Unreleased (1982) / Jill Jones (1987)
Written in another moment, in another mindset, these thoughts on the closing track from Jill Jones’ self-titled album would be a jaunt through hyperbolic praise, musing on the 1999 callbacks, orchestral flair and lyrics which conceivably describe a chronic celebrity crush. But today my mosquito net is torn by the dark winds outside and my utensils are unsterilised. A pestilent cloud infests my critical faculties like black smoke from a burning, hurting world and this pop ode to unrequited love becomes a duvet exoskeleton. An upholstered tortoiseshell in which to retreat from the circling hawks of radicalised ignorance and co-opted fear, turning and turning in Yeats’ widening gyre. Music can be escapism or heightened revelry in the now. Today Baby, You’re a Trip is the former. Solace in the Apollonian. Tomorrow the mosquito net will be repaired and further posts will again be coloured only by the climate of temperament, instead of the weather of emotion.
I just looked up what exactly happened in the world at that date … Oh. Yeah.
In a way, this far-away star-struck hero-worship espoused in this song in not that different from what motivated some voters. Just another proof of how every emotion, as pure as it seems, has its dark half.
I wonder if that Jill Jones album is worth looking into ?.. So far, every Prince’s protegée has been miles away from the “Prince quality” of music. Even Vanity 6 would have been largely forgettable and lost in the sea of 80s pop fluff if his name wasn’t attached to them. I wonder if there’s any that’s really, really, good ?..