Photo credit: Aaron K.S. Jones
Note: I understand this is a very long article. If you are already an Allo Darlin’ sicko, you are encouraged to proceed! If you are a newbie to the band, you might want to finish the introduction and then advance to the top twenty and start there.
Elizabeth Morris Innset is the singer and songwriter for Allo Darlin’, a rather unsung indie pop band whose run from 2010 to 2014 makes them one of the very best bands of that period. Here, I’m going to be celebrating Morris’ songwriting by talking a little bit about all of her songs – not just with Allo Darlin’ but with Elva, some under her own name, and even a couple from predecessor The Darlings – and packaging it in a fun listicle form. My ambition is that one day Allo Darlin’ will be a more solid fixture in the indie rock canon. Maybe we can at least get them to, say, Rilo Kiley levels of notoriety.
Morris writes about friendship, England, Australia, Scandinavia (first Sweden, now Norway), photographs, beginnings, endings, the night sky, distance, reunion, Grease, Weezer, Paul Simon, and love: the falling in, the falling out, the long distance, the anxiety, the desperation, the rush of new romance, the warmth of forever.
Morris’ writing is the very best out there at inhabiting the entire spectrum of romantic emotion. She can knock you over with a line that seems so ordinary, getting so much mileage out of something like “I wanted to impress you.”
Morris told Clash Music in 2012, “Well, I’m not a very imaginative or clever songwriter. I have to write about things when they happen. My friend David Tattersall [of The Wave Pictures] can make up stories; everyone thinks he’s singing about something that’s happened to him, and he never has. He’s just a big liar!” Indeed, her music almost always reflects herself, her situation, her life.
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In 2005, Rockhampton native Elizabeth Morris abandoned her degree at the University of Queensland and took off for London. Soon after, she bought a ukulele from the Duke of Uke shop in Shoreditch. She’d been more accustomed to writing songs on guitar or piano, but the uke would quickly become her weapon of choice.
Morris formed The Darlings, and one night after a show, Camila Barboza and Thorsten Sideboard of DIY label WeePOP! approached her. They loved her song “Emily” and wanted to release it. They’d put it and two other recordings onto a three-inch CD-R. They made 120 of these, and put a different photo on each sleeve. They called it the Photo EP. It would be the only music The Darlings would release.
With The Darlings folding and the name being too common anyway (one source claims that another The Darlings sent a scary email), Morris began writing music as Elizabeth Darling, or more and more often as Allo Darlin’, which coworker and former Darlings bandmate Virginia Thorn suggested, according to The Quietus: “Oh, you should call yourself Allo Darlin’ because of all the market traders in Soho. Every day we’d walk past on the way to work and they’d say that to us.” Throughout 2008, Morris would post home demo recordings to her MySpace and her humble personal webpage.
In 2009, she was invited to contribute to a compilation of Bruce Springsteen covers, and Paul Rains joined her on guitar. Thorn introduced Morris to Rains and Mike Collins, both of the band Hexicon. They joined Allo Darlin’ as the guitarist and drummer, respectively, though they were still mostly focused on Hexicon. Meanwhile, Morris’ roommate had a brother who stayed on their floor after moving to London from Brisbane. Bill Botting, himself coming from a band called Polyvinyl and now joining Morris as a fellow transplant from Queensland, joined up as the bassist.
Around this time, Morris also joined Tender Trap, led by Amelia Fletcher of the seminal bands Talulah Gosh and Heavenly. “When Amelia got in touch and asked me to come and play I felt a bit excited, but other people around me were more excited,” Morris recalled to Penny Black Music, having not grown up with Talulah Gosh or Heavenly. (Talulah Gosh was named before the Go-Betweens album Tallulah that Allo Darlin’s “Tallulah” references.)
After laying down debut single “Henry Rollins Don’t Dance” for WeePOP!, Allo Darlin’ signed to Fortuna POP! (confusingly, no relationship to WeePOP!), and things progressed quickly. Morris told Clash Music: “We’d only been a band for three months, but Sean [Price, Fortuna POP! label head] said ‘you should make an album as soon as possible,’ and that’s what we did.”
“We didn’t really think that anyone was going to be hearing it. We thought it might get played at How Does It Feel [To Be Loved?] (a London nightclub that plays indie pop). That was my big ambition.” Allo Darlin’ was never big exactly (if a friend of mine has heard of them, it’s probably from me), but the band achieved enough buzz that they were huge relative to the band’s expectations. “We played the Big Top at End Of The Road [an annual music festival in southwest England] last year [in 2011], not really expecting anyone to be there. But Dan Mayfield went on stage to set up his violin, came back out and he was like, ‘Holy crap! There’s tons of people out there!’ We were like, ‘really?’ The tent was full, with about two thousand people. I was just shaking going on stage. I had no idea what to do or say, or how to act.”
It’s easy to hear why Allo Darlin’ caught on. Songs like “Dreaming,” “The Polaroid Song,” “Silver Dollars,” “If Loneliness Was Art,” and “My Heart Is A Drummer” all have a playful spring in their step. Their songs were giddy about young love, sounding like it hadn’t yet had time to complicate.
On their debut, Allo Darlin’s music would solidify as a keyboard-less, ukulele-driven flavor of indie pop. Some occasionally would call the music “twee” – in fact, Morris was moonlighting in a band led by perhaps the foremost twee pop stalwart, Amelia Fletcher – but that complicated label (Morris once called out a journalist for employing it) made less and less sense as the band’s run went on. Thanks to Rains, Allo Darlin’ is actually one of the great jangle pop bands.
Rains’ guitars jangled so beautifully, and his craft would be the defining musical characteristic through all eras of the band. Botting could sneak up on you with his work on the low end, often doing far more for a song than you might notice at first. Collins held things together, never drumming flashily but supporting the foreground elements just right and occasionally imbuing a song with the right sense of drama. Morris’ ukulele would anchor the emotional base of many of the band’s best songs, and her affecting voice is just the thing for anything she wrote, fitting a wounded vocal just as well as an excited one. Their sound would start quite small, but the band would demonstrate that they could sound big in a hurry.
Two years after their debut, Allo Darlin’ followed it up with Europe, a more polished and professional album that sounded much more expansive and more impressive. The sound and the subjects got bigger. It was startling to hear a band that had been so defined by their quaintness get truly ambitious, soundtracking Capricornia skies, northern lights, and stars and planets making their way.
In the next two years between albums, Morris released a solo EP of piano songs, and it was the first sign of a major upheaval in her world. Before Allo Darlin’ released their third album, We Come From The Same Place, Morris would leave the relationship she’d had throughout the band’s existence, and she would enter another with Ola Innset of Making Marks, a band who had opened for Allo Darlin’ a few times in 2012 and 2013. She married Innset and finally left London for Florence, Italy, where Innset was offered a PhD position at the European University Institute. We Come From The Same Place tackles these changes, and as a result is much more emotionally complicated – even fraught – than its predecessors.
Morris would release another solo EP a year later – this time trying her hand at political songs – but at the end of 2016, Allo Darlin’ released their Hymn On The 45 single and announced the end of the band. Allo Darlin’ was never the day job of its members, and other life developments, including children, were greater calls to the band members. As with Morris’ time in London, the moment had passed.
