Pretenders: Learning To Crawl (Remastered + Expanded) CD Track Listing

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Pretenders Learning To Crawl (Remastered + Expanded) (1984)
Learning To Crawl (Remastered + Expanded)\n2007 Sire Records/Rhino\n\nOriginally Released January 11, 1984\nCD Edition Released July 1987\nRemastered + Expanded CD Edition Released June 5, 2007\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: Chrissie Hynde took a long, hard road to rock & roll stardom, but when her band, the Pretenders, finally broke through in 1979, they wasted no time, growing from promising newcomers on the British music scene to major international stardom with a pair of smash albums to their credit in a mere three years. But the Pretenders' meteoric rise came to a crashing halt in 1982, when drug abuse claimed the life of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and forced Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers to dump bassist Pete Farndon, who would also succumb to an OD in April 1983. Hynde was forced by circumstance to reinvent the Pretenders for their third album, 1984's Learning to Crawl, but if the new edition of the group lacked some of the spark of the band that made the first two LPs, through sheer force of will Hynde created a masterpiece. While Hynde hardly held back in her emotionally potent songwriting in the Pretenders' early work, on Learning to Crawl there's a gravity to her lyrics that blended with her tough but wiry melodic sense and streetwise intelligence to create a set of truly remarkable tunes. "Back on the Chain Gang" is a touching tribute to her fallen comrades that still sounds bitterly rueful, "Middle of the Road" is a furious rocker that explores the emotional and physical toll of a musician's life, "Time the Avenger" is a taut, literate examination of a businessman's adulterous relationship, "My City Was Gone" deals with the economic and cultural decay of the Midwest in a manner both pithy and genuinely heartfelt, and "2000 Miles" is a Christmas number that demonstrates Hynde can be warm without getting sappy. As a guitarist, Robbie McIntosh brought a simpler and more elemental style to the Pretenders than Pete Farndon, but his tough, muscular leads fit these songs well, and bassist Malcolm Foster's solid punch fits Chambers' drumming perfectly. Three albums into her recording career, Chrissie Hynde found herself having to put the past to bed and carve out a new beginning for herself with Learning to Crawl, but she pulled it off with a striking mixture of courage, strength, and great rock & roll; with the exception of the instant-classic debut album, it's the Pretenders' finest work. \n\nIn 2007, Rhino Records released an expanded and remastered edition of Learning to Crawl featuring seven bonus tracks. "Fast or Slow (The Law's the Law)" and "Ramblin' Bob" are two unreleased cuts that (respectively) give Martin Chambers and Robbie McIntosh a chance to show off their songwriting chops (and they both sound better than many folks would expect), while "Tequila," a country-influenced number from Hynde's pen recorded for the album but cut from the running order, finally surfaces on this disc, along with demos of "I Hurt You" and "When I Change My Life" (the latter of which would be re-recorded for 1986's Get Close). The disc closes out with two great live tunes from the Pretenders' set at the 1983 US Festival, "My City Was Gone" and a witty cover of Barrett Strong's "Money." Add Ben Edmonds' fine new liner notes and crisp new mastering and this is a near-definitive presentation of one of the great albums of the '80s. -- Mark Deming \n\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: Chrissie Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers reassembled the Pretenders in 1982, following the death of James Honeyman-Scott and the departure of bassist Pete Farndon. Learning to Crawl, appropriately, is the sound of a band coming to grips with loss and the responsibilities that come with maturity. Even though the subject matter is undeniably serious, the Pretenders rock with a vigorous energy that was missing on Pretenders II. It helps that Hynde's songs are among her best, of course. "Middle of the Road" encapsulates the contradictions in the album's main themes, "Back on the Chain Gang" is a moving tribute to Scott, "My City Was Gone" is a vicious attack on Reagan-era economic devastation, and the beautiful, ringing "2000 Miles" is one of the few rock & roll songs about Christmas to actually work. And while "Watching the