We were sitting in Craig’s bedroom listing to his brother’s taped copy of “88 Lines About 44 Women” by the Nails—probably copied off the air when broadcast on Dr. Demento.

I hung out with Craig mainly at Olson Junior High School (Bloomington, Minnesota) before school, in between classes, and at lunch (if we ever had the same lunch period). Craig, along with our other friend, Dan, was my protection against the onslaught of popularity contests, cruel teasing, and that mass of students that is seventh grade. I panicked if I couldn’t find Craig in the morning, because I feared being alone in those halls, having no one to hang out with for those interminable five minutes before the morning bell.

Craig and I, not knowing each other yet, both wore the same red, Generra shirt for our seventh grade picture. We tried our best to avoid both wearing the shirt on the same day. That would have be highly uncool but would have represented how much I depended on Craig for style, entrance into new groups of people, meeting girls, friendship in the halls and football games, and music.

Music—that’s what bound me to Craig most. Craig, through his older brother, opened my eyes to a world beyond a-ha and the other 80’s Top 40 fodder. This was 1985—and what did we little seventh graders know about music. But Craig told me about R.E.M. and Echo & the Bunnymen. We listened to Dead or Alive, but always thought they were no match for the Cure.

That’s how I ended up listening to that tape of the Nails in Craig’s bedroom. We had shut the door. I can’t remember Craig’s parents, but apparently we weren’t sure if they would approve of “88 Lines About 44 Women”—although if it was a copy from Dr. Demento, the occasional cuss words would have been bleeped.

Yet, perhaps we closed the door, because we sensed the danger in the song. This was a world we weren’t supposed to know—dalliances with a string of women, independence and sexual freedom, bragging rights, flawed people.

Since then, the Nails’ song has shown up in commercials and as bumper music on talk radio—just the infectious, humming “da-da” vamp. I always smile to myself when I hear the music behind the car commercial, thinking, “Dude, the song’s not about cars but about hooking up in the backseats of cars. Is that the message that [Car Company X] wants to send?”

With the re-release of Mood Swing this summer, it was time to revisit this single masterpiece. Yes, since leaving Craig’s bedroom, I ended up eventually realizing that having a string of dalliances wouldn’t produce happiness. “88 Lines” seems crass, rebellious, irreverent, and perhaps encourages illicit and immoral behavior.

But I can’t reject it out of hand; the song is a masterpiece.

44 Couplets and Exegesis
English teachers can only hope that 44 students would each write a couplet as strong as the 44 in the Nails’ song. Each couplet about coupling with a woman tells an entire story about that woman.

Hearing the song again 22 years later (23 after its release), I realized that the power of the song isn’t just the way it appealed to our burgeoning, teenage hormones. Actually, the song captured me with the way that each woman was drawn with enough clarity that made me want to meet, know, date, and perhaps even marry each one. Two lines and I wanted to save the flawed ones, know the strong ones, date the exotic ones, and learn all of their stories. This could be a multi-layered movie, catching glimpses of each woman, and thereby seeing their entire stories.

Beyond seeing the song as an excellent example of couplets, my current listening also led to this exegesis: the song actually contains 89 lines. The song ends with an echoing, deadpan Marc Campbell saying the song title, but that’s not what I mean by the 89th line. Instead, there is one woman who gets a third line.

I always thought that perhaps the song was dedicated to Amaranta as the current love and thereby showing her that the other 43 women were in the past. The song ends, “Amaranta, here’s a kiss/I chose you to end this list.”

But Katherine appears around the middle of the song in a stanza of drug users, and she gets the extra line. “Katherine was much too pretty/She didn’t do that s*** at all/…Uh-uh, not Katherine.” Katherine is held up for her clean living, and the way Kaufman croons, “Uh-uh, not Katherine,” it’s as if she is still highly respected and loved.

Therefore, in our movie version of the song, Katherine will be the one who appears at the end as the protagonist’s true love that he never got over. He tries to dedicate himself to Amaranta, but the song reveals his true passion for Katherine.

Mood Swing: The Album
The Nails are more than “88 Lines,” and the re-release of Mood Swing meant discovering two other strong tracks from the same era.

“Home of the Brave” begins on a faux patriotic melody, but it isn’t clear if the home of the brave is the United States or heaven. Vamping on “On Broadway,” along with a spaghetti Western-type guitar, and tapping into Lou Reed’s vision of the city, the Nails look out at the early 80’s with an apocalyptic vision which sounds very much like one way in which to view 2007.

Oh, god of hell, I said, I love the suit
That the devil gave me to wear to Beirut
Where the boys are dancing on the tabletops
And the jukebox plays apocalyptic be-bop.

I remember now how much we felt like the end was coming in those days of Regan, and it’s no wonder that the Nails rail my emotions again with their apocalyptic be-bop vision. The song plays on an American false bravado of thinking we’re at the top of the moral heap.

“Let It All Hang Out” should rank right up there with all attempts at showing how rock ‘n’ roll singers are our modern revivalist preachers. Prince may have said, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…,” but at the Church of the Nails, Rev. Campbell says, “Give praise, my brethren, for what you are about to receive. Old John Barleycorn, nicotine, and the temptations of the rock ‘n’ roll chord E.” Caeser Pink can only imitate this kind of musical preaching.

“Let It All Hang Out” has that 80’s pop dance feel along with Men at Work horns, gang vocals on the choruses, and odd, creepy lyrics. Coming on the heels of “Home of the Brave,” “Let It All Hang Out” seems designed to get you dancing on the tabletops until the end of the world.

Thanks to The Nails and Citybeat Records for the review CD.