Morris’ only songs in the years from 2017 to 2024 would be the six she wrote for Elva, a project led by her and Innset. Innset’s contributions to Winter Sun are quite fun. Meanwhile, Morris’ songs for Elva are more calming and even folky than anything Allo Darlin’ had put out, and they exuded a sense of peace that her anxious Allo Darlin’ songs never did.
After conversations on Zoom during the pandemic, Allo Darlin’ announced reunion shows in 2023, and as they played more and more shows (please come to Minnesota!), they wound up writing a fourth album. Bright Nights is beautiful work. You can hear that everyone has calmed down a bit in the interim years, and everything – the playing, the writing, the production, and especially the arranging – sounds so confident. While I don’t regard it as highly as their first three, Bright Nights is certainly no disappointment. It’s so beautiful to hear more from this band, and I would love for them to continue on and make this feature obsolete.
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The bands covered herein do have some recordings that I haven’t listed here but would like to mention. First, there are the remaining songs from the major albums covered here. I left off the Botting-penned and Botting-sung “You Don’t Think Of Me At All” on Bright Nights. I mean no offense – I really like that song, his singing’s awesome on it and I would rank it somewhere around “Still Young” on this list – but I originally set out just looking at Morris’ writing and am sticking to that. I also really wanted to keep the funny number. I also just didn’t touch the songs on Winter Sun solely written by Innset and wouldn’t have really known at all how to place them on this list.
Then I also obviously didn’t list Allo Darlin’s covers. In order of release, those are: AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” of Montreal’s “Du Og Meg,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City,” Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” The French’s “The Wu-Tang Clan,” The Go-Betweens’ “Dive For Your Memory,” The Just Joans’ “If You Don’t Pull,” and Eux Autres’ “City All To Himself.” Elizabeth Morris also covered The Wave Pictures’ “Sweetheart” herself.
And one final note before we get into it. A Wayback Machine snapshot of Morris’ website as Elizabeth Darling shows three songs that are not accounted for here: “Oh Virginia!,” “Oh No! Another Email From You!,” and “Nighty Night.” I have tried stupendously hard, and I cannot recover these recordings.
Because they’re labeled as “home demos” and one might say they were never officially “released,” I suppose I’ll excuse their absence.
Tier 6: Inessential
69. “Dear Stephen Hawking”
from the Henry Rollins Don’t Dance EP
I dunno, man. The pan flutes and the lyrics are just cutesy in a way that I don’t get much out of. The backing track would probably serve a deeper song well, but here it exacerbates the problem. This is the only Allo Darlin’ song that grates on me.
68. “Que Sera Sera” or “What Will Be Will Be”
from the Henry Rollins Don’t Dance Indietracks EP
later on Allo Darlin’
“What Will Be Will Be” is a pleasant enough comedown at the end of their stellar debut, but I’m not sure how the titular phrase – yet another instance of Morris’ early career reference habit – actually relates to the romantic ease and comfort depicted in the song. And I’m not sure “it’s easy like taking candy from a baby” is an elegant enough fit.
67. “Silver Swans In NYC”
from the 12 Days of Christmas: A Cavalcade of Christmas Classics compilation
“Silver Swans In NYC” isn’t bad, though she’s written better songs about being torn between staying home with a lover and going back to be with family for the holidays. But it’s one of her least dynamic and most forgettable songs. I’m sure there are quite a few fans who don’t know about this one, so maybe that hiddenness could earn it some goodwill.
66. “I Need Love”
from Winter Sun
It’s pretty, but while Morris has done a lot with some otherwise unremarkable words, it’s usually with some punch. Leaning into and holding “I need love” like she does here just doesn’t do the trick. I dig the arrangement, but I don’t think the song gets there. “I Need Love” works better as a transitional moment on the album than as its own piece of music.
65. “Woody Allen”
from Allo Darlin’
Unfortunately, Morris’ early penchant for reference has done her in here. “Woody Allen” is a fun piece of music that, while in some danger of getting too cutesy, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and the idea of a couple wondering who might play them in a film and disagreeing is actually rather compelling.
But!
For obvious reasons, it’s hard to fully indulge in this one. There’s some weird stuff out there about Ingmar Bergman, too. But Max von Sydow seems okay.
RIP Diane Keaton, so cerebral was she, she ran away from any romance.
64. “My Sweet Friend”
from Europe
If Allo Darlin’ have one major shortcoming, it’s that they struggle to close their albums strongly. It’s like they choose a song to gently play over the credits. “My Sweet Friend” sounds great, feels great, and is warm to the touch but pleasing like your head hitting a cool pillow. But it lacks the extra heft and charge of their better songs. When it comes to records about records holding memories, I get more from that dog.
63. “Will You Please Spend New Years With Me?”
from the Merry Christmas From Allo Darlin’ EP
later on The Polaroid Song single
The whistling bit sounds quite pretty, but once I heard “Anyone Else But You” in this one – Juno hype was around a year old when this EP came out in December ’08 – it was all I could hear. But I’ll still throw it on the jumbo playlist I trot out a couple times a year to soundtrack The Yule Log.
Tier 5: Quite Good
62. “Leaves In The Spring”
from Bright Nights
“Leaves In The Spring,” a light but welcoming intro for the band’s great return, catches parents in a moment of bliss, the sunlight for their own little leaves in the spring. Morris also notices that time is passing for them. Her voice is a little lower, a little fuller, and she understands that: “And stones smooth in my pocket like bones/I’m not afraid when I’m with you/Though we are getting older and we know it.”
61. “Dreaming With Our Feet”
from the Tailwind / Dreaming With Our Feet single
later on Winter Sun
by Elva
This is actually a perfectly lovely song, wouldn’t change a thing. I just get less from Morris when she’s portraying totally unbothered contentment. In the other times she’s been in that mode, there’s a tad bit more going on.
60. “When You Were Mine”
from the Capricornia single
“When You Were Mine” – bold to stick a song with that name – is fun and fine, but it can feel like you’re listening to the same guitar line ad nauseam. The highlight is Morris’ “oo”s on the refrain, which break things up a bit, but “When You Were Mine” is very apparently a song by a fully locked-in band that nevertheless was obviously not good enough to make the album.
59. “Golden Age”
from the Northern Lights single
“Golden Age” feels more complete than fellow Europe B-side “When You Were Mine,” and it even strives for the kind of grandeur found in the songs that actually did make the album. Morris also works a bit harder to set the scene, feeling sorry, watching Singing In The Rain. There’s a jukebox playing “Hazey Jane II.” But the stride it builds to just pales in the shadow of “Northern Lights” or “Still Young.”
58. “Anything You Want”
from the Photo EP
by The Darlings
The very first song on the very first EP, “Anything You Want” sounds startlingly close to how Allo Darlin’ would three years later, and there are some additional elements (the mandolin solo, the vocal harmonies) that I really flip for.
57. “Another Year”
from We Come From The Same Place
In “Another Year,” we feel Morris’ anxiety building as she’s on the plane bound for Florence, preparing to leave her old life behind. “Will it be worth the pain? What if my heart breaks up again?” she wonders. For a newlywed, she had gotten out of a previous relationship pretty recently, and she’d been grappling with that transition in many of her songs since.
“In another year, we won’t be alone.”