Clothes" is a bit embarrassing, it isn't enough to stop Learning to Crawl from being one of the best rock & roll records of the early '80s. -- Stephen Thomas Erlewine\n\nAmazon.com Editorial Review\nThe departure of bassist Pete Farndon, and the drug-related death of lead guitarist James Honeyman Scott in 1982, left Chrissie Hynde's Pretenders in disarray, but she and drummer Martin Chambers rallied to produce the stunning 1983 single, "Back on the Chain Gang" (dedicated to Scott), and over the course of the next year, cobbled together enough material for a new album, some of whose tracks included new members: guitarist Robbie McIntosh and bassist Malcolm Foster. Nontheless, the album held together due to Hynde's uniformly strong material, which ranged from the rocking, bluesy "Middle of the Road" to the near-protest tune "My City Was Gone," to the piercing "Time the Avenger." --Billy Altman \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nRhino has done it again! Great Packaging but Even Better Sound!, August 7, 2007 \nBy Frederick Baptist (Singapore)\nThis for me is the best and my favourite Pretenders' album. Few bands could ever be expected to recover and meet let alone surpass expectations after the major blows that this band had to undergo after the release of their impressive debut album. Def Leppard comes to mind as one band whose sophomore effort blew away the impressive debut after their drummer of all people lost an arm in an accident. Just as "Hysteria" was a definitive album for them coming after "Pyromania", "Learning To Crawl" is the masterpiece that followed "Pretenders" and "Pretenders II". \n\nWhat's even more impressive is that the Pretenders had to recover from the deaths of two excellent musicians i.e. their lead guitarist and bassist. Writing as a guitarist who has recorded and played in bands before, I was very impressed with the work of replacement guitarist Robbie McIntosh (brilliant rhythm guitar work on "Middle of the Road") and especially of the work of Billy Bremner on the lead to "Back On the Chain Gang". These are the two strongest tracks on the album but that doesn't mean the rest of the tracks are mere fillers; "Show Me", "2000 Miles" and one of my favourites "Thin Line Between Love and Hate" showcase the great songwriting and vocal styling abilities of Chrissie Hynde although the last track was a cover. \n\nWhat makes this version of the album great though is the very well remastered sound quality which makes it sound fresh even today. Also, although not a faithful mini-lp sleeve replica of the original, the cardboard packaging is still very well done with great pictures among the cd credits as well as including a 16-page booklet which contains a good essay on the band by Ben Edmonds as well as more pictures and all the lyrics! I'm usually not too enamored by bonus tracks because most of the time they end up being uninteresting outtakes and sometimes if the band is a one-hit wonder, you'll find numerous versions of the one track which tends to detract from the enjoyment of the overall disc. \n\nThankfully, this is not the case here and the (count them) 7 bonus tracks are not simply filler with garbage no one wants to hear anyway but instead are live and unreleased tracks. Brilliant! I just wish other record companies take a good, close look at what Rhino has done here with this album before they start destroying classic albums by putting little if any thought or effort in issuing remastered re-issues of their albums. Kudos to Rhino for releasing the best version that is currently out there of this album. The Pretenders' best album has never looked or sounded better. \n\nHighly recommended! \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe Pretenders Third Album Is Finally Remastered!, June 19, 2007 \nBy Barron W. Crist (Miami, FL USA)\nReleased in 1983, The Pretenders third album included several new band members in Robbie McIntosh who replaced James Honeyman Scott (who died from a drug overdose) on lead guitar and Malcolm Foster who replaced Pete Farndon (who was fired because of personal and drug problems) on bass. While The Pretenders debut album (simply titled The Pretenders) will always be my personal favorite, "Learning To Crawl" is a close second (along with The Pretenders II album). The album produced the hits "Back On The Chain Gang", "Middle Of The Road", "Show Me", "2000 Miles", "Thin Line Bewtween Love And Hate" and "Fast Or Slow" ("The Law's The Law") (this bonus track was released as a single and was the b-side of "2000 Miles" and