Nick Lowe - A Love Letter in 16 Songs

Charles on a few favorites from an artist we love

(Photo by Roger Green, licensed through the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

Nick Lowe is about to release Indoor Safari, his first new album in ages. To celebrate, I wanted to spotlight a few older songs that I’ve found particularly meaningful over the years. It’s been awfully hard to narrow it down: From the first time I heard him, no one’s music has mattered more to me. So this was a tough challenge, an absolute pleasure, and an instructive experience.

Most writers (including me) have presented Lowe’s career in two distinct phases. First there were the raucous 1970s of pop stardom, punk productions, and barnstorming live shows with Rockpile. And then, after an uneasy 1980s interregnum, there was the rise of the elegant elder statesman, whose records in the 1990s and beyond seemed uninterested in the pop-rock of old and paid greater attention to his country, R&B, and even jazz influences. This narrative makes sense, both because no one’s framed it that way more than Nick himself and because there’s a lot of truth to it. As he got older and further away from whatever unruly corner of the mainstream he occupied for a moment, he rocked out less and mellowed out more. His voice got deeper and sweeter, as did his arrangements. He abandoned youthful irony in favor of a more mature (and, admittedly, less fun) sensibility that might be called droll stylishness.

But revisiting his catalog reveals these lines to be far blurrier than advertised. The early albums contain signals of what was coming, the later records still have plenty of that original glow, and all phases find him engaging the same ideas and influences with equal enthusiasm. Indeed, one reason why I’ve found Nick Lowe so consistently rewarding over my years as his fan is because of the sometime surprising ways that his albums fit together across the timeline. So, before he adds another chapter, here are 16 of my favorite tracks from his brilliant career. (Why 16? Why not?)

There are a few big caveats. First, I only included songs where Lowe is the billed artist either solo or as part of a group. So, none of his production work is here nor are any of his appearances as sideman. I also didn’t include any live cuts, even though both official and unofficial releases tell important parts of his story. Beyond that, most of his famous songs aren’t here either – like this one, or this one, or this one, or any of these ones! Even beyond that, many of my own favorites aren’t here, mostly because of self-imposed space limitations and my attempt to survey his whole catalog. This isn’t meant to be any kind of comprehensive overview - for that, I’d recommend starting with Will Birch’s excellent biography or our own David Cantwell’s fantastic 2001 profile for No Depression. I hope you’ll take this in the spirit it’s intended, and that you’ll shout out any of your missing favorites in the comments. I probably love them too. For now, let me count some of the ways…

1.     “Don’t Lose Your Grip on Love” (Brinsley Schwarz) (from Nervous on The Road, 1972)

You can hear almost every aspect of where Nick Lowe would go in his early work with pub-rock cornerstones Brinsley Schwarz. (And that’s not just because it was the first time he recorded what became his most famous song.) The pop gifts, the bash-‘em-out rockers, the country flourishes, and – in the best song from the Brinsley years – the R&B-influenced ballads. The stately “Don’t Lose Your Grip on Love” finds Lowe telling a story of what Lowe would much later call “love starvation,” with a main character ruined by his inability to find someone to return his favor. The close harmonies, the cascading keyboards, and Lowe’s plaintive tenor all call to mind The Band, another key Brinsleys’ influence, and the track simmers with the weary maturity of the soul records that both bands took such inspiration from, years before Lowe aged into that voice himself. It’s not hard to hear why Elvis Costello covered this song before he ever met Lowe and still plays it live now that the two are longtime friends and frequent collaborators. It’s even easier to hear why the song remains the highlight of Lowe’s first blush of success.

2.    “Let’s Go to the Disco” (The Disco Brothers) (single, 1976)

Between the breakup of the Brinsleys and the proper start of his solo career, Lowe recorded a series of odds and sods later collected on the winning (and sadly out of print) Wilderness Years compilation. An early collaboration with Rockpile partner Dave Edmunds, “Let’s Go to the Disco” - released under the cheeky name The Disco Brothers - is definitely intended as a swipe at the dancers, one of so many at the time and a harbinger of his occasional grouchy stylistic conservatism. He hoped to use the song to get out of a bad early recording contract, after his similar jab at the Bay City Rollers became an unlikely hit in Japan. (It worked, apparently.) But “Let’s Go to the Disco” strikes a different tone than those other parodic goofs. There’s an infectious warmth in its “Iko Iko” rhythm, descending bass line, and chiming guitars that overcomes any snark and makes the song a sincerely gleeful invitation. At least that’s how I hear it, and Lowe would likely disagree with me. But that dynamic – where Lowe’s self-professed ironic distance can barely mask the music’s sincere pleasure – has defined his career and made many of his early songs, in particular, successful outside of their creator’s once-withering gaze. As his smirk has turned to a smile, “Let’s Go to the Disco” would still work as part of his sets. I don’t expect it will return, but stranger things have happened.