“Another Year” isn’t as deep or dynamic as the other songs on We Come From The Same Place, but it’s a mantra. It’s not as satisfying or emotional of a resolution as “Crickets In The Rain” might have been, but it’s a song to carry you forward into whatever you have next and a reminder that you need to keep going. Maybe that’s the right ending.
Indeed, in another year – around the time this album was released – they wouldn’t be alone. In twelve another years, even.
56. “Dear John”
from the 7777777 EP
The shortest ever Allo Darlin’ song is a romp from the perspective of John’s former teenage crush (“I get the idea that I’m a disappointment”). Now that they’re grown, John’s turned the tables and pretends she doesn’t exist. It’s not a lot, but “Dear John” is a zippy number that finds Allo Darlin’ at their most Belle & Sebastian.
55. “Heartbeat Chilli”
from the Henry Rollins Don’t Dance Indietracks EP
later on the Henry Rollins Don’t Dance EP
and Allo Darlin’
Morris would go on to write many greater love songs (partly because she would actually write real choruses), but imbuing such longing and affection into quiet moments in the kitchen and by the pool is an early exhibition of her best qualities as a songwriter. “Heartbeat Chilli”‘s tenderness makes it one of her stronger efforts from before the Allo Darlin’ album cycle.
54. “Slow Motion”
from Bright Nights
After reading Lucinda Williams’ Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, Morris decided to write a song telling a very simple, straightforward story. In “Slow Motion,” she recalls a car accident she experienced while pregnant with her second daughter, with her first in the backseat. “Slow Motion” is definitely not the type of song I think of when I’m in the mood for some Allo Darlin’, but its detail is surprisingly disarming, rendering the experiment a success. Best of all, “Slow Motion” harkens back to Morris’ songs featuring just her voice and her instrument, all by their lonesome.
53. “Stars”
from Bright Nights
“Stars” is just a pretty good song, but it’s brought alive by the weathered and experienced band. It takes on some weight, with visions of the desert – Morris’ second song featuring driving through the desert at night – supported by a monster slide guitar solo from Rains. Heather Larimer of Corvair – and formerly of Eux Autres, whose “City All To Himself” was covered by Allo Darlin’ – joins Morris on backup vocals.
52. “The Best I Can”
from the Bright Eyes single
Morris actually wanted this song on We Come From The Same Place, but at some juncture was “overruled.” It makes sense. “The Best I Can” is a rousing rocker, more determined and in control than anything that made the record, but even though it’s about falling in love, it lacks the emotional heft of every song that did make the cut. Still, it’s a charged up bit of defiance, like a smaller “Still Young.”
Somehow, this is the only song on this list I can’t give you any kind of link to. I had to use my tricks to get the mp3. You’re on your own.
51. “Heartbeat”
from We Come From The Same Place
Just “Heartbeat” this time, hold the Chilli. “Heartbeat” is actually like the flip to “Wonderland,” with Morris castigating herself after a missed opportunity. My favorite thing here is that “It’s possible that I was too much for you, baby/I was too used to being on my own, maybe” is not that impressive of a rhyme, but with her delivery it sure sounds like it is.
50. “Northern Waters”
from Bright Nights
Even as Bright Nights finds Morris in a more peaceful phase of her life, she still has a knack for placing her feelings against the backdrop of nature’s grandeur, particularly the waters of Scandinavia. Here, with one daughter already arrived and another on the way, she takes a solitary swim in the cold sea while quietly declaring her devotion to her incoming child. “I will love you ’til the end of time” is actually rather big relative to the types of emotional lines Morris usually builds her songs around. But what might come off a little cliché in romance just sounds right when it comes to children.
49. “Historic Times”
from the Athens EP
later on Bright Nights
by Elizabeth Morris, then Allo Darlin’
At a music festival in Padova, Morris watches the band of someone she used to love and notices that the singer is much thinner and much balder than she remembers. The moon hangs high above the Adriatic Sea. “Historic Times” paints a strong picture of that night and is bolstered by a strong refrain melody, but I’ve always felt unsure about where it ends up: “There is something I have to say/These are historic times/And I can feel the earth quake/With what we’ve left behind/And I don’t mind.” This is probably truer on the Athens EP in 2015. In 2025, when it was re-recorded for Bright Nights, I’m starting to think I might mind.
48. “Only Dust Behind”
from the 7777777 EP
Morris writes of a magical evening during the Christmas season, and her soft vocal lends it a sense of quiet awe. But the main attraction here is the melodic changeup Morris throws on “reflecting the Christmas light.”
Tier 4: Really Good
47. “S P A C E Christmas”
from the Merry Christmas From Allo Darlin’ EP
It’s funny to hear a Christmas song sound so small when so many of them are wrapped up in tradition, memory, and grand romance. “S P A C E Christmas” is concerned with low stakes gift-giving, but it grows into something a bit more when it reveals its true intentions: “I’m naturally competitive, I can’t help it/So I want my gift to be better than the ones from your old girlfriend/Just so you will know I’m better than the rest/Because, my darling, I love you the best.” Though the preoccupation with the ex is slightly unnerving, that’s a wildly relatable motivator for straining to find the perfect gift.
46. “Winter Sun”
from Winter Sun
Morris closes her eyes three times. First, she’s diving into the Mediterranean Sea. Next, all her friends are coming back to her. Finally, she’s in love and she’s on the run. Who does she want to be? “Winter Sun” is about missing the different phases of your life and allowing yourself to remember that they are beautiful, but reaffirming your love for where things are now. The image of a love “backlit by winter sun” is worthy of the album’s title, too.
45. “Shoe Box”
from the Optimism EP
by Elizabeth Morris
“Shoe Box” is a bit of a sequel to “The Polaroid Song,” but instead of photos fading or a preferred format being phased out, the photos lose their relevance and later memory itself eventually fails. It moves on a little too quickly from the box of pictures in the closet, but “Shoe Box” is another solid bit of pondering on the subject of memory, the fallibility thereof, and how we can ever really hope to capture it.
44. “The Season”
by Elizabeth Morris
from the Athens EP
Morris’ Christmas songs are frequently about people who are apart from each other, but “The Season” is a gorgeously sweet song about this happening out of neglect. Morris feels rotten that when she was just falling in love for the final time, she repaid her confidant by falling out of touch. With “The Season,” she reaches back out and puts it well enough and honestly enough that I have to imagine it was quite all right.
43. “Young Republic”
from the Optimism EP
by Elizabeth Morris
“These piano songs didn’t feel like Allo Darlin’ songs. Perhaps the reason why will be evident to you upon listening. They were written during a turbulent time, and have been floating around in my head ever since.”
Before following up Europe, Morris first released a solo collection that featured two songs she wrote on her great-great-great grandmother’s piano. I think the other three tracks on Optimism could probably pass for Allo Darlin’, but “Young Republic” in particular lacks the undercurrent of courage and, well, optimism that characterizes the band. Musically, “Young Republic” actually reminds me of “Canary” from Exile in Guyville. Even its most hopeful thoughts sound desperate, and the song refuses to resolve. It finds a sort of resolution on the next track, the one other piano song on this list. We will discuss that song much later.
