A great title track is par for the course when it comes to great albums. If the title track doesn’t cut it, what does that say about the album itself? This month, the Mental Jukebox will be playing some of my favorite title tracks – inspired by @NicolaB_73’s music Twitter challenge, #TopTitleTracks.
From 1989 to 1990 I had Candleland on heavy rotation on my boombox. My radio station WDRE introduced me to the singles (“Proud To Fall”, “Faith and Healing”), and the rest is history. I like Echo & the Bunnymen, but they’re a band whose albums I rarely listen to from beginning to end. But that was never the case with McCulloch’s debut solo album. I listened to it in its entirety over and over again – and the title track was one of my favorite songs of the bunch.
“Candleland” has that dreamlike dimension to it with McCulloch’s gentle cascading guitar riffs. It’s been decades since I last heard this song, but McCulloch’s guitar brings me right back to the summer of 1990. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins) on backing vocals. If you wanted to give your song an angelic quality, you can’t find a better accompanying vocalist than Fraser. “Candeland” is a euphoric three-minute escape from all that weighs us down.
“Wear your guilt like skin And keep your sins disguised.”