Your Mind's All Made Up and the Shade's All Pulled Down

It's a pre-moment moment, one that has nothing to do with the heart of the song and everything to do with its nervous system. As the Mekons ease into "Wild and Blue," a John Anderson cover (and, Yes, that "h" is important--for this is country and no art rock) found on 1990's Curse of the Mekons, before Sally Timms lets her langorously lovely voice loose, you can sort of hear a siren's wail, but the band clearly hears it in the studio and Jon Langford says, "Ah, ambulance, just what we need." That they leave the ambulance in, that they leave Langford's comment in, that's more than the Mekons sloppy party way. For if there's a song more in need of a trip to heartbreak hospital, I haven't heard it.