There She Goes!

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From the MUSIC section: There She Goes!

It’s difficult not to like the Liverpudlian group The La’s.

Sure, they begin their hit song There She Goes with the chorus - “there she goes, there she goes again” - always a bit suspect in my book.

And, yes, you could even call them a one-hit-wonder, since their only real claim to fame is this song.

But The La’s were different. They had passion. They had power. That’s because the front man, Lee Mavers, is a very talented singer-songwriter with an amazingly strong falsetto voice.

Yet his perfectionism contributed to the band’s demise after releasing only one LP.

Mavers’ unreasonable demands and his obsession in getting everything perfect led to numerous delays, infighting and endless production changes. Fifteen months before The La’s album was released, Mavers had hired and fired five producers!

GO! Discs, the record label, had seen enough. They hired legendary producer Steve Lillywhite to finish off the rest of the work and the album hit the shops in October 1990.

It had taken three years to make.

By that time, Lee Mavers wanted nothing to do with the album. He completely disowned the work and became The La’s biggest critic, calling it “the worst record in the world.”

After that, he disappeared from the face of the earth; refusing to speak to the press and unwilling to release any new music.

There She Goes entered the Top 20 in the UK, and reached number 49 in the United States.

Here’s The La’s U.S. television debut on the program Late Night with David Letterman.



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Vocabulary:

Chorus. Estribillo

In my book. En mi opinión (expresión, informal)

One-hit-wonder. Artista o grupo conocido por un sólo éxito.

Demise. Desaparición

Infighting. Luchas internas

To disown. No reconocer como propio. Repudiar

Published by: Drew Crosby