EPs

In addition to a brand new album, this year is also supposed to see the release of a Throwing Muses anthology including a second disc of B-sides.

In honor of that, I'm going to do a series of posts about EPs, extended plays. My definition is anything that isn't an album and isn't a single (one song and one B-side).

This will be the first post and I chose Throwing Muses Counting Backwards EP as it's one of my favorites.

This EP has it all: bright, colorful artwork, a guest musician, and B-sides that are better than the single, plus another B-side that's more interesting.

Now, "Counting Backwards" is a good song- it kicks off The Real Ramona and is the perfect bridge between their previous LP, Hunkpapa, and the new direction of Ramona. I think I read somewhere that the song is about a certain therapy that was suggested to help with bipolar disorder.

Track 2 of the EP is "Amazing Grace" and it's probably one of TM's best songs. The song is so well-played and the guitars are amazing, especially accoustic lap steel guitar played by guest musician Joe Harvard. At 5:43 it's a long song, but not too long; it just gets better and better. The ending is incredible.

"Same Sun" is the third track and I always thought that the lyrics were pretty interesting. It's an odd song. There's a mention of a "postcard" which makes me think that "Same Sun" may have somehow inspired the sleeve artwork for The Real Ramona which includes a postcard. And maybe "Same Sun" was originally part of the album tracklisting but was ultimately left off (because it's so strange).

By the way, back in early 1995 I remember reading a story about Belly recording their upcoming LP King and one of the songs mentioned was "John Dark". "John Dark" ended up, instead, on the Now They'll Sleep EP. One of the songs on the Seal My Fate studio EP was "Diamond Ribcage", which includes the line, "My heart in diamond ribcage"- I suspect "Diamond" was orinally supposed to be on King as so much of the sleeve art features playing card symbols- clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. Shit, I should've saved those theories for when I post about Seal My Fate.

Anyway, the forth and final track on the Counting Backwards EP is "Cottonmouth", and I get the impression that it might be the all-time favorite song of most Throwing Muses fans. Unless my memory is messed up, I think I first heard it at a Kristin Hersh solo show at Smith College back in 1994. There's a very cool (partial) video on Youtube showing Throwing Muses playing "Cottonmouth" and you can hear the crowd singing along and nearly drowning out Hersh.

There's something special about this EP. Actually, there's a lot special about it, but what I'm talking about now is the tracklisting. The order is odd, I'd say...I think the obvious choice would be to put "Amazing Grace" at the end because 1) it's so long, and 2) it has that "last track" feel to it, and 3) it just rambles on and on (in a very good way, of course). But it's placed as the second track and the best song comes at the end.

An odd choice, but it works.

Though it's only an EP, Counting Backwards is an essential Throwing Muses recording, maybe the essential Throwing Muses recording. Even more than The Real Ramona, it represents the high point of the original line-up.