Pussy Cats, Joe

I'm ready to declare this a good-maybe-great album, but you should be reminded that I have contrarian tendencies that often go unchecked in Record Club. I came into knowing about this album with the adjective "infamous" attached to it, and thus uncovered its sordid reputation first, and had to work backward from there. It's easier to dismiss contemporaneous critics after 50 years' worth of churning through various reevaluations. It can even be a fun game, if you're that type of person: "let's find all the worthy aspects of this art that everyone else has missed." There is a perverse thrill in holding onto the idea that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Why not lean into those types of thoughts while listening to a cultish, sloppy '70s rock album?

I won't lie, I probably thought more about John Lennon this week than I did about Harry Nilsson. I was thinking about the idea of a "devil on your shoulder." Nilsson was an adult who could make his own decisions, but I do think that maybe his friendship with Lennon was not a very healthy one. I don't need to repeat any details that you could look up in any old hoary classic rock picture book, but suffice it to say that Lennon's friendship didn't necessarily lead Nilsson to become the best version of himself.

Could be the other way around, too! I don't fucking know. I don't know these people, this is all just speculation. Nilsson was famous at the time but John Lennon is legitimately one of the most famous people in history, which is why I probably tend to see the direction in which the influence flowed as one-way for this particular relationship. And also, like, there are songs on this very album that are clearly influenced by Lennon, because it sounds a lot like Lennon's solo stuff that he was already pumping out. There's some primal screaming on Pussy Cats that makes me think that the emotional depths that Lennon plumbed on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band were perhaps not as deep as I originally thought. Or maybe it's one of those things where you have an emotional catharsis but its effects fade away over time, like Tony Soprano after he wakes up from his coma, or basically any kid that arrives home from Kairos looking to make a change. By the time Lennon arrives in the studio to work on Pussy Cats, primal scream therapy probably felt like a hazy drunk joke.

Nilsson does seem legitimately sad on this album, is the thing. And I think that the moments when that sadness peeks through are some of the more powerful moments on Pussy Cats. "All My Life" is the highlight in this regard for me, in the same that it almost accidentally becomes self-aware. You can be drowning in excess and still have brief moments of realization that maybe the excess is too much, ya know? It's a song about drowning but also about drowning in water that's a really nice temperature and really relaxing and man it is so hard to not enjoy swimming right now. I look back on old blog posts from the late '10s and early '20s when I mention my alcoholism, and it makes me kinda sad in the same way that "All My Life" makes me sad. It's sad because the understanding of a problem is very often not the same as addressing that problem, and many times there is a lightyear-sized gap between the two, never to be traversed.

Because I understand the disconnect and the bizarre logic of it, I also feel like I understand the purpose of the wild, raucous cover songs on this album more so than the naysayers. Even this retroactive 2020 review of the album says that the covers of "Loop de Loop" and "Rock Around the Clock" are "embarrassing." Even if they are, then that's the point. If you have substance abuse issues, then you can't wallow in the sorrow all the time. You instead have to perform rituals that allow you to pretend that everything is okay, even if you know in the deepest parts of your soul that you are not okay. You remember how hard we all laughed when I blacked out and tried to do karaoke at La Salle Backstage and fell off the stage? We laughed because it was funny. It was, and it is. But I think there's something to be said about acknowledging the pain that is hidden beneath such humor. "Rock Around the Clock" is, in the hands of Harry Nilsson, almost preposterously dumb, and very funny in that way. Maybe even embarrassing too? But it's also pretty easy to look at it like a shabby band-aid over top of a deep wound, depending on your experience with this sort of thing.

You also have to want to get better, which is a whole different thing. You can either choose to get your shit together, or choose to listen to the devil on your shoulder. We can, I think, consider John Lennon to be that devil. Not an evil devil, just a mischievous devil. And dealing with his own shit, and falling off his own karaoke stages on his own accord. I had to look up what "the Lost Years" were re: Lennon when I was told originally that he produced Pussy Cats during his Lost Years. Apparently he and Yoko were separated for a while, and while her solution to this was to open up their marriage and set John up with their secretary(?), his solution seems to have been sink into a years-long stupor of drink and drugs. I don't think it's too far of a reach to say that Lennon, like anyone who enjoys getting blasted (putting myself in this category, just so you know), had a tendency to keep himself surrounded by likeminded drinkers and druggies, and had the charming, devilish capacity to pull people down to his level when necessary.

I was probably that person for some other people in my day (still am, occasionally, though I try to be aware of it, and try to at least lampshade it when necessary), so I'm not approaching Lennon's hand in all of this with disdain. I am approaching it with great empathy for all involved. These were some fucked-up people who made this fucking album, and what I'm proposing here is that this is what makes Pussy Cats great. This is what makes the tomfoolery at the very least smirk-worthy, and this is what makes the pain all the more palpable. There is a grand picture that you can see if you step back for a moment and consider it. Don't listen to the critics, listen to your heart. You know the pain is there, on the surface or slightly below it. Think about what the pain means to you for a little bit. After you do that, Pussy Cats starts to make a little more sense.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5