The Private Canon: The Ophelias' "Palindrome"

This post is part of a series.

I'd never clocked it as such till recently but 1987 seems to have been a big year for my musical tastes—the pivot from my first to second year of college, it was also the year of Bring the Family and The Joshua Tree and Document and Get Rhythm and Happy Nightmare Baby and Famous Blue Raincoat, as well as many records that made a big impact on me that I haven't yet written about here: The Mats' Pleased to Meet Me, Los Lobos's By the Light of the Moon, Sinead's The Lion and the Cobra, Thin White Rope's Moonhead, Sting's Nothing Like the Sun, Suzanne Vega's Solitude Standing, Squeeze's Babylon and On, Ruben Blades's Agua de Luna.

It was also the year a compilation of mostly obscure tunes by San Francisco bands, The View From Here, crossed my desk at the Daily Trojan and made it home with me. I don't think I reviewed it (might I have mentioned in my DT music column, Playing It By Ear? Possibly), but I held onto it until the dissolution of my vinyl collection many years later (sad story) and later got hold of it digitally, mainly on the strength of one transcendent song. No, it wasn't the oddball waltz by Camper Van Beethoven, "Happiness Is a Porpoise Mouth," or a few jangly guitar ditties I liked, Vox Humana's "Concept Day" and The Naked Into's "Dark Comes Down."

It was the Ophelias' mad tarantella, "Palindrome," a song I instantly and enduringly loved, mainly for its vertiginous chord progression on acoustic guitar, wild instrumentation involving brass and harmonica, at least one of the two quatrains that comprise its lyrics, and the campily dramatic delivery of lead vocalist Leslie Medford. But those chords are the main thing. Maddeningly simple yet strange, they're a joy to pluck out on the guitar if you're so inclined, starting with a very natural D position. This notation includes the entrance of harmonica (top line) and trumpet (bottom line):

The thing I can't figure out is whether the home is key D or A, and thus if the progression would be spelled I-bVII-ii-V or IV-bIII-v-I. Either way, that horn figure's chromaticism only underscores the progression's angular appeal. After two more measures like this, the same chord pattern repeats a fourth below:

That's the whole form, really, those 6 measures over and over. When Medford's vocals come in, they're in an impassioned Sprechstimme, and he delivers just two verses, the first one a misogynist rant leavened only by his unhinged delivery:

No good winking at the fashionable plate

She's the least likely to make a break

It's not that your approach is too abrupt

No, she hasn't had the chance to size your wallet up

For better or worse, his zestful emphasis on the words "least," "approach," and "wallet" are forever seared into my brain. It's the eminently quotable second verse that zooms out for a witheringly witty long view:

History is written in the buff

But by the time you read it, it's all window-dressing stuff

The mannequins may get a change of clothes

But look, they're in the self-same pose

"History is written in the buff" should be on a T-shirt; I'd buy one. There's literally nothing else to the song, aside from a wacky phased harmonica solo evoking a carousel spinning off its axis and Medford's inspired concluding "La la la" verse, which creates its own crunchy harmonies. The song's title is a bit of a mystery, except possibly in the way that the inexorable repetition of the progression, with its elusive home key and its symmetrical 6 measures of 6 beats, suggests a hall of mirrors, and the second verse suggests an endless return. It's a fun house I still love getting lost in.

Note: The Ophelias' records, most of which don't approach this song's brilliance but which definitely have their wild moments (as in "The Night of Halloween" or "Overture to Anaconda") but you can of course find their first record on YouTube, and I made a playlist of it.