42. “Bright Nights”
from Bright Nights
I imagine we’ll get more music from Allo Darlin’. But if “Bright Nights” is the new final note, it’s a satisfying one. It might be the most serene song on an album full of peace (Dan Mayfield’s violin really kills here), and it foregrounds the night sky in the way so many great Allo Darlin’ songs do. Like many songs from Winter Sun and Bright Nights, it emanates an almost redundant gratefulness for enduring love. Though it’s a humble song, Morris still throws a couple of haymakers. A musical family plays their instruments after storms and floods clear out all the houses. The second verse starts with “In the village, you hear the adhan.” Their finest album closer.
41. “Harbour In The Storm”
from Winter Sun
Written by a new parent, “Harbour In The Storm” is made more comforting because it’s honest about the parent’s limitations: “Sometimes life can be so hard/And I don’t know what it’s all for/I don’t know what it’s all for,” “It’s okay sometimes to feel unsure/And I feel that way quite often.”
I’ll be keeping this lullaby in my pocket.
40. “Australia”
from the Athens EP
Since 1991, Australia has held a policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers, and in 2001 began a policy of processing asylum seekers offshore before allowing them to immigrate to Australia (this policy was paused in 2007 before resuming in 2012). Australia’s treatment of refugees is its biggest black mark in the international community and has long been one of the country’s most urgent and visible issues.
“This EP is something of an attempt to write political songs,” wrote Morris on the Bandcamp page for her Athens EP. She continues: “Australia was written in 10 minutes in response to Australia’s refugee policy.” Indeed, “Australia” sounds straightforward and raw almost to a fault. Just reading the lyric sheet, the thin metaphor doesn’t come off like a winner. But “Australia” is awesomely furious to the point of exasperation, and Ola Innset’s electric guitar colors that so effectively, playfully sliding into quick chord changes and just generally shredding. Morris sounds like she’s been so burned whenever she’s had hope for her home to get better. In the decade since, the situation in Australia has not significantly changed. In fact, it feels like it’s just spreading.
39. “Wanderlust”
from the Hymn On The 45 single
“I remember once it was wanderlust, now it’s people and not places I am missing,” Morris sighs. Where “Hymn On The 45” found victory in going kaputt, “Wanderlust” betrays the underlying sadness that a period of life is over, even if the band ever got back together. For eight years, a somber “I am missing” were the last words on any Allo Darlin’ track. Luckily, you can always go back and find the people that you’re missing, even if you’re continents apart now.
38. “Don’t Be Afraid”
from Winter Sun
Winter Sun can feel slight relative to the Allo Darlin’ albums, but “Don’t Be Afraid” steps up. Built around a strong melody – it reminds me a lot of an Old 97’s track, Murray-led deep cut “How Lovely All It Was” – “Don’t Be Afraid” booms and echoes like it was meant to climax a live show. Reminiscent of the worries on “Another Year,” “Believe me, there are things that are hard to say/Like I’m afraid now that I’ve found you, you will go away” is around the deepest we’ve gotten into Morris’ psyche, and despite her life seeming to be at its happiest, “Don’t Be Afraid” is just as tricky and thorny as her lowest points on We Come From The Same Place.
Tier 3: Essential
37. “Still Young”
from Europe
The second longest Elizabeth Morris song is a mini-epic. It’s a bit of a victim of sequencing – it’s hard to fully feel a second straight climactic moment right after “The Letter” – but taken on its own, “Still Young” is a mission statement, the most urgent song on an album usually unhurried in its search for beauty: “This expectation’s taken hold and pinned my back against the wall.” Botting’s backing vocal helps underscore that they’re really going for it here.
Four years later, they’d be done. Thirteen years later, they’d bring it back.
36. “Wannadies Christmas”
from the Merry Christmas From Allo Darlin’ EP
The finest song on Allo Darlin’s Christmas EP is unceremoniously tucked behind a cover of the always-wretched “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” so I’m not sure if they or many realize this is an early career highlight. As with many of the best Allo Darlin’ tracks, Morris longs for a lover who’s continents apart. When she’s back in Australia from the UK, she reverts to calling aubergine “eggplant” and pepper “capsicum.” She’s singing Wannadies’ “You And Me.” Call-and-response “oh no”s fall like gentle rain as she contemplates the time left until December.
35. “Romance And Adventure”
from the Romance And Adventure single
later on We Come From The Same Place
Born from a challenge by Rains for Morris to write a pop song in a minor key, “Romance And Adventure” is We Come From The Same Place‘s first single, perhaps because it was originally meant for a film soundtrack (I can’t find any mention of which). I’m really not sure about the choice to make this the lead single, but I do quite like that “Romance And Adventure” feels unique in their catalogue. I’m not sure how well “I saw you in the prism/Reeling against realism” would fit on any other Allo Darlin’ song. Like other songs on We Come From The Same Place, the song processes losing a lover, but this refrain ends unresolved and frustrated: “I’m just tired of being strong.”
34. “Cologne”
from the Cologne single
later on Bright Nights
“Cologne” is about yearning for homes past. Making coffee before the sun’s even risen on a Norwegian winter day, Morris yearns for a German spring where cathedral bells ring and revelers puke into bins. She even covets the brutal summer in Queensland. Morris breaks up the steady emotions for a second: “And yes, I know, it’s been a shitty year!”
“Cologne” is the most musically apt Allo Darlin’ song out there. Its guitar sound is as clean and clear as anything on Europe, but the tempo is slow and sure. It’s the sound of a band no longer on its ride, more concerned now with the long run.
33. “Emily”
from the Photo EP
by The Darlings
“Emily” is oodles of fun without being overly kitschy, recounting the relationship like a surefooted “Deja Vu” and taunting the titular villain like a playful “Amy.” “Emily” also introduces that essential Allo Darlinian theme of distance: “Is it because I’m far away, or is it because you can?” It’s astonishing that one of the first two songs Morris put out was this great.
32. “Tricky Questions”
from the Tricky Questions single
later on Bright Nights
“It felt so good to be alive” is a great repeated Morrisism, “I only thought of Leonard Cohen” a welcome return to her referential nature. Herein Morris rediscovers her passion amidst a smattering of beautiful images: a lover’s moon, moonlight shining upon smiling sculptures, apricot nectar running down a chin (this is somehow the second Allo Darlin’ song to use the word “apricot”). The first new Allo Darlin’ song in nine years, “Tricky Questions” is breezy and zippy the way Morris’ songs only ever were with the band, and it was encouragingly about rejuvenation.
31. “Wonderland”
from Europe
One of Europe‘s more beautiful songs thanks in no small part to one of Rains’ best outings, “Wonderland”‘s narrator is endlessly smitten after just one night, but the hints of hesitation and doubt keep things interesting. “But you were on your way to being left behind,” she sings before sadly repeating “left behind” twice more. It sounds like he doesn’t get left behind, but it’s only especially meaningful because of just how easily it could have fizzled out or never even happened in the first place.
30. “Northern Lights”
from Europe
later on the Northern Lights single
It’s rare, but occasionally Morris won’t complicate her narrator’s joy. “Northern Lights” is musical and lyrical exuberance, guitars rushing and swirling, jumping feet first through the snow. This is the year we’ll make it right!
