The Jesus And Mary Chain - head on, 1989

"Head On" is one of those joyous, fist-pumping pop songs that's weirdly juxtaposed with a dark lyric about inertia; it's taken from the Jesus and Mary Chain's Automatic (1989). Could the singer simply want to muster the courage to talk to a girl, or is it a paralysis-making decision about whether to cop some drugs? No matter, the lyric is craftily universal/ambiguous. With its poppy, lightweight beat, "Head On" falls into the revved-up/amped-up Beach Boys-style song the Mary Chain made (they also specialized in Spector-ish Wall of Sound and pure noise). There's an incessant new wave snare beat, a snarling, teenage vocal, and a drum and bass breakdown. It is blueprint post-punk in the tradition of Joy Division/New Order; around the time of its modern rock radio popularity in the early '90s, alternative band of the moment, the Pixies, were already covering it."