Favorite Songs: "Everyday Is Like Sunday" by 10,000 Maniacs

Perusing W♥M’s review of R.E.M.’s song “Don’t Go Back to Rockville brought back happy memories of 10,000 Maniacs’ “Candy Everybody Wants” Maxi-Single, which featured not only “Don’ t Go Back To Rockville” and “Sally Ann”, but a cover of ANOTHER famous artist…

I used to go out with this girl who had a love of music as much as I did, and at that time, her favorite group was The Smiths, (in particular their enigmatic lead singer Morrisey) while one of my favorite groups (still is, actually) was the awesome Jamestown Alt/Folk band 10,000 Maniacs.

So one day at work, I’m listening to the college radio station, and they’re spinning the latest single from Natalie Merchant and the boys, and I am pleasantly surprised to hear them do a cover of Morrisey’s “Everyday is like Sunday”!

What an interesting choice!!! Listening to it, I just loved Natalie's take on the song, and I just couldn’t wait to go home and tell my girlfriend the news that two of our favorite groups had “connected” somehow! I picked her up after work, and was about to tell her the exciting news, but before I could, she burst out, “Guess what, today I heard some BITCH trying to cover Morrisey’s Everyday is Like Sunday!!!”

Stunned, I defensively said “What?! That was no “Bitch”! That was 10,000 Maniacs!!!”

Then she said, “Oh…really?” 

And I adamantly said “YEAH!!!” Ahahahahahahaaa!!!

Well, I can't remember if she ever gave the 10,000 Maniacs version a chance, although to be fair, she did like quite a lot of OTHER songs from The Maniacs. Too bad Morrisey never did a cover of one of Natalie's songs!

Favorite Albums: 10,000 Maniacs / In My Tribe

I’ve already written about how my friend turned me onto the Maniacs with the rocking tune SCORPIO RISING and their subsequent album THE WISHING CHAIR, but it wasn’t until the band released their second album that I became a hardcore 10,000 Maniacs fan for life. I had picked up the album on cassette so I could listen to it walking to work, and from the first listen I knew it was going to be one of my very favorite albums, ever!!

What’s The Matter Here?

Words cannot aptly describe what I felt the first time I heard the opening track “ What’s The Matter Here?” This song was just incredible, from its driving  drum beat and melodic guitars showcasing Natalie singing about the helplessness of witnessing child abuse…I still think this is one of the finest tunes ever written! But it didn’t stop there…. one after another, the perfect pop tunes kept coming at me!

Hey Jack Kerouac

If I hadn’t already associated the band with the beat poet/coffee house scene, the Maniacs’ ode to the tragic Jack Kerouac certainlywould’ve done the trick! Awesome Beat and melody, this one!

Like The Weather

The very first video I ever saw of the group, on the brand new VH1 video station, of all places. At the time I remember thinking Natalie looked a LOT older than the pic on the back of The Wishing Chair! This song is probably their first biggie.

Cherry Tree

A song about the shame of illiteracy. A peppy tune about an important subject! I remember my friend Herbert thinking that the Maniacs’ style of writing was “weird”, and he cites the quirky end of Cherry Tree as an example.

Hmmm…That ending never bothered me! In fact, it was pretty upbeat!

The Painted Desert

Lots of echo effect on the guitar chords really give this song the feel of the vast, wide-open space of the desert.

Don’t Talk

A real rocking song. They performed this one on Late Night with David Letterman one night, and it just knocked me OUT! As for the topic of this song; of not wanting to argue with someone who’s drunk off his ass, haven’t we all been in this kind of situation at one time or another? Heh Heh!

Peace Train

I’ve always liked the way the Beatles followed up I WANT YOU (She’s So Heavy) on side A of Abbey Road with HERE COMES THE SUN on Side B. After a loud, powerful saturated song, side two begins with a breath of fresh air. And that’s just what the Maniacs did when they ended side One of In y Tribe with Don’t Talk, and began side Two with “Peace Train”.

  A sweet, feel-good song, I rmember being really bummed out when I heard they were removing this song off future CD releases of In My Tribe, but in recent times it seems that it has been re-instated into its proper place. And if not, you can always still get it off the terrific “Campfire Songs” collection.

  There’s a video for this song out there somewhere, but to this day I’ve only seen snippets on Youtube, scenes of Natalie and the boys floating down a river on a raft like Huckleberry Finn…

A Campfire Song

 Obligatory Michael Stipe appearance here. It was around this time that everyone was buzzing about the two of them as an item, and boy does that seem silly in this day and age. A fun song to watch Natalie sing live when she invites unwitting audience members to sing the Michael Stipe parts! AHAHAHA

Gun Shy

 Another song that  Herbert used to point out as a “weird” written song. “They have this maddening way of ending their songs with these weird clipped statements”…

ell, in any cas, it’s a nice, thoughtfully sung song, about a girl porud that her brother’s grown up, but also sad because he’s joined the army. Beware, peaceniks!

My Sister Rose

Fun song a la DAKTARI about all the extravagance of a Sister’s Wedding Day. Yet another song Herbert singled out as strange. I remember when Natalie sang the closing line, “But You’re My-SISTER-ROSE-THE-SAME!” Herb leaped up and cried, “Yaah! See? That song had that kind of ending, too!” Hahahaha Too funny!