29. “Henry Rollins Don’t Dance”
from the Henry Rollins Don’t Dance Indietracks EP (acoustic)
later on the Henry Rollins Don’t Dance EP
Dirty Dancing. Black Flag. Fugazi. Bad Religion. Misfits. ABBA. Grease. For whatever reason, Morris threw everything at the wall with “Henry Rollins Don’t Dance.” She’ll often slyly work in references to popular culture, and she’ll sometimes even do it obviously and indulgently. But “Henry Rollins Don’t Dance” is a smorgasbord, also employing Allo Darlin’s bounciest and horns-iest instrumental. Morris is all in on her punk rocker boyfriend but wishes that he’d dance for once, go where only eagles dare. The issue is resolved by, who else, ABBA. We envision the grumpy Henry raising his tiny fist to “Dancing Queen.” The song climaxes with a complete interpolation of “You’re The One That I Want,” even though Henry doesn’t even like the Grease megamix. One wonders if Morris tried to shoehorn in an ABBA song at the end instead.
“Henry Rollins Don’t Dance” was the first Allo Darlin’ single, and while it doesn’t have much to do with where they’d go (well, other than “Kiss Your Lips”), it remains one of their very most delightful moments. Romantic strife in Allo Darlin’s music would always be incredibly real, so it’s very charming to hear something so low stakes and cartoony.
It’s a tragedy that this didn’t get a music video. That would’ve went crazy.
28. “Girlfriend”
from the If Loneliness Was Art single
In the realm of songs where the narrator demands that she should be the subject’s girlfriend and he should ditch this other girl, this obviously falls short of “Call Your Girlfriend” or, uh, “Girlfriend.” It’s less confident, more pining. But the instrumental tells a different story. The drums build and start to triumphantly boom while Paul Rains’ guitar sets aside the jangle and uses more distortion than the band had employed to that point. Morris’ lyrics and vocal seem hopeful but unsure. But the song sure sounds confident, especially considering that Morris had this one bouncing around since the Myspace days.
27. “Angela”
from We Come From The Same Place
A song about just being there for a heartbroken friend, “Angela” builds around a groove more than Allo Darlin’ usually dare, with Botting’s bass carrying everything while Rains punctuates the chorus with a heartrending guitar part. Allo Darlin’s music is so preoccupied with the romantic, the potentially romantic, the formerly romantic that it’s nice to see a song that’s explicitly about platonic friendship, just being there for someone else. But at the same time, “Angela” takes on another dimension if you think that final couplet of the refrain is also directed inward. Does the narrator also lament she’s not him? Is she also facing the hardest thing we have to learn?
26. “Santa Maria Novella”
from We Come From The Same Place
Innset having just begun his PhD studies in Florence, Morris tries to calm his troubled mind with a walk around the town even if she feels like a tourist in her new home. She tries to cheer him up. They arrive at the great basilica, which has looked essentially the same for over 500 years. She likes the way it looks.
“Santa Maria Novella” deals with momentarily heavy emotions, but it reassuringly makes them feel low stakes while honoring their severity. The song is beautiful, calming, steady. And then it winds up into a classic Morrisism: “And I think you’re brave.”
25. “Bright Eyes”
from the Bright Eyes single
later on We Come From The Same Place
“Bright Eyes” is the most fun Allo Darlin’ song since “Kiss Your Lips.” Paul Rains takes a turn on lead vocals, and his duet with Morris creates a push-and-pull, are-they-or-aren’t-they dynamic among their characters. Rains seems a little tortured by the uncertainty – uncertainty that remains despite Morris going “to great lengths to tell me this is not a romance” – but Morris, with more control over the situationship, insists that he remain in the moment. The irresistible call and response chorus, among the catchiest things Morris has written, finds them landing on the same page, though the power is still with her: “Do you believe in fun?” “I surely do!” “Do you believe in love?” “I do if you ask me to!”
Morris insists this song has nothing to do with Conor Oberst’s band, and any musical connection might be more in the direction of Art Garfunkel’s “Bright Eyes.”
24. “You Still Send Me”
from the Dreaming single
One of Morris’ simplest songs, “You Still Send Me” simultaneously feels like one of her most anonymous and most immortal. A shattered song about the difficulty of getting over it, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d told me this was a cover of an old country standard. That’s probably helped by Rains’ slide guitar. Just like she does best, Morris wrings absolutely everything from a single, powerful phrase.
23. “My Love Will Bring You Home”
from the My Love Will Bring You Home single
later on Bright Nights
“My Love Will Bring You Home” is remarkable for its viciously effective execution. Collins and Botting lock the fuck in on the rhythm section, Rains brightens up the corners and delivers a sick but appropriate guitar solo. This all makes that chorus pop so hard, the song’s melodies maximized everywhere. This is her finest song that doesn’t depict love as something thrilling or just beginning, but as something warm, as an arrived-at destination.
22. “Darren”
from the Darren single
Darren Hayman, an English musician whose career has had many phases (check out Hefner’s “The Hymn for the Cigarettes” for his most notable song), was a friend and mentor to both Allo Darlin’ and The Wave Pictures before Allo Darlin’ dedicated this non-album single to him. Here, Morris depicts a young couple falling in love to his music. Maybe they’re willfully taking on the character of his music, but “Darren” is a total blast and about as rock and roll as Allo Darlin’ ever got. It’s the hidden gem in the band’s discography.
For the B-side, Allo Darlin’ covered Hayman’s 2009 song with The French, “The Wu-Tang Clan.” He would later record Morris’ Optimism EP.
21. “Let’s Go Swimming”
from Allo Darlin’
Early Allo Darlin’ had a bit of a problem converting on the slower songs, but “Let’s Go Swimming” was an early sign that they’d solved the riddle. As they’d do later on Europe, the band introduces a quiet, contemplative moment before the album’s emotional climax. It’s a song in awe of water and the natural world, sharing a moment with someone at Lake Vänern in Sweden and then later on a Queensland beach on the Coral Sea. In both cases, the folks back in England don’t know what to do with it. No other Allo Darlin’ shares quite the same feeling of quiet wonder you hear in “Let’s Go Swimming.”
Tier 2: Classic
20. “Athens”
from the Athens EP
later on the Athens single
and Winter Sun
by Elizabeth Morris, then Elva
In June 2015, as Greece was headed for a financial crisis, the Eurogroup proposed a series of austerity conditions for Greece to accept in exchange for a three year financial bailout. Two days later, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the left wing party SYRIZA announced a nationwide referendum as to whether to accept the conditions, surprising the Eurogroup. This was perhaps Tsipras’ way of jostling for a better negotiating position by demonstrating that the people of Greece wouldn’t stand for the proposed measures.
One week later, despite most polls showing a close contest, over 60% voted to reject the conditions. But just three days later, Tsipras again asked the Eurogroup to consider a bailout, and barely a week after the referendum, his government agreed to terms roundly regarded as worse than those that were originally offered and rejected by the referendum. This was the first step in SYRIZA’s descent from a left wing party into a more typical center left party.
The Wikipedia “See also” section on the referendum is unsparing.
“Athens was inspired by the events in Greece in the summer of 2015,” writes Morris on her Bandcamp. Some of the more effective political songs are written so you can’t run from their meaning, but here Morris doesn’t seem to sweat that you can listen to this one without knowing what SYRIZA is. It’s just a gorgeous, almost calming song about the final moments of being young and hopeful before that curdles somewhat. “In Exarchia hope is laced with dread.” Then “In Athens where we laid our heads and dreamed of bigger things/Something changed in me” is one of her most heartbreaking lines.
