Souvenir from a Dream: A Tom Verlaine Solo Evaluation

tl;dr: Death is still a good career move for artists and a boon to online vultures; There are no other "Marquee Moon"s but here are some cool tracks

I worked in a bookstore once. We sold records too. Naturally, that was my area of focus despite my burgeoning bibliophilia. And I can tell you, for a fact, once an artist dies, their product flies off the shelf at just about any price. I remember my boss, also a vinyl head, checking the Discogs on a lesser Aretha Franklin title in the wake of her then-recent demise. The average price had tripled. “Shessh,” he muttered. “It was nowhere near that when she was alive.”

Tom Verlaine died a couple weeks ago. Today, good luck picking up one of his titles on Discogs. They’re pretty much gone or inflated to absolutely absurd prices. (His last album Around is available on CD from one seller for a cool $79.79.) Not too long ago, these albums were neither rare nor hard-to-find. Not to brag, but check this out:

I’m getting off base. This could be its own piece. It probably should - why do we not give a shit about an artist’s work until they’re dead? I watched this happened with Lou Reed in 2013. Suddenly every $4 record - which is what most of them cost - were collector’s items. Why? The quality of the music didn’t go up. I think we’re suspicious of living creators. And also, it’s probably time to start talking about how good Discogs is for music. But that will have to wait.

I’m also not going to talk about Marquee Moon as a record because there’s about a million paeans to the thing going back to 1977. The one thing I will say is that I bought that CD, The Modern Lovers and White Blood Cells on the same day at the LA Virgin Megastore (RIP). I remember my reaction to all three was the same: What the fuck is this shit? In Television’s case, I was beyond disappointed that these guys were considered some kind of punk gods but all the guitars were clean. (Actually, the same with Modern Lovers.) I wanted to rock and this…rolled, maybe. The drums certainly did. A few months went by and I recognized it for the masterwork it was.

But you have to set it aside, because absolutely nothing else in Verlaine’s catalog sounded that way. By the time of Adventure, he’d moved into a new headspace that was far more indicative of the direction - or lack thereof - that characterized the rest of his work. The songs were, on the whole vaguer, more meditative and searching than anything on its predecessor. Even the sound was kind of murky. When things got playful and cheeky, like “Careful” or “Glory,” you got the feeling it was tongue-in-cheek - like it was beneath Verlaine to write something poppy. Whatever the case, he would not, and would never deliver a true follow up to his debut.

So often we have looked to these underground gods for continued brilliance only to find them off on their own trip. Alex Chilton is the archetypal one. A series of nervous breakdowns left him not-the-same by the mid-70s, breakdowns that were documented aurally in the eye of the storm (Third, Bach’s Bottom) and the resulting wreckage (Like Flies on Sherbert). By the time he’d dried up in the mid-80s, he’d reinvented himself mostly as a re-interpreter of the esoteric R&B and jazz music he truly loved, self-consciously avoiding the chimey power-pop sound of Big Star, much to his audience’s chagrin. It’s hard to say just how much of his later output was a put-on. Check the cover of “I Remember Mama” from his last album Set (or Loose Shoes, Tight Pussy for the Europeans). The performance is so affected as to sound contemptuous. But then, see the reading and heartfelt intro to this blistering live version of “Alligator Man.” Chilton remained sphinx-like til his dying breath, becoming ever more taciturn with every interview.

But for Verlaine, one gets the sense he was constantly in pursuit of some kind of Apollonian ideal but, a born underachiever, missing the mark repeatedly. It’s as if he proved his point on the first try, and spent the rest of his career poking around. His solo work isn’t so much a noble failure as it is an interesting series of experiments that never really established a firm identity for him as an artist outside of Television.

Tom Verlaine is the biggest contender for some kind of commercial recognition. A lot of it is Bryan Adams/Springsteen-adjacent, sonically. Big drums, lots of reverb, the bright sound, a little synth here and there; the difference being a guy who can’t really sing on top with his vibrato’d-out lead guitar style chiming along. There are a few stabs at some big sounding pop - “The Grip of Love,” “Flash Lightning” and “Red Leaves” are all catchy enough. But the real standout, for better or worse, is the two-chord jam cannibalized from Television, “Breakin’ in My Heart,” not least of which for the appearance of The B-52’s Ricky Wilson on rhythm guitar - a brilliant idea that makes you wish he’d served as Verlaine’s guitar foil way more.

Dreamtime often gets highlighted as a great LP by many; I can’t say it’s hit me that way yet, but it’s perfectly pleasant. Most telling was session guitarist Richie Flieger saying they fleshed out Verlaine’s songs in the studio; a far cry from him planning out Television’s guitar parts on piano and teaching them to the band. The pop aspirations are dialed back and a jazzier, almost Steely Dan feel is evident, but Verlaine would probably hate that comparison. Listen to closer “Mary Marie” and tell me I’m off the mark.

Words from the Front was the one you saw most in the bins, and it’s not hard to see why. Even Verlaine mentioned being dissatisfied with the recording of it in later interviews. It’s a bit confused direction-wise, and succeeds most when Verlaine pursues a more experimental path, most notably on the suite-like “Days on the Mountain,” a drum-machine propelled track featuring Lene Lovich on saxophone and some pretty wacky guitar work.

Cover is perhaps Verlaine’s strongest, most focused pop record. It’s also the furthest he got away from the Television sound, and the excursion suits him. Leaning more heavily into the drum machine and adding a bit of Casio here and there, there’s a certain playfulness and buoyant energy to these tracks not always present in his solo work. My favorites are the positively folky “Let Go The Mansion” and “O Foolish Heart,” both of which very well may get stuck in your head, too.

