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The Damned: The Light at the End of the Tunnel (MCA, 1987)
The latest issue of General Speech, along with Halloween inching ever closer, has me listening to the Damned. Tom from General Speech’s list of 20 underrated non-album tracks had me reaching for the Friday the 13th EP and the Damned But Not Forgotten compilation, and those releases gave me a hankering for The Light at the End of the Tunnel, a weird as hell 1987 compilation that has a special place in my heart, even though the CD copy I got 25+ years ago is long gone.
I remember ordering The Light at the End of the Tunnel from Columbia House when I was quite young. It must have been 1992 or 1993, just as I was digging past the MTV-approved grunge that was taking over the world. Mostly I was finding pop-punk, and I listened to my fair share of Green Day and NOFX and Screeching Weasel around that time. However, as one of the few recognizable punk names in the Columbia House catalog, this release from the Damned made it into my possession. I had no idea, but it’s a very strange introduction.
Looking atwhere the Damned’s critical legacy has landed, The Light at the End of the Tunnel offers a track list that is, shall we say, idiosyncratic. The compilation came out on the Damned’s then (major) label, MCA, and perhaps that’s why the band’s albums for that label, Phantasmagoria and Anything, are so well-represented. The collection starts off with “I Feel Alright” from the first album (starting with a cover rather than an original is only the first of many strange choices the compilers made), then segues into the title track from 1986’s Anything, followed by two non-album singles, 1982’s “Lovely Money” and 1984’s “Thanks for the Night” before the next album track, Machine Gun Etiquette’s brilliant “Plan 9, Channel 7.” The track listing doesn’t just ignore chronology; it seems deliberately chaotic.
On the surface, The Light at the End of the Tunnel seems like that nonsensical music industry monstrosity, the “greatest hits / rarities” compilation, which pairs an artist’s best songs with the chaff that wasn’t considered good enough for the higher-profile releases. The thing is, though, that despite its length and breadth, The Light at the End of the Tunnel never dips in quality. The Damned put out several classic albums, but their non-album singles and EPs hold some of their best songs. And while it’s weird that there are three covers here, it’s hard to deny that the Damned had a knack for transforming other artist’s material, as apparent on their version of Love’s “Alone Again Or.”
Speaking of Love, if I can discern any sort of organizing principle for The Light at the End of the Tunnel, it’s that it emphasizes the Damned’s roots in pre-punk pop and psychedelic music. I’ve spent a lot of time with the Damned’s first five albums, and even though this release contains a lot of those songs, you end up with a different impression of the band than you get from listening to the albums. The Light at the End of the Tunnel is missing some of my favorite songs (how do you leave off “Wait for the Blackout?”) but, by omitting so much, it reveals the Damned’s surprising depth. Amidst all the punk bashing and crashing, there was a sophisticated, thoughtful pop band lurking below the surface.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel also shows how the Damned love to stretch out. The collection is littered with four and five-minute tracks (even the single “Grimly Fiendish” appears in its 12” extended mix). The most stretched-out moment, though, is “Curtain Call.” This track took up the entirety of side 3 of 1980’s The Black Album, but the Damned’s US label I.R.S. omitted the track for their single-disc version, which is the version I have. “Curtain Call” is a great song… besides the psychedelic wanderings you would expect from a track of its length, it has a great chorus with one of Dave Vanian’s most memorable vocal performances. Including “Curtain Call” is a big part of what tilts The Light at the End of the Tunnel toward that portrait of the Damned as sprawling and grandiose, but it’s also a big reason why I’m still revisiting The Light at the End of the Tunnel all these years later.