The 80 Best Go-Betweens Tracks

From a poll in the german "rolling stone"-forum

1. Spring Rain (286/17/1)
2. Quiet Heart (239/12/1)
3. Streets Of Your Town (237/13/1)

4. Was There Anything I Could Do? (229/13/3)
5. Bye Bye Pride (198/11/1)
6. Poison In The Walls (196/10/1)
7. Cattle And Cane (180/11/2)
8. Caroline And I (175/9/3)
9. Finding You (174/10/2)
10. Dive For Your Memory (167/10/4)

11. You Can’t Say No Forever (160/10/1)
12. The Clarke Sisters (159/12/1)
13. Draining The Pool For You (158/10/3)
14. Apology Accepted (156/11/2)
15. Old Mexico (147/8/1)
16. In The Core Of A Flame (145/9/2)
17. The House That Jack Kerouac Built (145/9/1)
18. Karen (127/9/1)
19. Darlinghurst Nights (126/9/5)
20. Bachelor Kisses (123/9/5)

21.Twin Lawyers Of Lightning (120/9/2)
22.Right Here (119/7/2)
23.Surfing Magazines (108/7/6)
24.Eight Pictures (107/8/7)
25.Love Goes On! (106/7/4)
26.Too Much Of One Thing (102/7/4)
27.Head Full Of Steam (101/6/1)
28.The Wrong Road (98/7/6)
29.He Lives My Life (94/6/4)
30.As Long As That (91/5/6)

31.Lee Remick (79/5/4)
32.I Just Get Caught Out (75/4/5)
33.Love Is A Sign (71/4/4)
34.The Clock (68/5/2)
35.Magic In Here (64/4/1)
36.When She Sang About Angels (64/4/3)
37.A Bad Debt Follows You (63/5/5)
38.People Know (60/3/3)
39.Don’t Let Him Come Back (60/3/3)
40.To Reach Me (58/3/1)

41.Here Comes A City (56/3/4)
42.Going Blind (53/5/12)
43.No Reason To Cry (53/4/5)
44.Orpheus Beach (50/4/11)
45.Boundary Rider (49/4/5)
46.The Ghost And The Black Hat (47/3/7)
47.You Tell Me (47/3/10)
48.Part Company (42/4/9)
49.Mrs. Morgan (42/3/6)
50.I’m Allright (42/3/11)

51.That Way (41/4/11)
52.Bow Down (41/3/4)
53.I Need Two Heads (40/2/2)
54.Your Turn, My Turn (39/4/14)
55.Spirit (38/2/2)
56.Two Steps, Step Out (37/2/2)
57.People Say (35/3/6)
58.Clouds (33/2/2)
59.On My Block (33/2/9)
60.Man O‘ Sand To The Girl O‘ Sea (30/3/14)

61.German Farmhouse (29/2/8)
62.One Thing Can Hold Us (25/1/1)
63.Cut It Out (24/3/14)
64.This Girl Black Girl (24/1/2)
65.It Could Be Anyone (21/1/5)
65.Lavender (21/1/5)
65.The Sound Of Rain (21/1/5)
68.When People Are Dead (20/3/18)
69.Ask (20/1/6)
70.In Her Diary (19/2/16)

71.Five Words (19/1/7)
72.Heart And Home (18/2/16)
73.You’ve Never Lived (18/1/8)
74.Dusty In Here (17/1/9)
74.Palm Sunday(On Board The S.S. Within) (17/1/9)
76.The Devil’s Eye (15/2/18)
77.Something For Myself (14/1/12)
78.Born To A Family (12/1/14)
78.This Night’s For You (12/1/14)
80.Careless (11/1/15)

 

Bachelor Kisses and Slow Slow Music are in my Top 10. The latter is not even in the Top 80?

 

Wow, that has to be Mike Brüggemayers doing,
slightly over the top but cool! Even though it seems a bit arbitrary that....say...."Finding You" is place nine while "This Night's For You" ended up on 78. And "Don't Let Him Come Back" at 39? Could this have to do with the fact that Robert dusted off this great early b-side last year?

But... hey... any space the Go-Betweens are being granted is space well used up!

 

1. Clouds

I could even agree with 2. Quiet Heart after that

 

I feel so sure of our love, I'll write a song about us breaking up...

#60? That is a bloody outrage!

80 tracks is near-as-damn-it half their output, and that includes all the 'expanded edition disc 2 rejects'.

My top 50 would be pretty much the entirety of Before Hollywood, Spring Hill Fair, Liberty Belle, Tallulah, half of 16 Lovers Lane, a smattering of Send Me a Lullaby and earlier, and, off the top of my head, only Darlinghurst Nights from the last three albums.

Setting aside my lack of love for post-reformation material (I think it's a case of "it's not you, it's me") the more I look at the list the more I hate it. That Way at #50. This Girl, Black Girl at #64. You've Never Lived at #73. Palm Sunday at #74. No Second-Hand Furniture? No Slow Slow Music? No Rock and Roll Friend?!??

Don't talk about it, don't talk about it, please... GEEETAR!

 

Impossible task, but my top 5 would include "The Statue" and it doesn't even make the list!

 

Well.... this poll wasn't conceived as "Let's list the Go-Betweens 80 best songs", initially they wanted to have a Top 20. And apparently people voted for so many different tracks that they ended up with 80.

How many songs does this bands discography have? Nine albums. Several non-album-tracks. Could it be more than 120???

 

Considering that "Dusty In Here" is only at No. 74, it should not have been less than 80 songs in any case...

 

The 1982 Rough Trade UK release of Send Me A Lullaby has 12 songs (Australian release has 8). All eight subsequent studio albums had 10 songs, for a total of 92 'canonical' album tracks.

