Jack Lee - Middle of the Night

Jack Lee has every reason to be proud of his songs. He wrote Hanging on the Telephone for his band The Nerves and watched Blondie ride it up the charts to number five in the UK (his song Will Anything Happen? also appeared on Blondie's 1978 new wave classic "Parallel Lines"). He also wrote at least one song for Suzi Quatro (You Are My Lover).

In 1983 his rocker Come Back and Stay, which first appeared on debut solo album "Jack Lee's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1" (1981, Maiden America), reached number four in the UK charts. But once again the song was someone else's version; Paul Young had gussied it up into a soulful pop ballad. Lee's album also included a rerecorded version of Hanging on the Telephone.

A label called Lolita released Lee's second, self-titled, album in 1985 - but I think it was only available in France. It includes raucous punk opener Sex, a new-wavey guitar number called Why Am I Lonely? that sounds like the Knack or Joe Jackson, nostalgia-driven power-pop ballad From Time to Time, and ten other solid tracks.

After that the world had to wait for the invention of YouTube and MySpace before it could hear new Lee compositions. On the former there's a good little biography and series of cool videos, including a discussion of how he came up with Hanging on the Telephone.  I can't seem to find Lee's artist page on MySpace now, but new music was available there for a while, and that's where I discovered Middle of the Night around 2007.

Lee has kept his acute pop sensibilities - and I don't know what he was doing during his long commercial absence but his bouncy melancholia has matured into a deep, world-wise voice. If he had every right to be proud before, now he should feel the satisfaction of taking his songwriting to a higher level. Middle of the Night is the story of a journey across America and accompanying discoveries in the dark. Townes Van Zandt couldn't have written a more evocative or engaging meditation.

I think this recording was intended as a demo, and the bitrate is a low 128 kbps. But before I found this mp3 I was listening to a very poor quality version I grabbed from Lee's MySpace page -- with great pleasure. My Last.fm page informs me that over the last two and a half years I've listened to this track more than any other.

I hope it gives you as much enjoyment as it has me.

I also enthusiastically recommend The Nerves' recent compilation "One Way Ticket," which as far as I know is the only in-print recording of any of Lee's studio recordings; and it has cool liner notes. You can download all 20 songs for $7.99 right now at Amazon.com.

Download Middle of the Night for free here, with bonus tracks Come Back and Stay and Sex.

UPDATE: I found Jack Lee's MySpace page here.