Your Careless Way of Love

The Shoes : Too Late

[Purchase]

On November 4, 1979 The Shoes, a power-pop band from Zion Illinois, entered the US charts at #86 with "Too Late", the first single from their album Present Tense. The single would peak at US#75, and get airplay in the early days of MTV

Made up of brothers John and Jeff Murphy and their friend Gary Klebe and an assortment of drummers, Shoes specialized in love songs coated in misery. "Don't say goodbye," begins the more polished version of the Black Vinyl Shoes standout "Tomorrow Night","'cause you're the one that I need". In "Too Late", they sing "Every time I see you/ I wish I could believe you/ Do you ever mean a thing you say?” 

If Shoes were ever going to hit in big, it was in the jet steam of The Knack. Present Tense, recorded in England with producer Mike Stone ( who engineered all the great Queen albums),  peaked at US#50 in sales but snuck into the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop Critics poll at #36 thanks to support from Tom Smucker, Robert Christgau gave the album an A- writing:

A formalist's delight--the three principals pursue their theme of Sad Love as obsessively as a cavalier writing sonnets to his lady. Their voices are interchangeably breathy, their tempos unflappably moderate, their guitar hooks unfailingly right. And when for a change of pace one of them sounds bitter the effect is as startling as a Johnny Ramone guitar solo.