"Innocence it don't come easy, in a sense it never will." That's a goddamn king's gambit of an opening line. So far as a clarion call to kick off a song, that's about as good as it gets. So good in fact, that one could be forgiven for filling a chorus with nonsense syllables... Which, Ted Leo being Ted Leo, he immediately does. And he makes it work beautifully. On and on, da leedle eedle dah.
Oh, and then it speeds up, adds electric guitar and bass and drums and glockenspiel (?) and turns into your average amazing TL+Rx tune, complete with crazy twisting guitar line that sounds like it was written for tin whistle and bodhran and somehow fell off the boat in Jersey by mistake.
Now yeah, there's an argument to be made that this is Ted Leo by numbers, just a laundry list of all his songwriting crutches in one place. Trad Irish influence? Check. Guitar line straight from The Clash? Check. Ted breaking into falsetto at the first opportunity? Check. Motown Beat hidden in the bassline? Check. Breakdown to reggae one-two rhythm in the final verse? Checkeroo. Sense of longing and political activism and rattling off names of places? Double check. Yeah, it's that song that's on every Ted Leo album, but it doesn't matter. 'CAUSE THIS ONE'S BETTER. It's all the parlour tricks refined and put together in a way that dares you to stand still and not be amazed.
And I'll be damned if I can help myself. Can't keep the foot from tapping, can't stop my head nodding, can't help but feel totally ready to jump out and take on the world every time the song plays. Listened to it four times in a row as I'm writing this, and I'm ready to stop typing and head out in search of adventure and romance and a beautiful evening...
Which is good a reason as any to end this entry here, and do just that.
("Counting Down The Hours" is track four on Ted Leo & The Pharmacists' "Shake The Sheets", pictured above. The whole album is excellent, and you should go buy it right now if you haven't already.)
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