sung by drummer Martin Chambers). The album wasn't as punk influenced as their debut but was more pop rock and the band seemed more mature. This newly remastered edition of "Learning To Crawl" includes seven excellent bonus tracks which are a nice addition to an already superb album. The only downside is that the cd inside the cardboard mini album replica has no inner sleeve to prevent it from scuffing and scratching. It just slips into one of the two the cardboard sleeves and that's it. Why Warner Brothers Records couldn't have included a paper inner sleeve for the cd is beyond me. My disc was scuffed badly and I returned it to the place of purchase and got my money back. Warner Brothers Records (Rhino) really needs to improve it's quality control. Sound quality wise the remastering is excellent with increased bass and midrange and output level. Highly Recommended! \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nTragedy doesn't detract from this terrific third album (please note this is NOT for the remastered edtion), January 28, 2007 \nBy My Science Fiction Twin "If at first the idea... (My Little Blue Window, USA)\nWhen half your band dies it changes the way you write and view the world. True Pete Farndon had already been kicked out (he was doing heroin)but James Honeyman Scott's death came as a shock. This terrifically talented guitarist and songwriter left the world too soon. Every song here (with the exception of one)continues to see Hynde's songwriting develop. The album opens with the explosive "Middle of the Road" (with a great guitar hook that new guitarist Robbie MacIntosh introduced to the song. Hynde has later stated he probably deserved a songwriting credit as it improved the song)and the album almost never misses hitting all chords perfectly whether it be for "Thumbelina" or the melodic, sensual reading of the classic "Thin Line Between Love and Hate". The closer "2000 Miles" references a classic Otis Redding tune but stands on its own. It's a beautiful closer to a great album. McIntosh is a perfect fit for the band at this stage. \n\nHynde recorded "My City Was Gone" and "Back on the Chain Gang" (both of which were written BEFORE the death of Honeyman-Scott but the latter sounds like it was written after it and about their attempt to continue without him)with Rockpile's Billy Bremner (a guitarist that Honeyman-Scott admired) and Big Country's Tony Butler (and frequent bass player for Pete Townshend's early solo albums)filling in. \n\nHoneyman-Scott had been trying to recruit guitarist Robbie MacIntosh (formerly of Manfred Mann's Earth Band and who went on to a critically acclaimed solo career and playing with Paul McCartney)for the band so it seems like a natural progression for him to be in The Pretenders. MacIntosh brought along friend Malcolm Foster on bass and The Pretenders were reborn. This is one of the band's best albums inspite of "Watching the Clothes" (every Pretenders album has one or two weak tracks but they still don't detract from the impact of the albums). The more straight forward, muscular style on display here (Honeyman-Scott's guitar playing is missed even though MacIntosh is a terrific guitar player. His style is quite a bit different)promised a renewed start for the band (although their subsquent albums didn't deliver on that promise until gutiarist and former Katydid founder Adam Seymour joined the band and became a permanent fixture of the line up). \n\nI'm looking forward to the deluxe reissue of this album. Hopefully we'll get demos, outtakes and live tracks similar to the band's first two albums. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nI've almost got a kid at 33 baby!!!!, October 16, 2002 \nBy D. Hawkins (Denver, CO United States)\nEven though I'm a guy, Chrissie Hynde's amazing words resonate almost 20 years later. "Middle of the Road" is something all adults have to face at some point or another - are we really just like our parents?! Many others have alluded to the commentary of "My City Was Gone," and how it's been appropriated by Limbaugh and the "government that had no pride" (how ironic). I don't think any of the previous reviews mentioned the life-altering song that is "Show Me." Though this album has always been amazing from start to finish, for me "Show Me" has always been the tour de force. "Welcome here from outer space/The Milky Way still in your eyes" What a line! I saw the video to this one on VH1 Classic the other day and had tears in my eyes! It's just one of those songs that makes you glad to be ALIVE! The fills played by Martin Chambers on this song also elevate it to another plane (Martin deserves much of the credit for the way he DRIVES all these songs; he's certainly one of the most underrated drummers to ever hit the skins!). Add to that, the greatest Christmas song from the last 30 years ("2000 Miles") and you've got an album that just about exhausts all superlatives. At this ridiculously low price, you'd have to have permanent dain bramage to not make this a part of your life. