Favourites : The Mendoza Line : Lost in the Revelry

Lost in Revelry is a lo-fi alternative country music masterpiece by The Mendoza Line.  A band that named itself after a baseball statistic indicating unacceptable batting.

I bought it in Melbourne at the same time I bought Calexico's Feast of Wire - certainly one of my best days of music buying.

The Mendoza Line was a New York based band out of Georgia.  By 2000 the mainstays were soon to be husband and wife Shannon McArdle and Tim Bracy.

I had heard the desperately depressing Triple Bill of Shame on a best of 2002 CD as the album, despite being pretty obscure made quite a few best of lists that year. The album kicks off with the excellent and similarly downbeat A Damn Good Disguise.  While one of the next tracks Something Dark hints at an even darker theme it is actually somewhat lighter with McArdle humourously considering options in response to her partner's infidelity.

They save the best to almost the end, the incredibly nasty The Queen of England a misogynists view of love.

So, you thought you were in love

Just 'Cause I bought you pancakes

Call it an honest mistake

But for God's sake don't call it love

So, you thought you were turned on

Just 'cause I got you wasted

And you over-appraised it

When you told your friend you were in love

And you recognize, of course

That all this is just a sham

And I'm not an artist

That's no one's idea of a man

You were a little engine that might

Might all these little things right

But if I don't see you tonight

Say hi to the Queen of England

So you thought we should've stayed friends

But I didn't think so

But you wouldn't take no for an answer

You kept on asking why

So I said I wanted you

But I didn't mean it

I just liked to see if

I could say those things

And look you in the eye

And you recognize, of course

That all this is just a sham

He's not an artist

And I'm no one's idea of a man

You were a little engine that could

Make all these awful things good

But you never said you would

Help out the Queen of England

You recognize, of course

That all this is just for laughs

'Cause I've been his lover

And he don't really talk like that

You were the little engine that cracked

That isn't blood on the tracks

Should you want your innocence back

Go ask the Queen of England

Should you want your innocence back

Go ask the Queen of England