Taking Sides: "Hamburger Lady" vs. "Frankie Teardrop"

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ihttp://www.musicclub.it/novembre99/jpg/THROBBING%20GRISTLE%20copia.JPG http://www.bobgruen.com/files/asst/R.263%20SUICIDE%201977.jpg

For me, "Frankie Teardrop" just have neve been scary enough, even with all of Vega's yelping. Sure, it's disturbing, but it doesn't creep me out NEARLY as much as the TG staple.

You, however, might disagree.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 08:51 (twenty-one years ago)

For me, "Frankie Teardrop" just have neve been scary enough,

Let's try that again.

For me, "Frankie Teardrop" just HAS neveR been scary enough,....

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 08:52 (twenty-one years ago)

And the accompanying TG photo...

http://www.musicclub.it/novembre99/jpg/THROBBING%20GRISTLE%20copia.JPG

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 08:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Sharp dressers, they.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 08:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Frankie Teardrop's novelty value wears off quicker, kindof like how you can only listen to a comedy album so many times before you know all the jokes. I'll take a Hamburger Lady with ketchup please.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 26 March 2005 08:57 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hamburger Lady".

However, "Frankie Teardrop" is frightening as hell when you're half asleep.

― latebloomer: AKA Sir Teddy Ruxpin, Former Scientologist (latebloomer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Also I actually do not eat hamburgers, fwiw.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Side note: the cover art to DoA: Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle has always seemed much more wrong! Wrong! WRONG! to me in a decidedly uneasy way than Suicide's first album cover, which I also thought layed it all on a bit too thick.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:14 (twenty-one years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000003Z5C.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000040OBS.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:16 (twenty-one years ago)

the Suicide one's more iconic, though

― latebloomer: AKA Sir Teddy Ruxpin, Former Scientologist (latebloomer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

http://zerez.free.fr/pres/tgcd1.jpg

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

True, but I always thought it seemed a bit too obvious.

x-post

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:21 (twenty-one years ago)

TS: having your face pounded in by ten minutes of pummeling beats vs ... not.

I'll take the minimalist epic.
The "novelty value" of "Frankie Teardrop" may be more significant, but the screams still scare the shit out of me, even though I know they're coming.

And any song that goes for ten minutes and then ends with the lines "we're all Frankies, we're all lying in hell" is tough to beat in a TS challenge. "Hamburger Lady" is nowhere close to being up to that task.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Hamburger Lady is a greater achievement.

Frankie is a little maudlin, a little histrionic. Vega, in character, combines the self-disbelief and dismay of Frankie with a sort of writerly, crime fiction/Capote narrative. P.Orridge, on the other hand, is entranced, hypnotised, and fascinated in Hamburger Lady. Time seems to be slower. It is a creepier song about a kind of horror that is more extreme than Frankie's, as it is about the preservation of life in pain, not the sudden extinction of life. It is just as common as the Frankie situation, but just more ignored by the lazier writers - because writers like to draw on what they've read.

Characteristically, genesis's fascination has a certain unlikely compassion within it. His attentiveness holds humility and respect. Musically, TG present the situation as deeply evil. The dreamy urban nightmare they create as the musical backdrop, like an opiated ambulance in a nightmare, is meant to convey that the sitation is repellant and unnecessary. I think they make their point. It's a moral song with a specific intent - it is in favour of euthanasia.

Genesis's gaze is on the patient. He is definitely not turning away, but taking it wholly into his being. This is better, I think. Less actorish.

― moley, Saturday, 26 March 2005 10:12 (twenty-one years ago)

"Frankie Teardrop" is pretty funny, the way the depressing details are dropped one after another while that motorik rhythm stretches time so you're anticipating each next line, like Vega's telling an elaborate joke. I think the campy melodrama's entirely intentional.

I'd still pick "Hamburger Lady". Moley's critique is spot on.

Maybe Soft Cell's "Martin" should get a mention here too, it seems to owe a debt to "Frankie".

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 March 2005 10:21 (twenty-one years ago)

hamburger lady by a mile. and then some.
however much i like suicide's first album, i can never listen to it as often as DoA

― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Saturday, 26 March 2005 10:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Moley's description soooo otm!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 10:41 (twenty-one years ago)

totally agree.

― cs appleby (cs appleby), Saturday, 26 March 2005 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

another vote for hamburger lady.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Saturday, 26 March 2005 12:06 (twenty-one years ago)

"Frankie Teardrop"

― Nic de Teardrop (Nicholas), Saturday, 26 March 2005 12:59 (twenty-one years ago)

The version on "Live at Camper Sands" is kinda definitive, yeah. I'll go for HL, but only cuz I hated it the first 100 time I listened to it.

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Has to be Frankie. But I'm slightly freaked out by the picture of Vega at the top of the thread. He looks almost exactly like the old Action Man with swiveling 'eagle eyes'(TM), right down to the facial scar.

― Soukesian, Saturday, 26 March 2005 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

shit i had that one too: you're right
plus a bit a klaus kinski in the night

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

the author of hamburger lady's "lyrics", al ackerman, runs a used record/bookstore mere blocks from where I live. I guess he and genesis used to send each other mail-art, which got gen in trouble w/ british police at one point over an obscene postcard.

― amon (eman), Saturday, 26 March 2005 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

as far as the TS, i like both songs, and they're only superficially similar anyways.

