A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
Lost tracks
Luna - Rollercoaster
I generally can't find fault with anything that Dean has ever done, things generally fall into two categories 'great' and 'better than great' - it's not a lack of objectivity it's simply the way it is - the man can pretty much do no wrong.
Rollercoaster is one of my Dean Wareham blind spots... because for me it falls all on its own into the 'just ok' category. It turned up as one of the tracks on the Slide and Smile EPs, but it's not on Best Of and has never (to my knowledge) been trotted out live, so I take that as the band's implicit agreement with me.
On the Galaxie 500 Mailing List over the years I'd take the occasional pop at it, occasionally someone would spring to defend it, like Paul in 2000...
No! It's fantastic. It rocks, it has silly lyrics. What more could you ask for from a Luna song?
...but mostly not.
Seven years ago Marc wrote to me correcting the lyrics of Rollercoaster pointing out that it makes reference to "Nathan's hot dogs, on the boardwalk" ... rather rudely as far as I can tell I neither corrected them in the database or thanked Marc for the correction... I'm responding to that email now (hopefully that seven year old email address is still alive... if not Marc, if you're out there - thanks and sorry)
Anyway... here's your chance to pass opinion on one of Luna's "lost tracks"...
BTW I'm fairly certain that the line isn't 'Stinking drunk just like the pope' but it's all I could think of that rhymed with 'hope' which I'm fairly sure is right - feel free to correct me!