THE LA’S, “THERE SHE GOES”

Welcome to The Minute of Spin, a bite-sized music segment in which we explore a single song that came to define an entire band. Unfortunately, I can't afford the rights to the songs we spotlight, so you won't actually hear the song. But you’re welcome to listen to it here.

The ability to create a perfect pop song is a gift bestowed on precious few.  The trick, of course, once you’ve done it, is to create another.  And there’s the rub.  The La’s brilliant frontman Lee Mavers was never really satisfied with “There She Goes.”  Not after the first time it charted, or the second time, or even the third.  What we hear, on the other hand, is something very different.

The story of The La’s is a testament to the power of perfectionism to make and break a band’s career.  It took the Liverpool band five years to find a more or less stable lineup, and several attempts to record both “There She Goes” AND its debut album.  In late 1989, the band teamed up with U2 and Simple Minds producer Steve Lillywhite – but Mavers wasn’t getting the sound he wanted, so the group abandoned the sessions.  That left Lillywhite to piece together an album.  And the result, despite Mavers’ misgivings, was an unqualified success.

There’s some debate as to the subject matter of “There She Goes.” Lines like “racing through my brain” and “pulsing through my vein” have led some to speculate that it’s about heroin.  Then, it’s also a perfectly beautiful, melancholy love song, steeped in 60s nostalgia yet very much of the moment. The song only reached #49 on the Billboard charts in 1991, but made significant inroads on the alternative scene.  I was  among the fortunate few who caught the La’s on the band’s first and only tour of the U.S, at DC’s 9:30 Club.  I remember thinking how young they looked, and how talented you had to be to write a song like “There She Goes.”   

In some way, Mavers must have known this as well.  The La’s disappeared after the release of their debut album, with Mavers occasionally coming out of hiding to play with other bands.  A version of the La’s surfaced in summer 2005, playing various festivals in England and fueling inevitable rumors about a second album.  But six years on, we’ve yet to see or hear anything more.

Ironically, when the American band Sixpence None the Richer released a version of “There She Goes” in 1999, the song went to #32, 17 points higher than when the La’s released it.