3.     “Born Fighter” (from Labour of Lust, 1979)

There’s a fantastic BBC documentary, well-known to Lowe heads, documenting the simultaneous recording of Lowe’s Labour of Lust and Dave Edmunds’ Repeat When Necessary. It’s called Born Fighters, which is both a fitting summation of the rowdy chaos of the Rockpile years and the title of one of the songs that it documents being recorded. “Born Fighters” is Rockpile at full roar, with Edmunds and Billy Bremner twinning guitars and high harmonies as drummer Terry Williams rolls and crashes and somehow keeps the whole thing together. (Even pal Huey Lewis, then just beginning his career, shows up to deliver a snarling harmonica solo.) As the footage reveals, the rip-it-up spirit of Rockpile’s legendary live shows found a home in the multi-track, radio-ready pop of Edmunds and Lowe’s solo releases. All witty lyrics and fist-pumping choruses, “Born Fighter” is a kick that marks just one highlight of what is perhaps Lowe’s best album. Already straining at the wry pastiches of his debut Jesus of Cool, Lowe maintained its humor and tunefulness while expanding both his musical and tonal palette. With Rockpile around him, it was almost impossible to go wrong.

4.     “Teacher Teacher” (Rockpile) (from Seconds of Pleasure, 1980)

Rockpile’s Seconds of Pleasure is an oddly anti-climactic debut. After their fiery live shows, and their success behind Lowe and Edmunds, the group’s sole self-titled album came at the end of their association and sometimes evokes that exhaustion with its oddly constrained sound and mishmash of material. (Don’t get me wrong: It’s got a good handful of tracks that are as good as anything their leads ever did.) But opening track “Teacher, Teacher” is a pure pop blast, with Lowe’s leering vocal surrounded by Bremner’s and Edmunds’ rumbling guitars as Williams’ drums smack away underneath. And who am I kidding? This is here because it’s the first Nick Lowe-related track I heard, and I was hooked from the moment that the ringing opening riff kicked in. I can still remember where I was when I heard it. I wish I could hear it for the first time again. I’ll settle for listening to it yet again, another helping of pleasure from a group of musicians who found an instant, permanent home in my heart. 

5.     “My Heart Hurts” (from Nick the Knife, 1982)

It’s neither fair nor accurate to say that every Nick Lowe release from this period sounds like it could’ve been a hit – in fact, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t want it that way. But, listening to “My Heart Hurts,” you really do wonder why he didn’t have more hits than just 1979’s “Cruel to Be Kind.” With Bremner and Williams sticking around from Rockpile, guitarist Martin Belmont and keyboardist/vocalist Paul Carrack hopping aboard, and then-wife Carlene Carter returning the favor from her great Rockpile-backed Musical Shapes, Nick the Knife is spottier and less focused than it should be. A few songs sound more like attempts to do what’s worked before than to just do things that work, and a couple others seem like purposeful throwaways. But “My Heart Hurts” is a stunner with its clipped, acoustic-guitar-driven rhythm and pulsing melody. (The album’s other highlight, the lovely ballad “Raining Raining,” offers a musical inverse on the same theme.) It’s that old pop trick of a sad song that sounds happy, and Lowe turns each witty lyric around with poise and vulnerability. Forget the charts: This is a smash hit for me now and forever.

6.     “Ragin’ Eyes” (from The Abominable Showman, 1983)

The Abominable Showman was the last gasp of Lowe’s pop-star phase. It’s uneven and a bit try-hard in its attempt to recapture some commercial momentum, but it’s got a few glimmers of what should’ve made him a bigger star. Best of all by some measure is “Ragin’ Eyes,” a love song with a big heart and even bigger hook. From the opening invocation to the final “sha-bom,” Lowe sounds giddy here, especially when he and drummer Bobby Irwin bounce off each other at the beginning of the third verse. Proof that he could mix the sonic blasts of his early years with the sweet sincerity of his latter era, “Ragin’ Eyes” is one of his best and most definitive moments.

