Television’s Marquee Moon. A fine, fine album. If you want to hear an album that has good guitar performances in it, I’d say that this one should be an Exhibit A in a theoretical museum. I gave my personal backstory behind finding the record the last time I wrote about a song from it, so I admittedly I’m finding it hard to fill out this first paragraph. Really, all I have to say regarding how I feel about the album as a whole can be found in that link. But in short, heard it first time 2012/13 and proceeded to revisit in the years since. But even with that first listen, ‘See No Evil’ – the track that kicks things off – was one that stuck with me almost immediately.

Tom Verlaine’s guitar is the first thing you hear in the left ear, the bass guitar makes itself with a little fill accompanied by a crash cymbal, and the band properly come in together anchored by an earwormy, looping guitar riff on the right side, played by lead guitarist Richard Lloyd. Just that riff itself has enough of a melody that I can find myself singing it almost endlessly. All in all, it’s a strong performance. A strong performance for a song of immense optimism. You see, ‘See No Evil’ is written as a statement of intent and ambition by songwriter Verlaine. He wants to achieve impossible things, whether that be jumping over a mountain or having a boat made out of ocean, and wishes to leave the room and rid himself of any negative energy that someone or something might bring in his presence. He understands that there are bad people in this world, but in this state that he’s in now, he’s willing to give this evil a pass while filled with this fervent determination of his.

I don’t have much else to add here. I enjoy this one a lot. It makes for a great opener for the rest of the album to follow. Isolated from the context of the LP, it works just as well too. Great guitar tones, runs and fills are around every corner. Lloyd’s soaring solo at a minute and 50 seconds in is one that you have to bring out the air guitar for. I like the phrasing of the song title whenever it’s sung, building on itself bit by bit, before the ‘evil’ is yelled out with blistering screech. I, at least, get the sense that the four members of the band were having something of a good time during the make of this song. The music and the performance just exude the feeling. And it’s nice that during the song’s end, after Verlaine tells us he’s having good times with the person he loves in various, he turns it round to the listener to tell us that it’s possible for us to do the same thing.