{"id":5269,"date":"2026-07-19T12:38:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5269"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:38:04","slug":"why-modern-lovers-live-remains-an-unpunk-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5269","title":{"rendered":"Why \u2018Modern Lovers \u2018Live\u2019\u2019 remains an unpunk classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<p><span><i>In our weekly series, One Special Thing, the Globe arts staff highlights something timeless \u2014 movies, books, TV shows, albums, paintings, plays, symphonies, dishes \u2014 that we return to in good times and bad. Something we\u2019re just dying to tell you about. The only parameter is passion.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5268\">World Cup integrity questioned by European rights body urging FIFA to help protect 2030 tournament<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>When I was 12, my brothers abruptly shelved their copies of &#8220;Dark Side of the Moon\u201d and \u201cWho\u2019s Next\u201d and started playing records I hadn\u2019t heard on the radio in Western Mass. Overnight, it seemed, Emerson, Lake &amp; Palmer was out and The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, The Stranglers, The Jam, Television, and Talking Heads were in.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span>I\u2019m grateful. 1977 was a landmark year for new music and if I didn\u2019t have discerning older siblings I might still be listening to Styx and Leo Sayer. Instead, I got deeply into punk \u2014 so deep, in fact, that I briefly wore a padlock around my neck because Sid Vicious had one. (But it bruised my sternum when I played tennis so I took it off; I wasn\u2019t <i>that<\/i> committed to non-conformity.)<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><span>Get Starting Point<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><label>Enter Email<\/label><\/p>\n<div><button>Sign Up<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Five decades later, my love for all of those bands and their startling debut LPs full of short, sharp-edged songs is undiminished. But there\u2019s another album from the time that I also cherish, in part because it\u2019s completely <i>un<\/i>punk. \u201cModern Lovers \u2018Live\u2019\u201d is sosweet, so honest and openhearted, that it\u2019s hard to believe it was recorded in 1977 \u2014 in London, no less, the epicenter of punk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Most people, if they know the Modern Lovers at all, know the band\u2019s eponymous first album, released in 1976. Today, it\u2019s rightly regarded as a proto-punk masterpiece \u2014 Rolling Stone ranks \u201cThe Modern Lovers\u201d among the 500 greatest albums ever \u2014 but it was familiar to very few at the time. I don\u2019t recall my brothers playing it around the house. (The Sex Pistols were at least aware of the album\u2019s first song, \u201cRoadrunner,\u201d because there\u2019s a ragged recording of the band trying to play it soon after the LP\u2019s release.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What\u2019s striking about that Modern Lovers record is the influence of the Velvet Underground, the pioneering New York ensemble that Modern Lovers frontman Jonathan Richman had seen perform dozens of times at the Boston Tea Party. (Richman grew up in Natick.) The Velvet Underground\u2019s sound and sensibility are all over the album, likely because former VU bassist John Cale produced much of it. \u201cRoadrunner,\u201d in particular, shares certain musical DNA with VU\u2019s epic cyclone of noise, \u201cSister Ray.\u201d And on songs about girlfriends, drugs, and Pablo Picasso, Richman\u2019s nasal, not-quite-singing vocal recalls Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground\u2019s principal singer and songwriter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But enough about the first Modern Lovers record. By the time it was released, the band \u2014 or at least that version of it \u2014 had broken up. I discovered the reconstituted Modern Lovers in 1978, when my brother Ed gave me a copy of \u201cModern Lovers \u2018Live\u2019\u201d for Christmas. He\u2019d heard it in his freshman dorm at Columbia and was instantly intrigued. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5266\">HBO\u2019s \u2018The Leftovers\u2019 brought fear and wonder to a selective end-times event<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Me? Not so much. I thought it was goofy. I\u2019d been listening to a lot of sneering punk anthems by the Ramones, Buzzocks, and Dead Boys, whose first album was aptly titled \u201cYoung, Loud, and Snotty,\u201d and here was Richman singing songs like \u201cI\u2019m a Little Airplane\u201d and \u201cHey There Little Insect.\u201d Was this children\u2019s music? Was it satire? Were the lyrics \u2014<i> I\u2019m a little airplane nyow\/ I\u2019m a little airplane nyow nyow\/ And wangity-wang wangity-wang\/ I\u2019m a little airplane now <\/i>\u2014truly as inane as they seemed?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With repeated listens, however, I was won over. Completely. Most teens today would cringe at a song like \u201cIce Cream Man\u201d \u2014 an eight-minute homage to the feeling you get when an ice cream truck drives down your street \u2014 but it was so ingenuous and over-the-top that it seemed like art. There was something subversive about singing \u201cI\u2019m a Little Dinosaur\u201d when many others were screaming about anarchy. (FWIW the Velvet Underground had a kidlike quality, too, as on \u201cAfter Hours\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Sticking With You\u201d: <i>I\u2019m sticking with you\/ \u2018Cause I\u2019m made out of glue\/ Anything that you might do\/ I\u2019m gonna do too.)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What sealed \u201cModern Lovers \u2018Live\u2019\u201d for me was the last song on the record, \u201cMorning of Our Lives\u201a\u201d which the band played as an encore at London\u2019s Hammersmith Odeon in September 1977. Richman was backed that night by guitarist Leroy Radcliffe and bassist Asa Brebner, both of whom were later in Robin Lane &amp; the Chartbusters, and drummer D. Sharpe. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Richman introduces the song by saying: \u201cWe know that the time is now cuz now is the morning of our lives.\u201d Radcliffe then strums a sunny progression. The lyrics, though, communicate something else. Richman is consoling a sad friend with gentle words.<i> You always put yourself down but I like ya\/ That\u2019s all I came to say\/ There\u2019s no need\/ To think that other people can do things better than you can do \u2019em\/ \u2018Cause you got the same power in you.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The sentiment is sweet without being sappy, earnest without being off-putting. By the end, the audience is clapping in time; they\u2019re all in. I am, too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5264\">At Leader Bank Pavilion, Bob Dylan proves he\u2019s still painting his masterpiece<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The album is so sweet, so honest and openhearted, that it\u2019s hard to believe it was recorded in 1977 \u2014 in London, no less, the epicenter of punk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why \u2018Modern Lovers \u2018Live\u2019\u2019 remains an unpunk classic - Boston Relocation Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5269\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why \u2018Modern Lovers \u2018Live\u2019\u2019 remains an unpunk classic - 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