The Motion Sick: Love Conquers All – Jesus and the Argonauts

Sometime in early 2001, I wrote a song called “Love Conquers All.”  At the time, I was performing, mostly solo, under the moniker Boys Suck.  Among the very cool and flattering things that happened back in those days was the coordination of a Boys Suck tribute album by Dead Puppy Records’ Terry Rice – http://www.deadpuppyrecords.com/sucktribs.html – now out of print.  Interestingly, on this compilation, I elected to perform a version of Blitzkriegbliss‘ unreleased song “Jean-Paul Approximately,” which has now been recorded (and very often performed) by The Motion Sick as “Jean-Paul.” Among the best of the tracks on the tribute album is the band Jesus and the Argonauts’ rousing gang-vocal rendition of “Love Conquers All” (MP3). JatA captured the spirit of the song and made it work in a great way that extended beyond my capabilities as a solo performer.  

We now fast-forward 6 or 7 years to the present.  Temporary West-Coaster Debcha of the famous and fabulous Zed=Zee blog is in town and suggests attending the Jesus and the Argonauts show at Sally O’Brien’s.  Sounds good to me!  So, we head on down to check out the band.  I hadn’t seen these guys in many years.  Heck, I wasn’t even sure if they’d remember who I was.  Well, not only did they remember, but at the end of the night, I learned that they had been sometimes performing “Love Conquers All” ever since they recorded the cover of it.  So, they invite a bunch of us on stage to join in.  I didn’t really remember the words to the song, so I was a little scared to be involved, but it was a fun and awesome time and it was really nice to see that the song still is still alive.  They totally handled it exactly as intended: as a sort of drunken, goofy, tongue-in-cheek hypergloomy number.  

Lyrics (for the morbidly curious):
Love conquers all except for misfortune, circumstance, death, and disease
but if love conquers all then all that’s been conquered isn’t worth shit to me
well if love conquers all then all that’s been conquered isn’t worth shit to me
 
So I’m crying down in the alley thinking about what you’ve said
and I’ve already given up drinking so now you’re the only thing messing with my head
all the promises that are broken all those words were so untrue
so I’m laying here in the alley til I figure what else to do
 
Love conquers all except for misfortune, circumstance, death, and disease
but if love conquers all then all that’s been conquered isn’t worth shit to me
well if love conquers all then all that’s been conquered isn’t worth shit to me

well, dying down here in the gutter beats facing up to you
after you said you won’t kiss me well, what the hell am I to do?
so I’ll just wait in the alley for someone to come turn me in
call the angel of death to take my last breath cause killin’ yourself is a sin

Love conquers all except for misfortune, circumstance, death, and disease
but if love conquers all then all that’s been conquered isn’t worth shit to me
well if love conquers all then all that’s been conquered isn’t worth shit to me

While I am posting their stuff, they also did a totally killer version of The Magnetic Fields’ “Grand Canyon” at the show.