TITLE: "Treasure (Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop)"
ARTIST: U2
RELEASE DATE: 1983
It was not the ideal day for the mission in question, but what could I do? Having borrowed my Mom's crappy Ford Taurus for the long holiday weekend, I was tasked with instructions to return it to its normal spot as my mother's "station car" (the vehicle she utilizes to shuttle herself to her Long Island abode from the train station). Now, Mom's place is in Quogue, but being that there isn't a train station in Quogue (or not anymore, at least), Mom chooses to park the car and board the train at Sayville, several towns away. She used to park at the station at Speonk (the name of this town used to make my British cousins burst out in hysterics, being that "Spunk" -- as it's arguably pronounced -- is a Britishism for semen), but after the car was broken into there a couple times, she forsook Speonk for Sayville. In any case, the Sayville L.I.R.R. station was my target destination.
I know what you're thinking: "big whoop!" Well, as I've mentioned previously, I only got my driver's license in `04. As such, I would be remiss in characterizing myself as Johnny Confident when I'm behind the wheel. Apart from an oft-alluded brush with the law -- literally -- this past Summer, my track record has been pretty good. That said, I still am rusty and easily-perplexed by certain elements of driving, and am still somewhat prone to bouts of nerves. While I feel more or less at home driving the Ford Taurus in question -- having sped it back and forth from Manhattan to Quogue several times this past Summer -- I'd never driven such a distance alone before. Usually, I had my wife acting as both a second pair of eyes and as the calm, reassuring voice of reason when the nerves set in. Yesterday, I would be flying completely solo, not to mention bound for a destination I'd never previously driven to. Sayville is about eleven exits closer to the city than Quogue, and not immediately adjacent the Long Island Expressway. To further compound matters, the weather forecast was predicting non-stop rain, making driving conditions slightly more hazardous. Grrrrrreat!
In preparation for the trip, I grabbed a clutch of stand-by compact discs. The drive in question wasn't supposed to take longer than an hour and change, but who knew what was waiting for me out on the expressway? As such, I grabbed several discs to sort of act as sonic comfort food. The disc that ended up lasting me the duration of my white-knuckled journey, however, was a home-burned compilation of U2 songs. I know, that's an awful lot of preamble to set up my discussion of this track, but I've always been interested in reading how individuals react and relate to specific songs. This is one such account.
Lots of people seem to hate U2 for any number of reasons, be it their arguable piety, their attempts at faux-irony or simply Bono and his big hearted ubiquity. I can't say I'm one of those people, though. While most of my favorite bands would gladly see U2's heads impaled on spikes (I can't imagine anything that would make Killing Joke happier, apart from maybe the apocalypse), I've always been a fan. Hell, I can't help it -- they practically scored the soundtrack of my life since adolescence. War, Under a Blood Red Sky and The Unforgettable Fire were all inescapable audio staples of my high school, and U2 were the single band everyone could agree on. I vividly remember lining up at Tower Records with my friend Rob B. to prize a copy of The Joshua Tree the day it was released. I remember slow-dancing to "With Or Without You" in a Florentine disco in July of 1987 (appallingly mimicking Bono's moves in the video -- "my hands are tied," etc.). I remember being thrilled to see the preview for the arguably abortive "Rattle and Hum" in a Queens movie house (we were there, if memory serves, to see "Aliens"). I remember seeing the Zoo TV tour four or five times (one show notably at Yankee Stadium). I remember flying to Las Vegas for the start of the PopMart tour. I even briefly interviewed Bono in 2001 for the purposes of eulogizing Joey Ramone in TIME Magazine, and he was unfailingly gracious and cool. In terms of U2, while they may have since become the antithesis of hip and/or cool, I've put in the hours and count myself among the faithful.
That all said, when pressed, I still prefer the old school U2 -- the slightly scruffier "post-punk" band who'd clearly studied their fair share of Gang of Four and Public Image Ltd. albums. I prefer to remember U2 when they wore big Cold War coats with chains on their boots, stomping through waist-deep snow with two-toned hair. I prefer the U2 before the bolo ties and the desert vistas. Give me the U2 whose guitars sound like whirring helicopter blades as opposed to the U2 that sucks up to B.B. King and Bob Dylan. I just liked U2 a bit more when they had a slightly punkier edge, pardon the pun.
Back in the car, I was feeling a bit like Dennis Weaver in Steven Spielberg's "Duel." I seemed to be the lone passenger car on a rain-slicked expressway that was otherwise ruled by vast, hulking Mack trucks. But tracks like "Another Time, Another Place," "Surrender," "Electric Co." and "Two Hearts Beat As One" (possibly my favorite ever song of theirs) had me belting along with the boys from Dublin at top volume, singing myself hoarse to quell my simmering nerves.
When this song came on, however, I was feeling positively victorious. "Treasure (Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop)" found me triumphantly rolling off exit 59 in time with the pounding strings of Adam Clayton's bass. I'd love to be able to tell you the specific backstory of this song, but I'm afraid I don't have the slightest clue about it. I first heard it as an alternate track on the import cd single of "New Years' Day." Sonically, it boasts all the band's trademarks circa 1983 -- a propulsive tempo, emphatic "whooa-ooah" harmonies, an urgent bass line and Edge's crying, chiming guitars. If anything, it's the singer's contributions to the proceedings that are the weakest link in the chain. The lyrics sound almost entirely improvised, as if Bono's trying to find his place in the song that rages around him. Given the frankly bizarre title, "Treasure (Whatever Happened To Pete The Chop)" seems like the very prototype of a b-side. Unfinished, neglected and relegated to the back burner of a stove that's no longer functioning. It's now a track seemingly solely tailored to fan-boy die-hards and collectors. As far as I'm concerned, however, it handily shits all over everything they've done since All That You Can't Blah Blah Blah as You Dismantle a Blah Blah Yawn. That's my opinion, at least.
I had to re-play this song about four times before I was done with it. In doing so, however, I managed to miss my turnoff to Route 93, an oversight which had me driving aimlessly around various grim Suffolk County backwater streets until I managed to correct myself. I pulled into the Sayville station with forty-five minutes to spare until the next train to Manhattan. I sat in the car as the drizzle continued to fall around me, still listening to those scruffy boys from Dublin.
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