Jul. 9th, 2004

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Lipstick Traces is the Brian Slade album on the shelf at Top Records, with the close up of of Brian in the silver/lavender lipstick. It's listed on the index that grown up Arthur consults later as being reviewed Apr 29, 1973 in NME.

chronologically:

"Lipstick traces on a cigarette,
Every memory lingers with me yet."


The song Lipstick Traces is a New Orleans R&B standard and was written by Naomi Neville. It was a hit for Benny Spellman in 1962, and it was released in England, so this is the version Brian would be familiar with.

However, there's the line,

"A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces..." from the 1936 standard, These Foolish Things (Remind me of You), by Holt Marvell, Jack Strachey and Harry Link. Brian Ferry did a cover version. (we'll pretend that Rod Stewart did not.)

And then there is the book, Lipstick Traces, A Secret History of the Twentieth Century by Greil Marcus, a whirlwind riff on how a rock & roll song might have possibly changed the world. (See "Quotes We Like" to the left of your view screen.)

The metaphorical point being that Lipstick Traces is a reminder of someone, perhaps the only evidence of a person's existence.

May 2022

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Page Summary

Quotes We Like

We are already at a point where an appeal to rock 'n' roll will tell us almost nothing worth knowing, though this is, finally, a rock 'n' roll story. Real mysteries cannot be solved, but they can be turned into better mysteries.

Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century
by Greil Marcus

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