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nLearn About A Great Album, March 18, 2001 \nBy AntiochAndy "antiochandy" (Antioch, CA USA)\nThis is a superb album. One of the best to come out of the decade of the 1980's. The band was in disarray when "Back On The Chain Gang" and "My City Was Gone" were recorded. Guitarist Billy Bremner and bassist Tony Butler filled in. The recording was subsequently completed with new bandmembers Robbie McIntosh on guitar and Malcolm Foster on bass. Despite the turmoil, the album could hardly be better. Chrissie Hynde is the key. Nine of the ten songs were written by Hynde and she fronts the band on guitar and lead vocals. "Middle Of The Road" and "Back On The Chain Gang" got most of the airplay, but hearing "My City Was Gone" on the radio is what got my attention following the album's release. "City" features a rock-solid backbeat, some outstanding lead guitar work, and Hynde's laid-back vocal. Besides "City", my personal favorites include "Time The Avenger", "Thumbelina", "2000 Miles", "Middle Of The Road" and "Chain Gang". Pithy, adult lyrics abound on this LP and the maturity of the material is a definite plus. This is a dynamite album and should occupy a spot in any rock collection. Very highly recommended. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nAn 80's top-notch classic!!, April 30, 1999 \nReviewer: A music fan\nThis is my favorite album by the Pretenders. One year in the early eighties when I was working as a waitress, this tape never left my player. "Serving the middle-class, yeah it's a cool routine" was my anthem as my clothes literally did "go round." It's funny (and scary!) listening to "Middle of the Road" now that I'm 33. I had the wonderful opportunity to see them in concert after they released this one with their new line up. They were even better in concert than on the album, hard to believe, but true. They're a great band and this album is their magnum opus, yet it still sounds fresh and relevant today. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nReal "Chicken Soup For the Soul", August 7, 1998 \nBy Craig Riecke (East Syracuse, NY USA)\nOedipus the King, after stabbing his eyes out, attracted a pretty big following of Greeks who considered a suffering man to be wise and holy. And so I follow Chrissie Hynde, and this is her magnum opus. Various life injustices (being a Waitress in "Watching the Clothes" or losing one you love in "Thumbellina") are paraded with spit and vinegar, but with a peculiar dose of optimism. I'm not saying C.H. is the Messiah or anything, but she is a human being that has been through a lot and isn't afraid to sing about it. Those used to 1990's angst-ridden emptiness will find strength in these tunes. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nBest Pretenders Album, July 10, 1998 \nReviewer: A music fan\nI'm a great fan of Chrissie Hynde and this one is her best. One of the more important rock albums of the 80s. Don't fool yourself into thinking that Hynde is some sort of working-class hero. She's a literate American expat who hit the London puck scene in the late 70s with a vengeance, working odd jobs to get her rock & roll career off the ground. The earlier Pretenders albums, before bassist Pete Farndon and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott OD'ed, were raw and beautiful with songs evoking the drugging and whoring mayhem of the punk scene in which Hynde evidently indulged liberally. The stuff on "Crawl" is more reflective of Hynde's maturity, as she looks back on the heroin wreckage in her past and toward the future with her child. Great stuff. "Back on the Chain Gang," "My City Was Gone" and "Time the Avenger" are priceless. