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"Rain" / The BeatlesIt's pouring, simply pouring r.“The House of the Rising Sun” / The AnimalsALAN PR.“I Put A Spell on You” / The Alan Price SetALAN PR.“Poor People” / Alan PriceALAN PRICE WEEKIn the su.“In Times Like These” / Alan PriceALAN PRICE WEEKT.“Little Bird” / Alan PriceALAN PRICE WEEKNow we co."Goodbye" / Rainbow FfollyNo, that's no typo - th."We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" /."The Things We Never Said" / Thea GilmoreThanks to.“96 Tears” / ? and the MysteriansMy computer’s mus."How To Fight Loneliness" / WilcoAt this very mome.“Maimed Happiness” / The New York DollsIf, like me.They've come back to us with a little hard-won wisdom, and that in itself makes the whole reunion thing worth it. I'll take that.Īfter thirty-some years - after seeing their old bandmates self-destruct, drop out, and die - the Dolls are rock survivors. The happiness will always be maimed – but there will always be happiness. It's true, some people are naturally inclined to see the dark side of things: “There’s a sorrowful joy / I’ve known since I was a boy / Joyful sorrow I guess / It’s a maimed happiness.” The glass is half-empty AND half-full at this moment, and I feel as if finding that poise is a victory in itself. Might as well get used to it, he's saying. “He said there ain’t much he could do / You got the human condition / Boy I feel sorry for you.” I love the submerged chuckle in his voice there.

I can just see him, electrodes taped to his chest, coughing on the doctor's command. “Yeah I been to the doctor,” Johansen sings, with a shrug. The sense of mortality running through this, you just wouldn't get that from a typical twenty-something. “Don’t know if there’s that much to be said / For this world or the time that we spend,” Johansen croons in the bridge but, he points out, “I’d die, then I’d want to live / This wasted life over again.” Sure, things are crappy, but what are our options? A sax wanders in sighing here and there, strings (or the synth equivalent thereof) underlying the bridge, but nothing too passionate. Behind him, the song ambles along like an early 60s pop ballad - four chords, a touch of electric piano atop the drums and strumming guitars. Life takes a lot of finesse.” He’s not fighting it, just trying to wriggle through safely. “It’s a maimed happiness,” Johansen announces in that gravelly voice, adding wearily, “I keep trying to acquiesce. I suppose you could see life this way at age 22, but this sort of philosophy doesn't usually ripen without years of disillusionments.

“Maimed Happiness” is a wonderful oxymoron of a song (how long have I been waiting to use that word in a rock review?) about midlife resignation. And what these songs do have is that off-kilter sensibility that made the New York Dolls special back in the day. David Johansen’s not a great singer or a great songwriter, but I dig his dark, campy sense of fun. I enjoyed his solo act in the late 70s, I got a kick out of his performances as the pompadored lounge-lizard Buster Poindexter, and his Mansion of Fun show on Sirius is the best reason for subscribing to satellite radio. Still, any David Johansen is better than no David Johansen. (From that wry title, I suspect Syl and David know this perfectly well.) The eyeliner and platform boots that were so groundbreaking in the early 1970s have lost their shock value all the punk bands they inspired took that jam-kicking energy long ago and made it business as usual. But I don’t think the world was holding its breath waiting for One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This. If, like me, you missed the New York Dolls the first time around, this 2006 reincarnation - at least with the two surviving members, Sylvain Sylvain and David Johansen – may seem like a big case of “So what?” Rockpile reuniting - that would excite me a Kinks reunion would have me over the moon.