that was Tracey Thorn's tea kettle

Alba and verhexen profoundly OTM.

We should really pause here until everyone else acknowledges their error, but I hope to get to bed before sunrise... :)

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#5
Streets of Your Town
from 16 Lovers Lane (1988)

Points: 526
Votes: 26 (0)

Original promo video 1
Original promo video 2

OH NO!

Ooh, what an upset!

No one's no.1! All too cool.

Promo video #1 = REM
Promo video #2 = Crowded House

Ahahaha a bit of image-based insurrection there!

Oh wow, I thought this would be in the top two for sure!

I think it was the song that introduced me to the band when it was played on GLR in 1988 or 1989. Bought the 78-90 compilation off the back of it. Don't the sleeve notes complain that DJs only played it when the sun shone?

Just realised I've undone my own chronology there. Must have been 1990 or 1991 I heard it on the radio.

The videos are fine, no?

They're the right videos -- I was just drawing some aesthetic comparisons

Okay, cool! :)

just a beautiful sweeping epic, another stunning 16LL bridge too. probly shoulda put it higher, but i was feeling idiosyncratic

always thought 16LL was an excellent rainy day album, with those cascading acoustic guitars and a track that's called 'clouds' fergodsake

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#4
Bye Bye Pride
from Tallulah (1987)

Points: 571
Votes: 23 (3)

Original promo video