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nWorking Class Hero: Chrissie Hynde Rocks!, June 5, 1998 \nBy danielbradford@usa.net (Kansas City, Missouri)\n"Learning to Crawl" is the only Pretenders album I like. The album has 8 great songs and 2 so-so ones (tracks 9 & 10). "Learning to Crawl" merges the personal and political, allowing its listeners to feel/view the world as experienced by a working class woman: Chrissie Hynde, an Ohio native who wrote all but one of the songs on this album. Hynde, a former waitress who bitterly remembers the experience on "Watching the Clothes" ("I been kissing ass/Trying to keep it clean/Serving the middle class"), is the authentic voice of a working class person, a voice not heard on pop radio since Bob Dylan faded from the scene. "My City Was Gone" mourns the destruction of Hynde's childhood Ohio: "My pretty countryside/Had been paved down the middle/By a government that had no pride." Quick, name another pop song that has a funky backbeat and a social/political message. Hynde's voice, with its limited range, is an advantage rather than a liability. No pretty melodies here, just some five-star writing/musicianship.\n\n\nHalf.com Details \nContributing artists: Andrew Bodner, Billy Bremner, Paul Carrack \nProducer: Bill Inglot (Reissue), Chris Thomas \n\nAlbum Notes\nThe Pretenders: Chrissie Hynde (vocals, guitar); Robbie McIntosh (guitar); Malcolm Foster (bass); Martin Chambers (drums, background vocals).\n\nAdditional personnel: Billy Bremner (guitar); Paul Carrack (piano, background vocals); Chris Thomas (keyboards); Andrew Bodner (bass, background vocals); Tony Butler (bass).\n\nRecorded at AIR Studios, London, England.\n\nAudio Remasterer: Dan Hersch.\n\nAt the beginning of the Pretenders LEARNING TO CRAWL Chrissie Hynde sings, "I'm not the kind I used to be, I've got a kid, I'm 33, baby!" The bravado in the way she delivered that line, however, couldn't disguise the fact that she was also dealing with the back-to-back drug overdoses of two of her founding bandmates (one an ex-lover). The resulting album, unsurprisingly, deals at least in part with pain and loss. ("Back on the Chain Gang" LEARNING TO CRAWL's first single, was in fact an explicit memorial).\nGiven the circumstances surrounding the making of the album, it's amazing that on balance it's the band's most rounded effort. This is due to Hynde's particularly strong songwriting, and a standout performance by new guitarist Robbie MacIntosh, who compliments Hynde's material adroitly. High points include "2000 Miles," probably the best rock Christmas song ever and the enormously exciting "Middle of the Road" (if you don't move when you hear it, consult your primary care provider). Also noteworthy are "Time the Avenger," (among other things, a witty homage to the Outsiders' 60s punker "Time Won't Let Me") and "My City Was Gone," a sad and beautiful tribute to her hometown (Akron, Ohio).\n\n\nROLLING STONE REVIEW\nThis is an album about life and death and love and transcendence--subjects not much discussed on the brave new dance floor these days--and for Chrissie Hynde and her battered band, it is a triumph of art over adversity. To say that Learning to Crawl reconfirms Hynde as the most forceful female presence in rock already demeans her achievement: The matter of gender aside, she is the most unaffectedly personal of contemporary singer/songwriters, and surely the most astringently intimate lyricist working within a real rock & roll context. And if this third Pretenders album lacks the sense of revelation, of a new voice being heard, that so distinguished the group's first LP, the insights here are deeper, the wisdom harder won.\n\nThe unusual richness of this material becomes more readily apparent with a bit of background. The story so far: Chrissie Hynde leaves her home in Ohio and sets out for London. There, she gets caught up in the mid-Seventies punk-rock ferment and forms her own band with her drug-loving English boyfriend, who's a bass player, and a previously unheralded guitarist and drummer from his provincial hometown. Their first single is a hit, as is the group's debut album, released in January 1980 to international acclaim. It is dream-come-true time. Hynde meets her idol, Ray Davies of the Kinks, and becomes pregnant by him. Then the dream starts to sour. The Pretenders' bass player, Pete Farndon, has become a junkie and must be sacked from the group. Two days after Farndon's departure, the band's guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott, another longtime drug enthusiast, dies of cumulative abuse. Ten months later, Farndon also dies, from drug-related causes. Kaboom, as they say.