Verlaine came up with a follow-up to Cover, Vanity Fair, that was rejected by his label. Ditching the drum machine and returning to his traditional four piece band format, it has a few real gems. “Sixteen Tulips,” the intended opener, is one of his best-ever songs, highlighting Verlaine’s 19th century romantic poet persona perfectly. Sadly, it was relegated to a compilation that came out ten years later.

Instead, T.V. signed a big money contract with Fontana Records and put out 1987’s Flash Light. The label’s A&R man Dave Bates had amazing taste in music - in addition to Verlaine, he also signed The Fall and got Pere Ubu to reunite. He had great visions of all these artists having chart hits, and in fairness, The Fall and Ubu charted with their best attempts at pop. Verlaine, the one you’d assume would be most ready for the ascent, did not, and he and Bates butted heads both privately and publicly. Verlaine griped that Flash Light was re-mixed to be shrill and reverb-drenched, but it doesn’t sound too different to these ears from his other 80s stuff. Maybe there’s a little more reverb. “The Scientist Writes A Letter,” the one holdover from Vanity Fair, is the clear standout here, called out by Richard Hell as one of Verlaine’s best in his initial elegy. Written as a breakup note from a scientist to his lover, it’s moving, melancholy, and goofy.

Still with Fontana, Verlaine completed The Wonder in 1990, a real mixed bag. It sounds like what it was: an album of songs from an artist struggling to sound more commercial under pressure and against his will. In other words, forced. Lead track “Kaliedoscopin’” is maybe his worst song (next to the pisstake from his self-titled, “Yonki Time”). On the other hand, “Pillow,” whose strains and rhythm recall “Scientist” from the previous LP, may be my favorite Verlaine solo track. Beautiful, intricate guitar work and heartfelt, if bitter, lyrics.

Television reformed in 1992 for another big money contract with Capitol. No doubt there was a feeding frenzy for old, raw music in the wake of Nirvana. Of course, the record they delivered has pretty much nothing in common with anything remotely grunge, aside from some pretty cool shrieks from Tom on closing track “Mars.” Guitarist Richard Lloyd recalled Verlaine getting in his face in the early stages of pre-production, screaming “I’m not making a pop record! And I’m not making a rock record!” However, Verlaine did deliver his strongest set of songs since his debut here. Whether it was the presence and contributions of his bandmates, the pressure he felt to live up to the band’s name, or, most likely, all of the above, Television is the real hidden gem in his later discography. (A lot of the songs really come alive on the “official bootleg” Live at the Academy, as well.)

Instrumental album Warm and Cool finds Verlaine wholeheartedly pursuing his love of cowboy records, spy soundtracks and noir vibes, resulting in his most successful work as a solo artist, free of the pressure to come up with clever lyrics. With Television drummer Billy Ficca on almost all the tracks, there’s a sense of a delivery upon all the promise these guys showed as instrumentalists from the beginning. It’s by no means a perfect record, and it kind of drags towards the end, but there are some real gems here, like the opener “These Harbor Lights.”

14 years passed until Verlaine deigned to make another record. Lloyd grumpily notes that Television could have toured much more than they did but Verlaine was reluctant because he didn’t need the money. Doing some quick math, Verlaine had cashed in his reputation with two major label contracts, and I’m sure David Bowie’s cover of his “Kingdom Come” on hit album Scary Monsters must have generated some significant writer’s royalties. Going through old articles, at various times Verlaine suffered both a broken arm and a broken leg, putting him off rigorous touring as well. He re-emerged in 2006 with two records on Thrill Jockey, the mostly vocal Songs and Other Things and the instrumental Around.

The vagueries of these titles are no accident. Songs and Other Things barely feels like a set of tunes, but more like little instrumental sketches with some fractured musings on top. It’s by no means bad, in fact, I personally find it kind of fascinating. My sibling, however, once begged me to turn it off on a long car ride, saying it was too boring. Verlaine branched out from his typical sonic template - there are some strange flangy/chorusy effects here and there, and it’s also nice to hear his music when it’s not drenched in reverb like it had been ‘79-’92. By this time, also, Verlaine had switched to using a guitar he built himself through tube PA amplifiers he found in junk stores, making his already unique tone all the more inimitable. “The Earth is in the Sky” is a clear highlight, featuring some gorgeous guitar work underneath lyrics that echo Blake-ian verse. (And wow, check that Bonham-esque drum roll at the top of the tune.)

Around would seem to be the follow-up to Warm and Cool, with Ficca back behind the kit. But where Warm felt inventive, Around often feels lazy. It has a cool enough sound, and a couple highlights when Verlaine moves away from the one-chord ragas he seems most at ease with here, but it’s perilously adjacent to hip BGM. In the same piece I’ve paraphrased a couple times here, Lloyd dismissed Verlaine’s later playing as “meandering,” and sadly, a lot of Around gives credence to this. One can easily envision these vamps as killer on a soundtrack; fittingly, Verlaine picked up some good paychecks playing live soundtracks to films in later years. (Please don’t spend $80 on a CD of this, here’s the whole thing on YouTube.)

Verlaine’s last years were spent on live work and occasionally tinkering with a Television LP he never completed. Bootlegs of some would-be great tracks are floating around. His last official release, though, was a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Cold Irons Bound” from the I’m Not There soundtrack - a chilling, hypnotic performance that proves his continued vitality and inventiveness had not departed him, but could be teased out given the proper material and scenario.