The Vulgar Boatmen
"Please Panic."
(Caroline, 1992)

By CHARLES TAYLOR I've always been drawn to the romantic side of rock 'n' roll (Buddy Holly, the Everlys, the Fleetwoods, the Beatles). The allusive (and elusive) "Please Panic," by the Vulgar Boatmen, seems to carry echoes of them all. Like Buddy Holly's "I'm Gonna Love You Too," the Boatmen's "You Don't Love Me Yet" is an expression of faith in a love the singer is convinced will come someday (the word "yet" is the giveaway). But Holly's buoyancy has been replaced here by a measured patience. "Please Panic.," a collection of simple, infinitely listenable and mysterious pop melodies, suggests what it means to reach adulthood and still believe in the idealism of those songs, still believe that love is around the next corner, that a pop song can bear the weight of your world and, more important, change it. The Boatmen don't see the romantic idealism of pop as youthful folly; they see it as the Grail. The images these songs call up are of people well past college, stuck in small towns with lovers or friends off in the world's territories, or potential lovers only a few blocks away who are unaware of the ardor the singer is trying to screw up the courage to declare. They're songs about connecting over geographic and emotional distances, just as the songwriters, Robert Ray (who lives in Gainesville) and Dale Lawrence (who lives in Indianapolis) connect, writing songs by mail, each rehearsing with a group of musicians, an amalgam of which play on the records and tour. Their lyrics suggest messages that get broken up traveling over a telephone wire, coming at you in bursts of undefined longing ("I know it's OK to wait/I just don't know what they're waiting for"; "I go ridin' when the movies close down/I have my own reasons...there's nothin' "); or lines whose meanings are deceptive (is it "You will always be always the one I love" or "You will always be all ways the one I love"?). Partly because they know that the glory of being a pop fan is creating our own meanings, the Vulgar Boatmen trust us enough to leave the important things unsaid here. On the last song, "The 23rd of September," the singer resolves to tell the girl he loves how he feels. "I'm gonna get in my car and drive to your house," he sings. "I'm gonna tell you/I'm gonna tell you..." What? He never says. But we can hear it, in the longing of the guitars stretching out like a highway built just for the two of them, in the way he keeps singing, "The sun is shining." And for as long as the song lasts, we share his faith that the woman he's driving to will be able to hear it, too.

Download a clip (858k) of "The 23rd of September"
from "Please Panic."

Pick YOUR Personal Best in Table Talk.