“Blame Mary Jane” (1990) – Lloyd Cole * Written by Lloyd Cole and Blair Cowan * CD single: “No Blue Skies” / “Blame Mary Jane” / “Witching Hour” * Produced by Lloyd Cole, Paul Hardiman, and Fred Maher * Label: Capitol
The first solo album for Scotsman Lloyd Cole showcases his expatriate New York-rocker persona, his good recording taste (including Robert Quine’s distinctive guitar work), and his urbane songwriting all gelled up into an enduring whole. Dylan Jones, in his Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music, depicts the 1990 Cole as a “troubled soul” with “unfulfilled promise” who spent his days shooting pool at blue-collar bars. This turned out to be just a phase, apparently, that Cole would write about in a 2001 song called “Tried to Rock.” Such forays into image, though, can keep resonating for audiences. Cole’s “Blame Mary Jane,” a B-side from that era, may as well have been the theme song for the man Jones was describing, but in the discouraging political present, its attitude and words are liable to run through one’s mind daily: “I’m gonna close my eyes to the morning papers / Shut my ears to the news / I’m gonna lose my soul in the lonesome afternoon.”