This may seem kind of odd, but man, I’ve been listening to a bunch of what seems to me to be Elastica-inspired new music lately. Speedy Oritz, Wolf Alice, and Torres.  I remember getting that Elastica album thinking — are they going to blow up into then next Pretenders? Connection (above) and Stutter — I loved it. Are they a one-(well, two-)album band that needs a bit more respect? They fizzled out quickly partly because of lawsuits, but a new bunch bands seem to working the same territory. What do you think?

Here’s Wolf Alice:

Walk in the Woods by Peter Case popped up on a YouTube feed today and I was once again struck by how great the lyrics are (see below). They tell the story of a young couple who disappears from a small town after going for a walk in the woods. None of the townsfolk can find them or imagine what horrible fate befell them. In the end, even the narrator is unable to tell us what happened to them because [SPOILER ALERT!] he takes a walk in the woods and he never comes back.

The challenge is to name a song where the lyrics contain a surprise twist at the end. Please include a brief description of what the twist was.
And, as always, please limit your answers to one per post.

Out past the cemetery, Down by the willow bend,
Half a mile from the railroad track
Last seen together, these two lovers hand in hand
They took a walk in the woods and they never come back

News from the radio it rang out through the fields,
just when they thought they found the track
through a patch of four leaf clovers, They vanished in thin air
They took a walk in the woods and they never come back

Never before in history has this town been so up in arms
You never head such misery as those blood hounds cross the farms
Between God & the police, they were protected from all harm
They took a walk in the woods and they never come back

Sounds where emergency, no evidence was removed
You never heard such theories, but none of them could be proved
For the missing children, no conscience could be soothed
They took a walk in the woods and they never come back

Well that was fifteen years ago, I guess I come a long long way
I never heard the end of it, you know I couldn’t stay . . .
When I’m not stuck for time or money, I still wonder about that day
I took a walk in the woods and I never come back

I was reading an album review a few weeks back where the writer mentioned “the holy trinity of power pop”: The Beatles, Badfinger, and Big Star.   I thought that was an interesting line and got to thinking what other bands might make up other rock “holy trinities?” It could go in many directions — obvious and not-so-obvious.

Such as: The holy trinity of ’70s midwestern US pseudo-prog rock: Styx, Kansas, and Starcastle.

Can you come up with your own holy trinity?

Have you ever taught someone how to play an instrument, even the start-up bits of teaching an instrument? Despite still being a ham-fisted guitarist after 35+ years of playing, I’ve not shied away from doing my best to teach a few people the rudiments of playing guitar. My first “student” was Mike, a neighborhood friend and member of my first band. We were 15 or 16. He had recently acquired his first guitar, just a few months after I got my first electric and resumed lessons after first trying to play when I was about 10 years old. From the start, I was training him to be the other guitarist in our band. He outplayed me within a year, which in part earned him his walking papers. Shame on me!

My next “student” was another old friend, another Mike, who had already been learning the guitar but who needed my individual training to prepare him for the rigors of our band. My first order of business was breaking him of his fascination with the dual guitar leads of his then-favorite band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Rather than break him of his Southern Rock roots, we ended up finding a way to merge his style into our sound. It led to a wonderful collaboration and extended through our band’s “classic”-era years. Once, while recording songs for an eventual 7-inch at our favorite studio in Rockville, Maryland, Mike was ripping off an outstanding solo on a Clash-inspired song while the rest of us sat in the booth with the engineer.

“What’s that he’s playing,” our usually mild-mannered engineer blurted out, “you’re gonna let him play that?!?!”

“What’s wrong with it,” one of us said, “we think it’s great.”

“It sounds like fucking Southern Rock. How can you have a Southern Rock solo in a punk song?”