TITLE: "Love Her All I Can"
ARTIST: Kiss
ALBUM: Dressed To Kill
RELEASE DATE: 1975
It's probably a good thing I didn't get to go to that Police show the other night (although to check out my comrade Rob B's review, please note the addendum at the bottom of the piece). Instead, my lovely wife and I went out to belatedly celebrate our 6th Anniversary. Our actual anniversary was last weekend, but we were ensconced out at her sister's place in Pennsylvania. While Peggy's extended family helped us ring in our six years on the actual night of, we thought a nice night out with just the two of us was highly in order. So, that's just what we did.
Peggy and I have been together for eight years, and now married for six of'em. We have two of the loveliest children we could have ever hoped for. This Summer has found me unexpectedly without a job, and I have to say, Peggy has been an absolute rock of support, encouragement and unconditional love throughout. I am a very lucky man.
Which brings me to today's track. Early on in our relationship, it became overbearingly established that I was an unapologetic fan of big, dumb, loud rock music of the variety that grabs you by the scalp and drags you around the room. Suffice it to say, Peggy does not share this affinity. That said, our tastes do overlap in many instances. Despite being an ardent fan of music I'd consider unfit for human consumption (i.e. Van Morrison), Peggy does share with me a fondness for vintage Duran Duran, Matt Johnson's The The and a clutch of other notables selections. When I noticed that she owned an original copy of the 7" of Killing Joke's "Love Like Blood," that was pretty much the clincher. This was the girl I was going to marry.
But before the proposal came the long, drawn out courtship, which involved lots of nights out on the tiles, lots of alcohol and -- symptomatic of the age prior to the advent of Mp3s and iPods -- lots of mixtapes. Now, ladies, please note -- though it's been widely documented via books like Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" and Rob Sheffield's "Love Is A Mixtape" -- no guy ever makes you a haphazardly random mixtape. Each track is painstakingly tailored to either send the right message, transmit a specific signal or please a certain sensibility. The box-loads of tapes I agonized over for Peggy were no exception. Nine times out of ten, I'd fill them with songs by then-seemingly-esoteric acts that I thought would appeal to her or that spelled out a specific sentiment I was trying to convey. Every now and then, however, I felt obligated to slip in a curve ball; i.e. something that prepared her for a lifetime of arguable sonic punishment. Sure, I'll play the Blow Monkeys, Simply Red and maybe a little Sade for you, but ya better be prepared for regular airings of the Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop and Cop Shoot Cop -- `cos that's what you'll be hearing a lot of if you stick with me.
One such track is this old favorite from my beloved Kiss, "Love Her All I Can." Taken from the band's deplorably under-praised third album (and the first album I ever bought), Dressed To Kill, "Love Her All I Can" singularly encapsulates the band's initial musical mission statement in that it pairs the pop accessibility and lyrical universality of the Beatles with the oomphy whallop of hard rock. And damn if it doesn't pull that trick off with glorious aplomb.
A shamelessly euphoric love song rife with testaments of fidelity (something that the song's authors aren't notoriously renowned for) and soaring, melifluous harmonies, "Love Her All I Can" belies the then-depraved image and reputation of its creators. Well prior to their re-invention as the Ringling Brothers of spectacle-laden arena rock, the Dressed To Kill-era Kiss were endearingly unconcerned about their anti-social image. Decked out in black leather and unblemished by the polish that would mark their later studio albums, Kiss still looked and sounded like the bastard offspring of Alice Cooper, The New York Dolls and The MC5 (i.e. they were perfect). While everyone cites the hackneyed warhorse that is "Rock N' Roll All Night" as their signature anthem and centerpiece of this album, "Love Her All I Can" is a sorely forgotten gem (though, to be fair, the Kiss disciples and fellow New Yorkers in Anthrax did handily cover it in the early 90s).
Even while overflowing with Ace Frehley's spitfire soloing and Peter Criss' muscularly excessive drum fills, "Love Her All I Can" completely won Peggy over, and it's become one of "our songs" ever since. There was even talk of it being our wedding song for a little while, but somehow we talked ourselves out of it (settling instead, somewhat incongruously on Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" after inexplicably convincing ourselves that it had to be a Bond theme). In retrospect, I'd have liked to have seen the gathered throng's reaction when "Love Her All I Can" came galloping out of the speakers. Oh well.
Shortly after Dressed To Kill came Alive, a sprawling double-live album that vaulted Kiss exactly where they wanted to be, putting them squarely on the rock n' roll map. The next studio album was the stately Destroyer, which marked a massive departure from the comparatively sloppy garage-hewn riff-blitz that was Dressed To Kill. Even further down the line, Kiss became more of an amusement park attraction than a functioning band. But for at least these two minutes and forty-one seconds in 1975, Kiss were indeed the hottest band in the world. Just ask Peggy.
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