― amon (eman), Saturday, 26 March 2005 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Fascinating writeup, Colin, even though I can see no a priori reason why sincerity + deep focus > cartoon violence + histrionics, therefore making HL a "greater achievement". This talk of HL's intrinsic greatness due to it being more genuine, serious, with the singer having himility and respect for his words -- that's running dangerously close to .... no, I can't even say it. Unless one can argue that Suicide were giving up the biker chain slapstick act on this song, I'd say that they accomplished everything they could have possibly done with "Frankie Teardrop".

Certainly, the foggy, sludgy atmosphere concocted in HL is something that Suicide could have never done. Ten seconds into the song, the mood is set and you're right in it, joining GPO in his entranced state.

OTOH, the distortion and horror FX at the end of FT is about as complex as it gets for Suicide in that regard. Nonetheless, the full power of the song isn't something that can be felt via ten second snippets, rather, it can only be experienced by sitting through ten minutes of jackhammer beats and two repeated bass notes. For me, this sort of minimalism is where it's at.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Saturday, 26 March 2005 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

-- MindInRewind

The word you're after, Barry, is ro...ro.. damn, I can't seem to say it either!

― moley, Saturday, 26 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I've yet to hear "Frankie Teardrop" but I don't understand what's so creepy about "Hamburger Lady". It bores me.

― What we want? Sex with T.V. stars! What you want? Ian Riese-Moraine! (Eastern Ma, Saturday, 26 March 2005 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

"Frankie Teardrop"

but only because suicide is in a bar's jukebox here in chapel hill. i played it, sort of just to be an asshole, but the whole place felt disgustingly creepy about 7 minutes in.

― rob mackey (mackey), Saturday, 26 March 2005 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Finding cold depressing songs on the jukebox and changing the atmosphere of the place is classic.

― moley, Saturday, 26 March 2005 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Vega looks like a mannequin in that photo.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 26 March 2005 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

as far as the TS, i like both songs, and they're only superficially similar anyways.

I only pitted them against each other as I find them both rather creepy, and both are widly celebrated on ILM for being just that.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 26 March 2005 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

in that case, I had more of a reaction to Frankie Teardrop, mostly due to the wild screaming that comes out of nowhere. I can think of TG songs that are creepier than HL, like "Slugbait."

― amon (eman), Saturday, 26 March 2005 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hamburger Lady", precisely for Moley's 'opiated ambulance in a nightmare.' Please. Kill. Me.

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Saturday, 26 March 2005 22:40 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hamburger Lady" wins, easy. Agree that "Frankie Teardrop" has a cartoony side to it..

― daria g (daria g), Sunday, 27 March 2005 00:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Hamburger Lady manages to express sonically what it feels like to be nauseous. Frankie Teardrop can't even compete with that kind of thing.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Sunday, 27 March 2005 09:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, nauseous. The first time I heard it I felt sick to the stomach - I have only had that particular feeling on witnessing sudden carnage, and never before upon listening to a mere song.

― moley, Sunday, 27 March 2005 10:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Never found "Hamburger Lady" to be remotely scary or even that creepy by their standards. "Frankie Teardrop" is scary however.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 27 March 2005 13:35 (twenty-one years ago)

There's no right or wrong in this one, obviously. It's just interesting to see how what's scary to one person is ridiculous to another. I find "Frankie Teardrop"'s narrative disturbing, and Vega's delivery is certainly startling, but in more of a "BOO!" surprise kinda way. "Hamburger Lady" is just so horrific and strange and other that i find it a thousand times creepier, myself.

Side question: Who would you rather have as nextdoor neighbors: Suicide or Throbbing Gristle? Suicide seem like relatively normal, nice guys (by many accounts). The TG'rs scare the crap out of me.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 27 March 2005 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, I've always seen the members of TG as the epitome of mild British eccentricity, and I'm sure they'd be the best of neighbors: tea on the lawn, test match special, all that.

Still, if the postman left any packages for them, I'd make damn sure they didn't lie around in my house for long.

― Soukesian, Sunday, 27 March 2005 16:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I'd rather live next door to GP-O than David Tibet or Steven Stapleton, to be honest. I remember reading somewhere that one of the things he misses the most about living abroad is The Archers.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Sunday, 27 March 2005 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh I dunno. I'm sure the Suicide guys would be great to get to know, but I'd be ever so honoured to have Genesis...or I guess that would be Breyer P-Orridge as a neighbour. Imagine the conversations you could have with her/him at 3 a.m.! I would be enthralled merely by the memories she/he might have of other times, other bands, other artists, etc. let alone hearing about whatever insane artistic project is now in the works! Naw, man. Light the candles I wanna hear some stories!

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Sunday, 27 March 2005 16:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Steven Stapleton would make a great neighbor!
Scroll down to "Nurse With Wound" for a documentary on his house.

― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Sunday, 27 March 2005 17:07 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

anyone else heard the demo version of frankie teardrop where he's an interstellar detective instead of a desperate factory worker? it's a bit odd. and not scary.

― Lemonade In Hammocks (electricsound), Tuesday, 6 January 2009 05:05 (seventeen years ago)

"Frankie Teardrop" = LOLs.

"Hamburger Lady" = nightmares.

― billstevejim, Tuesday, 6 January 2009 05:40 (seventeen years ago)

Just reading title of "Hamburger Lady" is scarier than listening to "Frankie Teardrop". Both good songs though.

― Mark, Tuesday, 6 January 2009 06:02 (seventeen years ago)

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