Probably like a large majority of people in the world, I heard ‘There She Goes’ before actually learning about who made the tune. I can remember it being used in a TV advert that was repeated numerous times in the early ’00s. The company – I feel like it was a furniture one for some reason – only used the song’s main refrain, and if just that and a few guitar chords were able to stick in my head and get me singing randomly on some days then it must have been a good one. Just a little aside here, those first few lines I wrote in 2017 when I began what turned into the post for ‘I Can’t Sleep’. I’ve been waiting for this day to arrive for eight years, and now I can finally get this out of the ‘Drafts’ section. Anyway, yeah, ‘There She Goes’. It’s by The La’s. It’s their signature song, a jangle-pop masterpiece written by Lee Mavers. The released version on the band’s self-titled album is 35 years old. Its origins go further back to the tail-end of the ’80s. But it never gets old. Just sounds so fresh every time.

Where do I even start with this one? I feel like ‘There She Goes’ is a tune that everyone should know. But as the years go on, there’s gonna be this whole generation who come in and wouldn’t even know who the band is, let alone the song. If there’s anyone reading who weren’t aware of both, what do you think now? Sounds great, doesn’t it? What I’ve come to like about ‘There She Goes’ is that it’s essentially a chorus repeated nearly from start to finish, with I guess a bit of a bridge happening in the middle when the song goes into a minor key for a few moments. But even then, the lyrics remain on the same rhyme pattern/train of thought. It’s got a beautiful melody, sung by Mavers with the falsetto on the “There she goooes” and the raspier tone on the “can’t conta-e-ain” phrases. Bass guitarist John Power joins in with the countermelodies in the backing vocals. And it’s all united by that earworm of a guitar riff. Melodies galore, and good ones too. You really can’t go wrong.

And all of this comes to the main question set up by the lyrics. He is singing about a girl, or is he singing about heroin? The answer… is yes. I’m sure a lot of people just go with the latter because how many songs out there are about liking women? It’s the “cooler” interpretation. The whole thing’s for sure set up as as a two-and-a-half minute double entendre, though. Whatever the song’s about doesn’t affect how I feel when I listen through, which is usually a combination of happiness and satisfaction. How Lee Mavers felt about the song is another thing. I read he much preferred the single version, released a few years before in 1988. And while trying to find that perfect sound when recording the album, the band tried out versions with producers John Leckie and. Mike Hedges. And those are just the ones that have been officially released. There are probably other mixes floating out there somewhere. That album version’s always sounded fine to me.