It’s difficult to separate the punk goddess and long-time X vocalist Exene Cervenka from the Exene Cervenka turned QAnon fellow traveler whose abhorrent beliefs as regards to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School (hoax) and the 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista, California (engineered by the government to give it more control over us sheeple) have caused so much anguish to the families of their victims.
But that’s not the problem I have with 2011’s The Excitement of Maybe, which so far as I know was recorded well before Cervenka threw herself down the conspiratorial shithole to get high on the fecal stench of her ugly ilk. My problem is Exene sacrifices all of her gifts—her anger, her loveable caterwaul, and her scathing and rich in detail lyrics—in an effort to become a slightly above average female C&W and folk rock-singer-songwriter whose subject matter never strays from the cliched generalities of the broken hearts of popular song.
Which isn’t to say The Excitement of Maybe is a bad album. Far from it. The songs themselves are solid and Exene has a lovely—if hardly distinguishable from the countless other female folk rockers out there—voice. But the LP comes up fatally short in the fireworks department, and lacks the one thing its title promises—excitement. Her work with X shocked and crackled like a downed power line. On this solo album she doesn’t generate enough energy to power a toaster oven. The LP hits its target, I think, if her target was a traditional album of take-no-chances songs about love gone wrong. But she achieves at the expense of her unique poetic powers, and all of her legendary gumption.
The generic lyrics are the first thing that stand out—or rather make that don’t stand out. I’m assuming Cervenka was attempting to work a songwriting vein that stresses universal emotions expressed in a received shorthand understandable to your neighbor’s Bichon Frise. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the end product is a hodgepodge of commonplaces and clichés—I can count the number of inspired lyrics—or basic imagery for that matter—on one hand.
Opening track “Already in Love” is one of the two exceptions to the rule. A perky and well-mannered chamber pop number (complete with horns) that brings the latter day Mountain Goats to mind, Cervenka sings “It’s late, it always is/Girl groups and drugs/It’s only Tuesday night/But I’m already in love.” But follow-up track “Brand New Memory”–which practically shrieks Mountain Goats with its horn arrangement by David Ralicke and David Bianco’s B3 organ–comes complete with lyrics that aren’t merely lackluster, but bad. “Time is racing out of my eyes,” sings Cervanka “The hourglass is upside down/Tell me goodbye, then drop me gently/Into nothingness.” That “Time is racing out of my eyes” is almost as bad as David Bowie’s “Time takes a cigarette/Puts it in your mouth,” and the hourglass trope was played out by the time man discovered fire. As for that “nothingness,” it’s an escape hatch—a placeholder for words that might actually move you.
The classical strings and horns that open the lush and atmospheric “Alone in Arizona” would have sent the Cervenka of Penelope Spheeris’s 1981 punkumentary The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization to the toilet. But once again, the song’s lyrics are its real downfall. When the only line in a song that writhes with clichés is nonsense (“Cactus run away from me/I’m losing you”) you know you’re screwed. Unless, that is, carnegia gigantia have legs, in which case I would recommend cancelling that family trip to Joshua Tree National Park.
“Falling” is an old school giddy in love song complete with pedal steel guitar and backing vocals. The melody draws you in, but the song doesn’t work—we know too much of Cervenka’s backstory to see her as a bubbling naif, and besides the sentiment is cloying. “I Wish It Would Stop Raining” is as lyrically hackneyed as you’d expect. There’s a jukebox that’s stopped playing and the bar is closing, but that’s as close to detail as the lyrics get. The song itself might have come from Bob Dylan’s 1976 LP Desire; it has the same exotic vibe thanks to Maggie Björklund’s pedal steel guitar and the violin of Jessy Greene, whose playing immediately brings Scarlet Rivera to mind.
And speaking of exotic, the straight to the Middle East by way of Led Zeppelin-flavored “Half Past Forever” is awash in souk-soaked strings, but isn’t the most expensive bauble in the bazaar by a long-shot. It’s a slightly less accusatory version of Phil Collins’ “Misunderstanding”; Cervenka sounds more disappointed than pissed, and perhaps that’s the point. I like the phrase “you answered all my answers,” and Exene is in good voice—the problem is her voice doesn’t stand out amongst the hundreds of other female folk-rock vocalists, and bears little resemblance to the pissed-off alley cat screech that distinguished X from the LA pack.
“I’ll Admit It Now,” the only song on The Excitement of Maybe that generates sparks, has the same problem—if Cervenka is aspiring to be Belinda Carlisle, she’s pulled it off. Nevertheless, the song’s nice—its propulsion is punctuated by horns, B3 organ, and Dave Alvin’s driving guitar. Pity the lyrics are more romantic boilerplate. “Just like in a poem/When I woke up I was alone” is so much treacle coming out of the mouth of someone I’ve always considered to be a far superior punk poet than Patti Smith. The only thing poetic about the bass-thumping “Love and Haight” is its bad pun of a title; lines like “I can’t think straight/I can’t decide my fate” are preteen girl poetry notebook stuff, and there’s a reason preteen girls would sooner die than let anyone get hands on said notebook. Preteen girls are smart.
“Turning with the World” is a real purty country tune complete with pedal steel guitar, drum shuffle, and acoustic guitar. It’s definitely a keeper, but for God’s sake somebody tell Exene to add some details to the damn thing; you get the world, the sun, heaven and some clouds, and it’s hard to escape the suspicion that the Exene Cervenka of “The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss” and “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” gave herself a home lobotomy.
The luscious “Dirty Snow” is the only song on the LP (aside from the opening track) that provides any details at all; it’s setting on Hwy. 40 in Oklahoma, and the snow’s dirty. But the heartbreak sounds real, and the piano and pedal steel guitar increase the pathos of that “Baby don’t leave me yet.” “Someday I’ll Forget” is more C&W, and I’m inclined to forgive her for that “Armageddon arms” because the line “Now you’re gone and the sky is wrong” is as close as Cervenka gets to saying an interesting thing. It also helps that the song’s a damned good one—just one of many that make it impossible for me to completely loathe the LP.
Call The Excitement of Maybe what you want—the words I would use to describe it are defanged, white flour, and overly polite. Cervenka has her hands in her lap at tea and wouldn’t dream of upsetting the company. Playing nicey-nice to the accompaniment of some pleasant songs played by crack musicians is all well and fine, but The Excitement of Maybe adds nothing to her legacy. It doesn’t help that she couldn’t even be bothered to bring her very real lyrical skills, which might have brought these songs to life.
The very cracked Exene still has it, as she demonstrated on X’s 2020 return to form, Alphabetland. But on The Excitement of Maybe she sounds downright de-brained, and too sane for her own good. Maybe she should have invited her deplorable self to the studio. The album would have most likely been reprehensible, but it wouldn’t send me screaming back to X. The phone’s off the hook on this one, and I want to keep it that way.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D+
