AMANDA JONES
According to the promotional material by Bomp! Records for the band’s EP, Amanda Jones, Amanda Jones was born in March 1995 as a collaboration of Amanda (Mandy) Brix and Jeff Drake, previously in the punk rock band the Joneses. The combination of her first name and his former band name clearly brought about the band name Amanda Jones, but they were almost certainly mindful of the Rolling Stones connection also: Their sound has the same kind of playful spirit as early mid-period Stones albums like Between the Buttons (released in January 1967); besides “Miss Amanda Jones” and “Ruby Tuesday”, the album also includes the song “Let’s Spend the Night Together” that got the band into so much trouble with The Ed Sullivan Show – Mick Jagger sung the title lyric as “let’s spend some time together” as Ed Sullivan insisted, though he and bassist Bill Wyman were rolling their eyes at the time. A few months back, I discussed the controversial lyrics in their first big hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”; the Rolling Stones were able to sing that number on The Ed Sullivan Show with no censorship.
* * *
Amanda Jones’ sole album Amanda Jones came out on Bomp! Records in 1996, with the five songs being a delight from end to end. The opening cut is “The First Time”, about a girl bringing a boy home to her place. With lyrics like “It’s my first time / Please be kind / It’s my first time / Don’t hurt me” interspersed with “oh . . . oh oh oh . . . “, the song focuses more on the angst rather than the sexiness of the coming-of-age event; unlike the way that, say, Rod Stewart did in his hit song “Tonight’s the Night”. And in a nice twist, it turns out that the boy admits with tears in his eyes that it is also his “first time”.
“The Back & Forth” is a lively song about an imaginary dance craze of that name that also sounds like a stand-in for sex. “Kathy’s Kiss” and “Put You on Hold” are also fun songs, with both bringing up jealous feelings: “I can taste her on your lips . . . Kathy’s kiss is poisonous . . . gonna clean her up with turpentine” and “I left you hanging on / I put you on hold and you were gone . . . I called my favorite number, Star-69”.
The final song, “Private Enemy No. 1” has the singer in the thrall of a bad boy: “He’s my private enemy number one / held my heart for ransom / private enemy number one / he’s so f--kin’ handsome” – not “hot” or “sexy” or something like that, but the old-fashioned “handsome”. The album ends with the comment “oh, yes, he is” after the final chorus that always makes my smile.
(December 2015)
* * *
Items: Amanda Jones Album
