Ted Leo “Under The Hedge” (Demo)

I’m kind of a Ted Leo/Pharmacists superfan, and I realized that a couple months into hacking away at this newfangled “blag” thing all the kids are talking about, I haven’t featured any music by dude.

He pulls off his Thin Lizzy/Jam/Elvis C./dubby vein of punk-inspired smart rock–not exactly a trendy endeavor at any point in the last decade or so–without being, to these ears, wholly derivative. His songs are catchy, and the POV of his lyrics show a guys whose head and heart are in the right place. And anyone who’s seen the live sweat knows Leo’s like the Hardest Working Man in Indie Rock. (Or is that damning with faint praise?)

So today we have the demo version of “Under The Hedge” (The Tyranny of Distance, 2001), provenance unknown but possibly nabbed from TedLeo.com in the past. In its nascent stage, it’s a bit slower than the harder-rockin’ album version, which I’d argue allows the song of the song to come through a little more. Everything else is intact, from the opening step-dancin’ riff to the big solo. I’m never 100% sure I’m totally getting Leo’s point, and maybe I’m copping out before I even get going here, but “Under The Hedge” nails, for me, that special crushed-out feeling.

The demo take is incrementally more tentative-sounding than the final album version, and what befits being crushed out more than butterfly-bellied doubt? Sometimes it feels like yr just talking yrself into it. But it feels like love, even (especially?) if it’s not returned. Sometimes you feel a little like a spectator. In this case, the metaphor employed, watching from the margins, hiding in the bushes, should be creepy and stalkerish. But the openness of the melody and the chime of the arpeggio in the verse makes it sound sweet.

The song also has the sense of rooting for someone who doesn’t see in herself all the wonder you see in her. (Make that “himself … him,” as appropriate.) The White Knight Syndrome lives on, expressed aphoristically here by Mr. Leo. Actually, this evokes a particular long-ago crush from me, in the bad old days. So as much as I know that the kind of infatuation described in “Under The Hedge” is a bad idea, it still feels romantic to me.

The Tyranny of Distance at Newbury Comics. (MP3s at iTunes and Insound.)

Here are 13 of my 16 favorite songs from 2004. You’ll note the long dry spell before and after. This is officially incomplete and unpublished before the mid-06 PCR blog switchover.