7.     “Love Like a Glove” (from Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit, 1984)

I’m enough of a Nick Lowe fan to do that annoying thing where I claim the deep cuts are better than the famous songs. When I do, I almost always mean “Love Like a Glove.” Written by Carlene Carter and James Eller, and cut by Carlene the previous year, it’s a feverish highlight of Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit, the transitional album that bridged what he later called “his brief career as a pop star” with his move towards rootsy cult hero. “Love Like a Glove” is a punchy gem that marches across handclaps and layered vocals as Lowe tells of the hold love has on him. Is he celebrating? Lamenting? It’s both, of course, an ambivalence recognizable to both the New Waver he was and the country-soul balladeer he became. Deep cuts don’t cut deeper than this.

8.     “The Rose of England” (from The Rose of England, 1985)

The Rose of England is the best Nick Lowe album of the 1980s, a rich and vibrant set of songs (self-penned and covers) and performances. Amidst all the great Nick tricks he pulls here, the title song is something of a thematic anomaly. “The Rose of England” tells the story of a young man going off to war to the doubt and concern of his loved ones, only to abandon the battlefield and escape. Paul Carrack’s piano offers a weeping central riff as the chiming melody concludes with the sad realization that “he’s damned if he don’t and damned if he do.” (A conclusion to which, on its repetition, Carrack adds a wailing high harmony.) Lowe’s long claimed that he wrote “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” to satirize the hippie movement, and that’s probably true. But in recent years, and after its famous and successful cover versions, Lowe’s performances of that song have transformed into something dead serious and almost prayerful. It’s a striking change, but the open wound of “The Rose of England” suggests that Lowe had it in him for a long time.

9.     “(You’re My) Wildest Dream” (from Pinker and Prouder than Previous, 1988)

“Wildest Dream” opens Pinker and Prouder than Previous like a firecracker. Set off by Kim Wilson’s harmonica, the rushing rocker has many of the hallmarks of Lowe’s early pub-and-punk years, including the snapping hook at the center. But it’s even more stripped down than the rootsy gestures on Cowboy Outfit or Rose of England: The verses spotlight Lowe’s jubilant vocal and Bobby Irwin’s pounding drums, with Wilson’s harmonica and a buzzing electric solo from Jimmie Vaughan popping into the party like the Fabulous Thunderbirds they are. These loose-limbed arrangements mark the best moments of the somewhat baggy Pinker and Prouder. None shine brighter, or boogie more joyously, than “Wildest Dream.”

10.  “Rocky Road” (from Party of One, 1990)

“Rocky Road” is one of the best examples of the mid-tempo grooves that became a central mode for Lowe in the nineties and beyond. It holds a crucial place on 1990’s Party of One, a last attempt to shake and pop before he settled down. The album reunites him with Dave Edmunds, who filled the album with bright productions that don’t always present Lowe’s songs most effectively. But Edmunds eased back on “Rocky Road,” a shuffling story of hard travelin’ that centers a supple electric guitar from Little Village buddy Ry Cooder as primary counterpoint to Lowe’s assured vocal. It’s a rare song about persistence and hope from Lowe. Like the similar “From Now On,” which he wrote for Paul Carrack and later recorded himself for the Mumford soundtrack, the Sam Cooke-influenced “Rocky Road” is propelled equally by melody and spirit as Lowe keeps walking forward, encouraging us to join him.

11.  “Where’s My Everything?” (from The Impossible Bird, 1994)

Lowe had been signaling the stylistic shift of 1994’s The Impossible Bird for a while. But the transition on this remarkable album remains astonishing, as he abandons any vestige of pop maximalism in favor of a swinging and spacious sound anchored by guitarist Bill Kirchen and pianist Geraint Watkins. There’s plenty of room at this party: Lowe brings out rolling rockers, spare ballads, R&B homages, and country-flavored tracks like “Where’s My Everything?” Surveying a landscape of personal frustration, which he revisits on the album’s fiery “I Live on a Battlefield,” Lowe and the band keep a spring in the step of this mid-tempo lope with an arrangement straight out of the Tennessee Three. (Hot take: His former father-in-law Johnny Cash covered the wrong song from The Impossible Bird.) The humor leavens the heartbreak, as Lowe relishes each phrase in one of his sturdiest melodies. (No surprise that his friend Ron Sexsmith has made it a mainstay of his concerts, including sometimes with Lowe himself. Of course, they do the Louvin Brothers even better.) At various points, every track from Impossible Bird has been my favorite from it. But “Where’s My Everything?” keeps bubbling back to the top.