City Of Angels

A Powerful song, another that, Like “Painted Desert”,uses echo and effeets to really create the feeling of a HUGE, VAST CITY, bulidings towering over you,looking down endless streets…The drums really pack a wallop here, too. A song about the allure of  the big city, and the dregs of failures who came to “make it” and didn’t succeed. One of my faves.

Verdi Cries

And then we have Natalie’s epic closing song, the incredible “Verdi Cries”. Melancholy and moving- with wonderful picturesque lyricsgiving you at once the feeling of yearning, lonliness and homesickness!!! When you have an album open with a song like “What’s the matter here”, and end it with a song like “Verdi Cries”, it’s no wonder this album is so highly regarded as the Maniacs’ finest, an opinion I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT!

Shortly after falling in love with the album, 10,000 Maniacs appeared on Saturday Night Live (guest host: Judge Reinhold), and performed Like The Weather and What’s The Matter Here. Like the Weather was fun and breezy, but it was the performance of What’s The Matter Here that did it for me. THIS WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST PERFS I’D EVER SEEN! There was no going back for me, and I became a rabid Maniacs fan from then on!

Favorite Bands: 10,000 Maniacs

Remember that John Cusack character in High Fidelity who explained in great detail about the finer points to consider when making a cassette mix for someone? I had a friend named James who was a master in that field. In fact, just about every six months he would come up with a new “mix” for me and my friends to get into, tapes made with care and careful research, featuring both new groups and obscure older groups,both made it onto the mixes carefully orchestrated for a complete “piece” of music!

    I can’t begin to count all the different artists he introduced me to, but one of the most significant groups that he brought to my attention was a new folk / rock unit with the peculiar name of 10,000 Maniacs, with a powerful little tune called “Scorpio Rising”.

  From the very first time I listened to the tape, the song stuck out for me and became a favorite, and that’s saying something when you consider that cassette also featured great groups like TSOL, The March Violets, Naked Raygun, and The Jesus and Mary Chain!

I immediately wanted to know more about them, and on my next visit to James’ house, was introduced to 10,000 Maniacs album The Wishing Chair. For the first time, I got to hear such wonderful songs as “Just as The Tide Was Rushing In” , “Can’t Ignore The Train”, “Back O’ The Moon”, and the incredible album closer “My Mother The War”.

  I was also finally able to see just what the group looked like, and I’ll never forget standing in that living room, looking at the little thumbnail pic of the lead singer Natalie Merchant for the first time! They looked so cool- really like a little Bohemian Beatnik group, a look that fit nicely with the songs they were singing - In fact, I was happy to discover that The Wishing Chair was produced by Joe Boyd, the man who oversaw such artists as Fairport Convention, Cat Stevens and Nick Drake!

   Fast forward a few years later, and I’m reading the latest Rolling Stone magazine, and glancing on the College Album Chart, I’m informed that the Maniacs have released a new album! I hurried down to the record store and picked up a cassette (yes! Cassette!) of their new release, a strange covered album called In My Tribe.

Shortly after falling in love with ABSOLUTELY FALLING IN LOVE with the album, 10,000 Maniacs appeared on Saturday Night Live (guest host: Judge Reinhold), and performed Like The Weather and What’s The Matter Here. Like the Weather was fun and breezy, but it was the performance of What’s The Matter Here that did it for me. THIS WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST PERFS I’D EVER SEEN! There was no going back for me, and I beacme a rabid Maniacs fan from then on!

It was a great time to be a Maniacs fan. Soon came Blind Man’s Zoo, as well as a rather significant release called “Hope Chest”, which contained songs from the Maniacs first two LPs Human Conflict Number Five and Secrets of The I Ching. FANTASTIC!!!

These were SOOOOOO good, and before I could catch my breath, Elektra Records had released a VIDEO collection of the Maniacs!!! I cannot tell you how thrilled I was. There was a while there when Wishing Chair, In My Tribe, Blind Man’s Zoo and Hope Chest were (just about) the only CDs I was listening to, and those songs really remind me about that specific time in my life!

Speaking of the Wishing Chair on CD, When they released that album on CD, I was pleased to find that they’d given three bonus songs for the release, but was horrified to find that they’d actually mixed it into the order of the songs. The Original chonology was already perfect, and It was hard to listen to the songs in this strange new way, and worst of all, they’d placed”Arbor Day” at the end where My Mother The War was supposed to close the album!

By the time 10,000 Maniacs released Our Time In Eden, they had sort of changed into a different group (at least for me)… While I did love the album (and have some terrific live performances from the album, as well), I got a different vibe from the band, and I have to admit I wasn’t too surprised when they broke up shortly thereafter. From that point, Natalie Merchant would go solo, and the remaining maniacs would bring back original guitarist John Lombardo and his new partner Mary Ramsey as a new Maniacs of sorts. Both groups are fine in their own way, and I like that these new ventures are keeping the spirit of the group alive, But for me, the magic time for 10,000 Maniacs was those first few years…that stuff is priceless to me!