OUR PARENTS HAD ELVIS. WE HAD X.

There's an old post about X that's been getting hits lately (Didn't see this coming) which made me want to hear X last night, so I did. The first song that happened to come up was "White Girl". That's a really familiar song to me and it made me think about why I liked it and most of X's early stuff so much. Part of it, I know, is the way John Doe and Exene Cervenka sing together. Something about their dissimilar voices, how sometimes they trade off lines and sometimes they harmonize. That's the part that gets me, when they're harmonizing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's a little abrasive. No doubt an acquired taste, but there was no shortage of of acquired tastes in my crowd back in the day. All of my friends were into X, several still go to every show they play here, when they do. I don't go because I've seen then a lot, most shows in the early days. They're still playing a lot of the same songs. That said, I can see why a lot of people my age still go see them. From reports of friends their gigs are almost like reunions with the old punk crew. I don't do reunions because it always seems to me that it's reliving past glories. Just replace that old star quarterback with the graying spiky haired dude that used to rule the pit. Same thing.

So, with my one night X-fest I really dug into "White Girl" and realized that the vocals have just about all of the trademark John/Exene qualities. They swap lines, they harmonize in that slightly abrasive manner and, here's what got me. About a minute in (on the record, ), when they sing the chorus ("She's a white girl..."), their voices really do come together, so much so that you'd guess that John Doe's vocals were double tracked. Check the clip above, shot in the studio the day they were recording it. Dang me if they aren't both on that chorus at least on film. (2:29 in the video). I could be wrong.There's also a live recording of them doing it in 1988, eight years after it was released, and a live video from 2016, thirty six years after it was released (!).

Once again, I'm posting a link to the documentary about X, The Unheard Music. That was the source of the studio clip, but there's a mess of live stuff and hanging around in it as well. Worth a gander if you've never seen it. Shit, now I kinda know how the teddy boys felt.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
X - White Girl mp3 at Internet Archive 1980
X- White Girl (streaming) at YouTube
X - White Girl (Live) (streaming) at YouTube 1988
Video:
The Unheard Music (documentary) at YouTube 1986
X - White Girl (Live) at YouTube 2016