12.  “What Lack of Love Has Done” (from Dig My Mood, 1998)

This may be Lowe’s best recorded vocal performance. As he pushed forward the country, pop, and R&B influences that might be called the Arthur Alexander school, Lowe’s voice found new subtlety at both the top and bottom of his range. The soaring, soulful “What Lack of Love Has Done” finds him exploring both peaks and valleys, assisted by a trio of guitarist Steve Donnelly, drummer Robert Treherne, and pianist Geraint Watkins. But the secret weapon is Nick Pentelow’s saxophone, which enters in the second verse in aching affirmation. “What Lack of Love Has Done” is both a mission statement for Lowe’s artistic elder-hood and a highlight of Dig My Mood, a jazz-and-R&B-infused set that curls around the listener like a smoke ring.

13.  “Cupid Must Be Angry” (from The Convincer, 2001)

There’s no messing around here. A quick strike from Geraint Watkins’ piano and then Lowe – with the stalwart Watkins in close harmony – is punching out the title phrase with an echoing insistence that recalls the girl groups and chamber-pop crooners. The Convincer expands the sound and scope of Dig My Mood, with Lowe – elegantly white-haired and besuited on the album cover – embracing his old-pro status with a set that handles the sounds of ‘60s AM radio with enough reverence to sound legit but not so much as to make the whole thing a boring mess. Lowe’s voice has never sounded lusher. It sinks into the velvety arrangement that surrounds the melody as Lowe pleads with Cupid even as he realizes that it’s too late to ask him for any assistance. Out here on his own, with only his band behind him, Lowe makes “Cupid Must Be Angry” into a rolling boil of melody and emotion. As with the rest of this great album, I am absolutely convinced.

14.  “Long Limbed Girl” (from At My Age, 2007)

Truth be told, At My Age is my least favorite of Lowe’s solo records. (Although my early take was more enthusiastic.) It’s got more good songs than Abominable Showman, but I don’t return to it that much. Nevertheless, “Long Limbed Girl” is one of my faves. Part of it is the chugging, ska-inflected rhythm, with those horns punching through. Part of it is Lowe’s vocal, back in his Sam Cooke bag, which addresses his long-lost lover with warmth and longing. Part of it is the way the song builds up as it goes, climaxing just soon enough to make you miss it when it’s gone. Part of it is the way that it feels as conversational as such a love letter ought to. And part of it is that, as an anecdote of memory and nostalgia, “Long Limbed Girl” aches with the sweet regret that’s only really believable from someone at his age. Or mine.

15.  “Changing All These Changes” (from Rave On Buddy Holly, 2011)

Lowe claimed a lot in this period that he’d hung up his rock and roll shoes. But he always made room around the edges, especially for swinging deep cuts that he dug up from the rockabilly and country past. They became a regular feature of his show (at least when he had a band behind him), and some even made their way onto recordings, including his romp through Cliff Johnson’s “Go ‘Way, Hound Dog” and this Buddy Holly cover from a 2011 tribute album. Careening through in less than two minutes, Lowe skips around the rhythm and even throws in some Holly hiccups. It’s a gas, and he sounds like he’s having a great time. Whether staging a (tasteful) rockabilly riot or revisiting the Jesus of Cool years on tour with Wilco, there are enough examples from these “he rocketh not” years to suggest the man protested a bit too much. I still wish he’d record a whole album of these songs, and I’d sure like “Changing All These Changes” to be among them.

16.  “House for Sale” (from The Old Magic, 2011)

The title of 2011’s The Old Magic was both sincere and ironic, fitting for an album that found Lowe in generous and playful form after the draggy At My Age. Even the downtempo tracks reflect this spirit. “House for Sale,” a tender ballad, is one of those clever ideas that Lowe works for both wit and wisdom. Amidst the clever turns of phrase is one of Lowe’s most devastating portraits, his addition to the tradition of songs that use what Tom Waits called “the house where nobody lives” as metaphor for a broken heart. The one this most recalls, probably intentionally, is Arthur Alexander’s “In the Middle of It All,” which Lowe covered on a tribute album. But “House for Sale” differs from that great Alexander song in that Lowe seems to have left the house behind already, a detail that adds a slight grin to even the saddest imagery. That sparkle isn’t just Lowe’s “old magic” shining through decades after his boisterous arrival. It’s an important part of what has made him so successful in these later years. When he drops a “Peace, Love, and Understanding” reference at the end, you can hear him cracking a smile at the effectiveness with which he’s kept it all in conversation. That conversation continues with Indoor Safari, and I so look forward to finding out where Nick Lowe will go next. Whether the destination is familiar or surprising, I know I’ll be right there with him.

Coming Friday: Charles reviews Nick Lowe’s Indoor Safari

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