\n\nThis history has left Hynde, as she says in "Middle of the Road," the first cut on Learning to Crawl, "Standing in the middle of life/With my past behind me." A less gifted artist might easily have turned the reverses Hynde has endured into a maudlin chronicle of Hard Times in Hip City. But Hynde has emerged from the human wreckage of the last twenty months with her cold eye and cleansing anger intact. There are no outright sob stories here; the heartbreak seeps through between the lines.\n\nIn January 1983, in the midst of the Pretenders' personal and professional nightmare, Hynde gave birth to a daughter, Natalie. And while she doesn't try to disguise the fact that the child's arrival has profoundly altered her world view--a reaffirmation of life amid the death and decay all around her--neither does she exploit the baby's significance for the usual weepy purposes. Instead, she overlays her new maternal insights upon the larger world of the six o'clock news and the daily papers, and tells us what she now sees: "There's corrugated tin shacks filled up with kids/And man, I don't mean a Hampstead nursery/When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world/The babies just come with the scenery."\n\nIt is a hallmark of Hynde's lyrical art that her inclination toward the personal mode--as opposed to the deadening generality that ultimately allows starving children to be seen as newsreel background--can result, in the flick of a phrase, in a piercing universality. In "Thumbelina," a rockabilly scorcher, Hynde, in the role of a mother on the run, tells her infant daughter that "what's important in this world" is "a little boy, a little girl." It's a statement of true romance on two levels--love matters, kids matter, and fuck whatever's supposed to be fashionable this week. The unending yin and yang, from birth to death, is "what's important in this life," she sings -- and then, almost as a throwaway, adds, "Ask the man who's lost his wife." It's a line that summons up whole histories of heartache.\n\nHynde's romantic stance--an unlikely combination of bristling personal autonomy and a vast sympathy for both sides of the masculine-feminine conundrum -- is unique in popular songwriting. In this tough-woman's world, children may assume the paramount importance of prefeminist tradition, but men--as fathers, as lovers--are often transient figures. If anyone walks out of a relationship, it's usually the woman. This assumption--that women are every bit the equals of men, not least in their power to wound--is both the sad, knowing message and the implicit warning of a song such as the dark-hued, brooding "I Hurt You." It is also the theme of the album's one cover, a faithful and gorgeously realized rendition of the Persuaders' 1971 soul hit, "Thin Line between Love and Hate." Here, in one of the LP's most luminous moments, Hynde wraps her extraordinary alto around the words as if she'd commissioned them herself: "The sweetest woman in the world/Could be the meanest woman in the world/If you make her that way.../She might be holdin' somethin' inside/That'll really, really hurt you one day."\n\nIf Hynde has been through the love mill more than once, she's still, in the end, a believer; but at the age of thirty-two, she's beginning to suspect that "finding the right man" really isn't the ultimate goal. The real goal is transcendence. In "Show Me," another song addressed to her daughter, she says: "You with your angel face.../Welcome here from outer space/The Milky Way's still in your eyes/You found yourself a hopeless case/One who's seeking perfection on earth/Or some kind of rebirth."\n\nLearning to Crawl, at the very least, achieves a professional rebirth that seemed uncertain as recently as a few months ago. Instrumentally, the band has its moments, but the late Honeyman-Scott's latticework lyricism is often missed and probably irreplaceable. There's also an occasional unevenness to the overall band sound--outside musicians were brought in to play on certain tracks before new bassist Malcolm Foster and guitarist Robbie McIntosh signed aboard--but producer Chris Thomas, for the most part, manages to pull things together.\n\nBut Hynde, as ever, is peerless, probing at truths that most songwriters never get around to wondering about. She caps off this chronology of death and regeneration with the incandescent British Christmas single "2000 Miles," all Byrdsy chiming guitars and Spectorian glockenspiel -- a "simple" pop song and a shrewd seasonal release that will be with us for many Christmases to come. As will its author, one can only hope. (RS 415 -- Feb 16, 1984) -- KURT LODER
This rock cd contains 17 tracks and runs 69min 46sec.
Freedb: e9105811
Buy: from Amazon.com

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