‘Drunken Butterfly’ – Sonic Youth, 1993
Well What can one say about the legendary band Sonic Youth
that hasn’t be said already? Going for more than twenty five
years, they are one of the longest running independant
bands ever. Another husband and wife team in the same vein
as other long running indie bands from the US including
Yo La Tengo and Dead Moon et al.
Drunken Butterfly was the fourth single from the album
Dirty which was released in 1992 and the first album to
be released for the DGC label. It’s mad to think that Sonic
Youth were going for well over a decade at this stage.
From the very start, the song is packed with heavy,
distorted and feedback laden guitar work that both Thurston
Moore and Lee Ranaldo are famed for and have at this stage
made an art form out of. Kim Gordan takes care of the lead
vocals on this and the main reason I like this song (apart
from the guitar playing) is the way Kim belts out the lines
‘I love you, I love you, I love you, what’s your name?
I love you, I love you, I love you, what’s your name?’
Outside of these lyrics, I really don’t know what the song is
all about but taken them lines into account and the word
Drunken in the title I am always reminded of nights out on
town in the golden days (and maybe nowadays too )
chatting up girls, trying your best to get off with them. Liquor
was never very far away from the scene of the crime. Check
out a live video of the song from New York.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Hey, love the blog. I’ve always thought Dirty is one of Sonic Youth’s weaker works, although Drunken Butterfly is a pretty good track, and so is 100%. It’s actually their second album for DGC, after Goo, which came out in 1990, I think. Strange to know they’re on Matador now, after so many years on DGC, but I can’t imagine it will do much to their aesthetic at this point.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Hmm, I didn’t know that Glenn as I thought it was Dirty. I’ve only ever listened to the albums Sonic Nurse, Daydream Nation and Dirty. Any other albums you would recommend?
November 12th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
If you liked those ones, you should probably check out Sister, also. It has one of the best lead off tracks of any album ever (Schizophrenia), and it’s pretty similar to Goo, Daydream Nation, and Dirty.
I liked Rather Ripped, their most recent album, also, and it doesn’t get too crazy into their noise experimentation.