A quick scan of 'stuff I own' shows that only seven songs of the 80 don't appear on albums: Lee Remick, Karen, People Say, The Sound of Rain, I Need Two Heads, This Girl Black Girl, and When People are Dead. All bar Lee Remick appear on 1978-1990, which was the only career-spanning compilation available during the hiatus; the first four songs are on 78 'Til 79 The Lost Album, which most long-term fans will have eagerly purchased when Robert found it down the back of his sofa in 1999.

So unless one or more previously unavailable songs from the G Stands for Go-Betweens compilations made the grade, or there's a popular gem hidden on CD2 of those Circus/Lo-Max expanded editions, then 73 of this Top 80 are drawn from 92 album tracks.

I'd love to see a list of the 19 tracks which didn't make the grade.

 

Urgh.... 92 + 7+

"Woman Across The Way", "The Locust Girls", "Instant Replay", "Taxi Taxee", "A Girl Lying On A Beach" & "Sleeping Giant", the Non-album, non-live tracks from the Last couple of singles.

105?????

 

Forgotten the precise number now, but there are north of 150 songs across the first six studio albums in 2CD form, the final three albums, and the Lost Album. That’s after striking out the alt/demo/early version extras.

Haven’t gone down the G Stands for Go-Betweens rabbit hole, but there’s a metric f*cktonne of titles I don’t recognise.

 

here are the places 81-85... these are all tracks that were voted

81.All About Strength (10/1/16)
82.By Chance (9/1/17)
82.I Am An Architect (9/1/17)
84.Hope Than Strife (8/1/18)
85.Make Her Day (7/1/19)
85.Slow Slow Music (7/1/19)

my biggest problem with the list is, that "to reach me" (which is my number 1) is only at #40... 20 people voted, so it is not a small poll

 

"Don't Let Him Come Back" is also not included on any original album. But the 7 songs you listed are terrific.

Just in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet: The third number in brackets is the highest ranking... so everybody could name his Top 25, and there were 25 points for No. 1, 24 for No. 2 and so on. There were 21 participants.

For additional information: At least one track from each album has scored more than 100 points and has at least reached position 24 in the overall list:

1.16 Lovers Lane 1988/10 1988 (1.299/76/10/Quiet Heart 239 P.)
2.Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express 1986/10 (1.060/69/10/Spring Rain 286 P.)
3.Tallulah 1987/10 (775/50/8/Bye Bye Pride 198 P.)
4.Bright Yellow Bright Orange 2003/10 (702/41/8/Poison In The Walls 196 P.)
5.The Friends Of Rachel Worth 2000/10 (587/41/10/Surfing Magazines 108 P.)
6.Oceans Apart 2005/10 (503/41/8/Finding You 174 P.)
7.Before Hollywood 1983/10 (491/32/9/Cattle And Cane 180 P.)
8.Spring Hill Fair 1984/10 (379/28/6/Draining The Pool For You 158 P.)
9.Send Me A Lullaby 1982/12 (273/19/7/Éight Pictures 107 P.)

 

I'm all for anything that highlights the great Go-Betweens but this list is wacky.

I like Bright Yellow Bright Orange but didn't expect 3 of its songs in the top 15. Was it big in Germany?!

 

No, it wasn't big. But Klaus Walter, a famous german radio DJ, is a very big Go-Betweens fan (he called Forster and McLennan the best songwriter team since Lennon/McCartney) loved this album and pushed it.

I love BYBO too, but I don't understand why the songs from Spring Hill Fair and the great Before Hollywood and got so few votes...

 

Armed with this further information...

Firstly, the nine Go-Betweens studio albums, as originally released, ordered by points received...

16 Lovers Lane - 1299 points from 76 votes; 10 tracks of 10 received votes
Liberty Belle - 1069 from 69; 10/10
Tallulah - 775 from 50; 8/10
Bright Yellow Bright Orange - 702 from 41; 8/10
Friends of Rachel Worth - 585 from 41; 10/10
Oceans Apart - 503 from 33; 8/10
Before Hollywood - 491 from 32; 9/10
Spring Hill Fair - 397 from 29; 7/10
Send Me A Lullaby - 273 from 19; 7/12

Secondly, album tracks which didn't receive a vote...
16 Lovers Lane - n/a
Liberty Belle - n/a
Tallulah - Someone Else's Wife, Spirit of a Vampyre
Bright Yellow Bright Orange - Crooked Lines, Unfinished Business
Friends of Rachel Worth - n/a
Oceans Apart - Mountains Near Dellray, Statue
Before Hollywood - Before Hollywood
Spring Hill Fair - River of Money, The Old Way Out, Unkind and Unwise
Send Me A Lullaby - Arrow in a Bow, Hold Your Horses, Midnight to Neon, Ride, The Girls Have Moved

I don't think any of those omissions would make my top 25, but Someone Else's Wife, Spirit of a Vampyre, River of Money, and Unkind and Unwise certainly don't deserve to be voteless.

77 of the 92 album tracks received votes. The nine non-album tracks which received votes were...
Lee Remick, Karen, People Say, Don’t Let Him Come Back, I Need Two Heads - 5/6ths of the first three singles
This Girl Black Girl, When People Are Dead - '83 and '87 B-sides
The Sound Of Rain - '78, unreleased on CD until The Lost Album in 1999
I Am An Architect - another late 70s track which as far as I can tell didn't see the light of day until G Stands For... Vol 1

 

Polls always cause personal distress. For me this one is awful. Twin Layers of Lightening only at 21. To Reach Me no 40, Part Company no48 wt....? No votes for Spirit of the Vampyre.

Totally agree with Mr Dee, it is indeed "wacky".