I prefer the version on Winter Sun, where the electric guitar swims alongside the verses, almost like on “Graceland.”
19. “Dreaming”
from the Dreaming single
later on Allo Darlin’
“Dreaming” expands the central demand from “Henry Rollins Don’t Dance,” but where that song was swimming in reference and irony, “Dreaming” demonstrated that Allo Darlin’ was now a more sincerely romantic enterprise. It’s not just about going out and losing it on a disco floor, it’s about the discomfort of freezing pavement evaporating with that feeling, with that person, finding yourself surprised by how happy you are.
Monster Bobby – probably best known as the founder and guitarist of girl group The Pipettes, co-writing songs like “Pull Shapes” – plays Morris’ opposite, lending his Johnny Cash-esque voice to make the most of the song’s country twang.
18. “Neil Armstrong”
from Europe
Europe brings up the sky and gazing toward it a few times, so it’s fitting that it kicks off by staring upward and pondering existence. If a hero comes in last, who is winning? They could name a star after you and you’d still be complaining. The night sky breeds so much uncertainty, and Morris uses that to ground sincere belief in someone else. And Allo Darlin’ was now disarmingly locked in for Europe, immediately taking on the tall task of musically evoking the mystery of the night sky and showing off in the outro.
17. “If Loneliness Was Art”
from The Polaroid Song single
later on Allo Darlin’
and the If Loneliness Was Art single
and the My Heart Is A Drummer single (acoustic)
“This situation has to change” is one of those simple phrases that Morris turns into everything. Here the situation is that the object of this song is a lonely boy who’s been lonely for a long time, with Morris invoking Just Joans to drive the point home. It needs to change because one fine day, she’s going to be his girl. Later, she clarifies that our passive Lonely Boy is actually going to do it himself: “one fine day, you’re gonna make me your girl.” Shalalalala.
16. “Europe”
from Europe
later on the Europe single
Along with the night sky and the heavens, one of the recurring themes of Europe is distance and reunion, first introduced on its title track. “Europe” quickly becomes distressed with the continent – the song stems from a time when Morris was unsure if she could stay in Europe, as her Visa was expiring – but its chorus is weirdly among the band’s most comforting. The hardship just “feels like we’ve made it.” This is life. This is living. And in an oeuvre not wanting for such lines, “Before this memory’s faded/You will ask again if this is really happening” is one of Morris’ most romantic.
15. “Silver Dollars”
from Allo Darlin’
Though it was just their first full length, Allo Darlin’ had already cut the most gorgeous song they’d ever put out. The friendly twinkle and glimmer of the guitars on “Silver Dollars” is probably the best instrumental flourish in their entire catalogue. “Silver Dollars” is about being broke but talking yourself out of it mattering for the love of music, be it listening to it or playing it. They play a show and only make enough for the cab ride back home. They burn scant spending money on a show where “this band is awful, but I like them an awful lot,” and she gets in an obscure reference to The Wave Pictures and another to The Smittens. Morris can sell her record collection. But she’d still be in debt. So why sweat it at all?
14. “History Lessons”
from We Come From The Same Place
Even moreso than “Tallulah,” “History Lessons” is the most dead-serious Allo Darlin’ has ever sounded. After battling through a fog of doubt and indecision, Morris comes to a clear conclusion, but doesn’t enjoy coming to it: “What came before doesn’t have to have been the best/Present becomes the past, you realize what you’ve missed.” Herein, “studying history” is actually a reckless act of looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, and rebel hearts must be contained from it. “History Lessons” is one of Morris’ very finest lyric sheets, expressing complex and knotty ideas with increasing intensity. “I can feel the weight, it’s strong” becomes “I can feel the weight, it’s so strong.” But in the end, she feels stronger letting go.
13. “The Polaroid Song”
from The Polaroid Song single
later on Allo Darlin’
“The Polaroid Song” isn’t just about memories but the feeling of young love, depicting a relatively young couple in a relatively young relationship trying to capture that feeling. It’s made all the more compelling when they realize their preferred method for doing so is finite. “We both looked so happy” turns into “will we still look happy?” Morris isn’t just contemplating the preservation of her instant photographs or even how her memories might come off differently in a more standard film. There is a looming sense that this feeling can’t last forever.
12. “Half Heart Necklace”
from We Come From The Same Place
later on the Half Heart Necklace single
Okay, the story here has some wrinkles that aren’t covered by the song. In 1998, when Elizabeth Morris was a pre-teen in the area, 14-year-old Rockhampton resident Natasha Ryan went missing, last seen when her mother dropped her off at school. Her body was never found, and the case ran cold. But local serial killer Leonard Fraser was charged with her murder, even confessing to it along with four other murder charges as part of a plea deal. On what would have been her seventeenth birthday, her family held a memorial service.
During Fraser’s 2003 trial, police raided a house on a tip and found Ryan very much alive, hiding in a cupboard. In fact, she had been living with her boyfriend Scott Black – 22 years old at the time of the disappearance… – and hiding in the cupboard whenever company was over. Ryan was able to attend her own murder trial and testify to the invalidity of witness testimony that she was seen speaking to Fraser before her disappearance.
In the end, Ryan was fined rather lightly for causing a false police investigation, and Black was fined more seriously for the same and given time for perjury. In 2008, the two married. They had four children. Last summer, Black reported Ryan missing one night, and she was later found dead on a golf course under non-suspicious circumstances. She was just 40.
“The girl in the cupboard” story spread far beyond Queensland, but it didn’t need to travel far for Morris, who wouldn’t leave Queensland for London until after Ryan had turned up. Built around the titular object as an allusion to Twin Peaks, “Half Heart Necklace” gets more striking when you know the background. “I look at you through the eyes of a child.” “We can go out walking when it gets dark” (Ryan did occasionally leave the house, but only at night). “So I’m telling you I want to share your name.” In “Half Heart Necklace,” we hear Ryan straining to believe her version of events, that her forbidden love is so real that it was worth all the trouble.
“Half Heart Necklace” rises to match her delusional conviction. With Rains’ furious guitar, it’s the band’s rockingest song excepting “Darren,” and it’s their punkest song excepting nothing. Rather than performing Ryan’s story to further hint towards its naïveté, they indulge in its unreality like the lights of Rockhampton really did spell H-E-L-L.
11. “Hymn On The 45”
from the Hymn On The 45 single
“I guess that they were right, I have never been a success in my life” is an absolutely brutal line in the context of a farewell single for your indie rock band. “Most bands have to stop actively recording and playing shows at some point, especially those like us who don’t have this as our day job,” reads their farewell post, which reassures us not to be sad, as the band was largely folding due to children and – there’s that theme again – distance.
But though this song does find its triumph, it’s hard to ignore what it works through to get there. Maybe this could have been their day job had Allo Darlin’ landed a deserved Best New Music or three. But musically, the song’s triumph is absolutely convincing. The organ sounds and choir make “Hymn On The 45” one of Allo Darlin’s most musically ambitious songs without it sounding overproduced. It’s also the longest song across all of Morris’ projects. You don’t notice.
10. “Kings And Queens”
from the 7777777 EP
later on We Come From The Same Place
and the Kings And Queens single
Inspired by a US show with The Wave Pictures, “Kings And Queens” is the best song where Morris just absolutely kills it at straightforward songwriting. The great example of Morris taking a single phrase and making it burst with meaning and emotion is “I wanted to impress you,” with a great assist from Rains’ guitar to give the moment the exact right amount of tenderness. A fairly common Allo Darlin’ song concept is Morris describing a night with such romance, and “Kings And Queens” is the master of these. “What we have, we know that they’ll never have.” “This is what it is to be young.” “You can’t imagine how happy it made me/To look out at the crowd and see you smile at me.” What a great note to finish it on.
9. “The Letter”
from Europe
Following Morris’ most desperate song, the relief and resolution in “The Letter” is so overwhelming that it’s hard not to hear the two songs as a diptych. Morris takes us downhill through Sweden and England before she reveals that, no, they’re not finished with each other. The “And if I told you/I was never cool/And all I wanted was just to have you/And when I see you/I will put my/Arm around you/It will be hard to let you go” climax is just the best, maybe the best example of her making her words real plain to hit with the most power. I was never cool! Man. Then you get the earned extended instrumental outro.
8. “Capricornia”
from the Capricornia single
later on Europe
I have often bristled at “Capricornia,” often begrudgingly respecting it but promoting many other songs on Europe above it. Its production is the slickest you’ll hear in any Allo Darlin’ song, with the guitars a hair too bright and the double-tracked vocals a bridge too far.
But where I previously thought that “Capricornia” fell short of the standards of the biggest single on the biggest album – arguably the Allo Darlin’ song – I’ve come completely around. Rains’ guitar tone now sounds immaculate. I can’t imagine Morris’ vocal any other way. I cling to so many lyrics: “Don’t you want to be someone? You’ve got to let it go,” “I have made promises too that I could never hold,” “and we will set the world to rights,” “and I keep having these dreams, and I.” It’s a gorgeous song about having moved on from home but finding yourself tethered back to it, a topic too appropriate for the Allo Darlin’ song.
Morris’ preferred sound for Europe was “somewhere between ‘A New England’ by Kirsty MacColl and ‘Cattle And Cane’ by The Go-Betweens.” She thinks “Capricornia” is the closest to achieving that vision, and I’d reckon she’s right.
7. “Crickets In The Rain”
from We Come From The Same Place
Eight years after leaving Queensland for London with no plan and changing the course of her life, Elizabeth Morris finally left. After leaving England, she would write five songs total for Allo Darlin’ before the band called it quits. There were many contributing factors, and it wasn’t just that the period in her life was over. But it was.
In “Crickets In The Rain,” Morris does her best to avoid sentimentality, forcing herself to look forward in the same way she’d done on “History Lessons.” But in being grateful for where she’s going, she allows herself to indulge a bit in memories. Among those memories is Crowded House’s “Weather With You,” a minor hit by the Australian-New Zealand band. Appropriately, the song did even better in England.
On “Crickets In The Rain,” Morris was feeling particularly literate. The chorus – one of her very best – ends with a paraphrase of a poem from Nayyirah Waheed’s salt., which was published about a year before this song’s release. At the time, Waheed was turning heads as an Instagram poet, something that sounded significantly less embarrassing at the time as that app was actually rather quaint in a way that’s hard to remember now.
Morris ends the song with a shout-out to Joan Didion, even closing with a paraphrase of the opening to her 1968 essay “Goodbye To All That” from her collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem. As Morris told Songs For Whoever‘s Tommy Juto, “It’s broadly about her leaving New York City after spending much of her twenties there, getting married and moving to California. It’s very beautiful. My situation seemed so similar.” “It’s easy to see where things begin/It is harder to see where they end” is the biggest and most rewarding emotional payoff to any song she’d ever write, and it kills me every time.
6. “Kiss Your Lips”
from Allo Darlin’
“Kiss Your Lips” manages to be the only song I can remember where the kiss is just a tad gross. He has cotton candy on his mouth? Fine. She has popcorn stuck between her teeth? Okay… She felt a bit sick? Oh. But the sweet and salty confection feels heavenly to them, and that’s really all that matters.
“Kiss Your Lips” also finds Morris again at her most indulgent in borrowing from her favorite music. She again goes to Grease, this time taking the chord progression and bah-bahs of “Summer Nights” (the best Grease song, FIGHT ME). She also sings along to the entirety of the chorus of Weezer’s “El Scorcho,” a song that’s Allo Darlinian enough that it’s disturbingly easy to imagine such a cover of it. It’s a mystery why Morris elected not to include the “goddamn, you half-Japanese girls!” part.
Somehow, Weezer and Grease beautifully roll together into a pop music Frankenstein’s monster about unsanitary kissing, and it becomes the band’s most charming song in a discography never wanting for charm, their very finest pop song. Though it should be much more popular than it is, maybe it’s for the best so they don’t have to figure out how to divide up the royalties.
5. “Some People Say”
from Europe
later on the Europe single (acoustic)
“Some People Say” depicts a mind carelessly and helplessly wandering, looking forward to a beautiful day with someone but not looking forward to what’s further ahead. Quietly, this is one of Allo Darlin’s best performances as a band. It’s a tricky tempo to nail, but everyone’s contributions are patient and humble, particularly Rains’ lap steel and Mayfield’s violin. On “Some People Say,” all the spices are just right.
“Some People Say” is Morris’ best piece of writing outright, wielding the stars and planets for a beautiful contemplation of what’s permanent and what’s temporary.
“And all I think of is where you are/And if you’re traveling, then how far/And when you listen to these songs/If you’re ever lonely.” Goodness gracious.
4. “We Come From The Same Place”
from We Come From The Same Place
“We Come From The Same Place” feels like Elizabeth Morris’ most important love song. The titular phrase’s importance, already underscored as the album’s title, feels so sacred with how brave she sounds to summon it – my ears always perk up at “I’m afraid I’ll fade away” – and then how firmly she repeats it. Even getting it out, she still hedges. It seems crazy. And it’s still just an idea she’s got.
And though guitarist Paul Rains would get his sole stint on lead vocals just two songs later, “We Come From The Same Place” is his finest moment in the band, a beautiful demonstration of what his guitar work really brings to the table, especially on the extended outro.
Tier 1: Immaculate
3. “Optimism”
from the Optimism EP
by Elizabeth Morris
While Morris’ songs are frequently racked with trepidation and anxiety, vulnerability is never the central character. In “Optimism,” Morris is discombobulated by hope and happiness, standing on the edge of a cliff knowing that she must do something about it. She wants to call up crying, she feels so happy she could die, she completely malfunctions from just a look in the eye.
As always, music is a guiding light for her. She feels extremes of emotion after a nightmare where Paul Simon dies and after a night out singing Weezer (or maybe just Buddy Holly himself, I’ve always assumed it was Weezer given the “El Scorcho” thing).
But “Optimism” is also laced with sadness. She remembers turning away with a twinge of regret. Maybe she can’t call after her Paul Simon nightmare. Just how distant are these memories of joy and closeness? How accessible are these feelings now? Is the refrain about her averted gaze, or is it about letting someone down?
“Optimism” is just incredible. It’s a song about veering between spilling over entirely and standing with trembling fists. It’s a gentle piano song so fragile you fear it will break in two at any moment, so it only makes sense it doesn’t survive to the three minute mark. Like many of the best Allo Darlin’ songs, it largely takes place at night, and is best experienced staring up into it.
(Friend of the site Brad Luen (on his old Medium site, but here’s his active must-sub Substack), in likely his craziest take, dubbed this song the best of the 2010s. In part, he writes, “one way to deal with a world that puts a question mark next to everything is to be utterly straightforward, and if that means admitting that underneath the social complications, our feelings are usually embarrassingly simple, so be it, I don’t care what they say about us anyway.” Perhaps the crystallization of this thought is what allowed him to tear down his shame enough to compare it favorably to “Right Here,” “River,” and “Temptation.” You don’t have to go that far, but can you really deny that he’s onto something?)
2. “My Heart Is A Drummer”
from Allo Darlin’
later on the My Heart Is A Drummer single
Allo Darlin’s finest piece of music is also their most triumphant, the bass and guitar and drums building expertly on top of Morris’ ukulele. But its meaning is somewhat elusive. It begins by creating an alternate ending to a wonderful David Berman poem, puzzlingly finishing with the titular declaration. Why does her jubilance sound so defiant? What is the nature of strength inside this three minute and seventeen second dimension?
Her counterpart makes her feel like apologizing for being so happy. But if the happiness is her strength, what’s his weakness? Is he too depressed or damaged to express the same? When Morris is irrepressibly giddy to get a call from him, her fingers twisting through the cord and her feet sliding up and down the wall, does she say that she knows that she’s stronger than you are to express understanding of personal limitation? It’s great to be strong, but maybe the implication behind being stronger isn’t necessarily a happy one. But “My Heart Is A Drummer” is a winning effort to get him to join her. It sure makes me want to slide my feet up and down the wall.
By the way, Morris’ endorsement of Graceland is easily the most meaningful endorsement of that album I’ve ever heard. It’s not allowed to be, but we know.
1. “Tallulah”
from The First Hangover Lounge Extended Play Record
later on Europe
This just knocks me flat every time.
Elizabeth Morris, alone with her ukulele, absolutely radiates longing and sadness, speaking out loud about the possibility for reunion but her mood betraying that she might think of such possibility like a dog dying in front of her.
Morris remembers an hour-ish long drive in the late summer from St Lucia, where she attended the University of Queensland, to Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. Windows were down for air con’, the door so hot her partner burned his arm. In a subsequent summer, she receives a letter from him wondering what could have been. Tragically, she hedges, giving us one of the most delightfully emotionally complicated lines I’ve ever heard: “So I sent you a postcard from Berlin/Of a fat man eating a sausage/It hid the fact I was hiding.”
The feelings are heavy and almost suffocating, and it’s a relief when good fortune seeps in. They find a bar with the Maytals on. While he’s searching for something to sing to – not listen to, sing to! – he finds the tape with Tallulah on, and that’s gotta be my favorite Go-Betweens album. It’s almost counterintuitive imagining a memory set to this worried song in which someone flips on “Right Here” and starts rocking out.
She thinks of the places they used to stay: St Kilda near Melbourne, Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, Bondi Beach and Coogee Bay near Sydney. She ends repeating almost mournfully: “And I wonder if you/Would want to go there with me/When I’m finished over here/If you’re not finished with me.”
“Tallulah” is about being emotionally tethered to the past despite having actually moved on. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen all my old friends/But I really love my new friends/I feel I’ve known them a long while.” Even when you move forward, you can be haunted so thoroughly and suddenly that your failures and dead ends in the past overshadow what you’ve been working on since.
And so the most gripping moment on a song packed with contenders is that bridge, crushed with anxiety not just about a potential reunion but that it may be all she ever has: “I’m wondering if I’ve already heard all the songs that’ll mean something” becoming “I’m wondering if I’ve already met all the people that’ll mean something.”
She had not. You haven’t, either.
⁂
Here is the Spotify playlist counting down this list. Unfortunately, a lot of songs are missing from Spotify, so mind that this playlist is missing:
69. “Dear Stephen Hawking”
58. “Anything You Want”
56. “Dear John”
52. “The Best I Can”
48. “Only Dust Behind”
45. “Shoe Box”
44. “The Season”
43. “Young Republic”
40. “Australia”
39. “Wanderlust”
36. “Wannadies Christmas”
33. “Emily”
29. “Henry Rollins Don’t Dance”
22. “Darren”
11. “Hymn On The 45”
3. “Optimism”
Yeah, almost a quarter of the songs featured here aren’t on this playlist. I’m really sorry, there’s nothing I can really do about that. A YouTube playlist might do better, but not so much better than I’m going to do that. I guess you’ll just have to scroll through this article again.
Further Listening
On the off chance that you come through this article jonesing for more, I have you covered, both with related materials and some recommendations.
There’s Morris’ work with Tender Trap. Check out their 2010 album Dansette Dansette, particularly “Do You Want A Boyfriend?” She also sings on Darren Hayman’s “I Know I Fucked Up” and “Elizabeth The First,” Simon Love’s “North Road,” and The Little Hands of Asphalt’s “No Reception.”
The other members of Allo Darlin’ have their other projects. Botting now does solo work as Bill Botting & The Two Drink Minimums and was half of Moustache of Insanity. I can’t find his old stuff from his pre-Allo band Polyvinyl. Collins has his own solo album and does a lot of production. Rains seems a bit mercenary, playing on records here and there. He’s played on Botting’s and Collins’ solo work, and he joined Tigercats after Allo Darlin’ had been playing with them for years. Rains and Collins come from Hexicon. Innset met Allo Darlin’ while in Making Marks, and he’s currently in Sunturns.
Allo Darlin’ had friends and contemporaries. They played with Tigercats, who Rains later joined. They played with The Wave Pictures a bunch and are big fans and great friends. They’re friends with Darren Hayman, who has made a lot of music. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart were labelmates who caught a bit more buzz. Standard Fare share some sensibilities, and the bands would cross paths a few times. Morris references The Smittens, and they’re up the alley of any Allo Darlin’ fan. Allo Darlin’ also referenced and even covered Scottish band The Just Joans. Tender Trap’s Amelia Fletcher came from Talulah Gosh and then Heavenly, both influential indie pop bands. I also hear The Lucksmiths in Allo Darlin’.
The closest you’ll get to Allo Darlin’ is probably Camera Obscura, a band that peaks as high (gosh, I need an excuse to write about those two songs) as Allo Darlin’ but has a lower batting average. And I mean, there’s Belle & Sebastian, but you probably don’t need my help to get there. And it’s always a good idea to listen to more of The Go-Betweens. They might be the band that Morris is most reverent of.
I’ve also prepared this playlist of songs Morris references in her songs. Check that out here.
There is some great writing out there about Morris’ music. Just a couple of my favorites: Gareth Ware’s tribute to Allo Darlin’ upon their breakup at London In Stereo is awesome stuff, and of course there’s Robert Forster’s praise for their debut in The Monthly. I’ve put in the hours hoping that there will be even more.
Joey Daniewicz 