Mike Turner was looking for something to read. It was 1999 and his band, Our Lady Peace, were on an American tour in support of their third album, Happiness…Is Not A Fish You Can Catch. Riding long hours on a bus in between gigs can be tedious. So one day the guitarist stepped into a bookstore and found something that caught his eye.
The Age Of Spiritual Machines was written by Ray Kurzweil, an eccentric inventor, among other things, who firmly believes that death can be overcome once humanity fully merges with technology. Not an original idea by any means but few have taken the time to conceptualize such a radical line of thought outside the fantasy world of science fiction. Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at age 35, there’s no question such a depressing diagnosis would profoundly motivate an already highly driven philosopher and computer scientist with considerable wealth to prolong his life by any means necessary.
As he read, Turner became mesmerized by Kurzweil’s often far-out ideas (“I picked it up, read it and went mental,” he told Chart Attack in 2000) and as soon as he finished the book, the lead guitarist passed it on to the band’s singer Raine Maida. He had the same reaction.
Despite the fact they had just made their third album, even before Turner bought The Age Of Spiritual Machines, the songwriting process for the next collection of songs had already begun.
“It ended up being a concept record,” bassist Duncan Coutts told the Pop Matters website in 2010, “but it certainly didn’t start that way.”
Just over a year after the release of Happiness…Is Not A Fish You Can Catch, Our Lady Peace unveiled Spiritual Machines. Hoping to get Kurzweil’s blessing for the project during its difficult production (the drummer got mugged while walking his dog and some of his parts had to be played by Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron), not only was the author thrilled about the album, he also volunteered his services to help participate in the recording. He even gave the band one of his specially designed keyboards, the Kurzweil 350, which was implemented constantly.
Officially, Kurzweil appears on six tracks spread out throughout the record. With the exception of his voice buried so deep during an instrumental break on the single In Repair it’s basically indecipherable, the author is more clearly heard reading mostly word-for-word quotations from his book in brief snippets all set to moody electronic music and tucked away between proper songs.
But 12 minutes and 7 seconds after the final song, The Wonderful Future, concludes on track fifteen, there’s a seventh appearance, one of the weirdest mystery tracks of all time.
On page 37 of The Age Of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil engages in a conversation with an unknown person about the future. Ten pages later, there’s another dialogue. These exchanges continue on at various points throughout the book, usually at the end of a subsequent chapter. Starting with Chapter 10, we jump ten years into the future, and then another ten years in 11 until the final engagement seven decades later in 12. We begin in 1999 and ultimately conclude a full century later.
It isn’t until the very beginning of Chapter 7 that we even learn this mysterious person’s name.
“I’M MOLLY.”
Molly is not real. She’s a fictional character Kurzweil created in order to fantasize about communicating with an immortal cybernetic being in his idealized future. He gives her a back story. She’s married with children but there’s complications. (Her husband, an inventor, uses virtual reality to cheat on her and see other women naked without their knowledge.) She’s an overachieving intellectual/artist who lets the author know how many of his theories and predictions, organized by decade, prove correct which feels more than a little self-serving. (And contrary to his later assertion that 86% of his guesses came true, he got a lot of shit wrong. His math is clearly off.)
Unlike most of the spoken word segments on Our Lady Peace’s Spiritual Machines which are all under a minute each, this unlisted piece buried at the end of track 15 goes on for roughly three and a half minutes.
What ensues, following the introduction of some simple, ongoing, echoey piano playing and what sounds like electronic reproductions of whales moaning, is a peculiar, somewhat awkward and cheesy imaginary conversation between Kurzweil and Molly. In fact, the track is appropriately entitled R.K. and Molly.
Before each line of dialogue, Kurzweil calls out the name of the communicator about to speak which is heard at a lower decibel. He plays himself, of course. And he plays Molly but with his voice artificially raised to a helium-like pitch. Put simply, it doesn’t sound right. She doesn’t sound hot.
Divided up into three separate speaking segments, with that mood music playing on uninterrupted during the slight silences, the first segment involves snippets taken from pages 235 and 241 of Chapter 12 entitled 2099. Instead of starting right from the beginning of what is the longest conversation from the book, he picks it up for the hidden track nine lines into it, jumping right back into his odd flirtation with a made-up android:
“Ray: Anyway, you do look amazing.
Molly: YOU SAY THAT EVERY TIME WE MEET.
Ray: I mean you look twenty again, only more beautiful than at the start of the book.
Molly: I KNEW THAT’S HOW YOU’D WANT ME.” (p. 235)
“Ray: Okay, you were an attractive woman when I first met you. And you still project yourself as a beautiful young woman. At least when I’m with you.
Molly: THANKS.
Ray: …are you saying that you’re a machine now?
Molly: A MACHINE? THAT’S REALLY NOT FOR ME TO SAY. IT’S LIKE ASKING ME IF I’M BRILLIANT OR INSPIRING.
Ray: I guess the word machine in 2099 doesn’t have quite the same connotations that it has here in 1999.
Molly: THAT’S HARD FOR ME TO RECALL NOW.” (p.241)
After a five-second break, with the piano and fake whale noises still going strong, the conversation continues as Molly talks about her kids and a project she’s working on. At the tail end of page 238 in the book, Kurzweil asks her “what else” is she up to as they catch up after a long break from communicating. She responds, “JUST FINISHING UP THIS SYMPHONY.”
He asks, “Is this a new interest?” Her response begins the second portion of R.K. and Molly on the Spiritual Machines CD and can be found at the start of page 239:
“Molly: I’M REALLY JUST DABBLING, BUT CREATING MUSIC IS A GREAT WAY FOR ME TO STAY CLOSE WITH JEREMY AND EMILY.
Ray: Creating music sounds like a good thing to do with your kids, even if they are almost ninety years old. So, can I hear it?
Molly: WELL, I’M AFRAID YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND IT.
Ray: So it requires enhancement to understand?
Molly: YES, MOST ART DOES. FOR STARTERS, THIS SYMPHONY IS IN FREQUENCIES THAT A MOSH CAN’T HEAR, AND HAS MUCH TOO FAST A TEMPO. AND IT USES MUSICAL STRUCTURES THAT A MOSH COULD NEVER FOLLOW.
Ray: Can’t you create art for nonaugmented humans? I mean there’s still a lot of depth possible. Consider Beethoven–he wrote almost two centuries ago, and we still find his music exhilarating.
Molly: YES, THERE’S A GENRE OF MUSIC–ALL THE ARTS ACTUALLY–WHERE WE CREATE MUSIC AND ART THAT A MOSH IS CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.
Ray: And then you play MOSH music for MOSHs?
Molly: NOW THERE’S AN INTERESTING IDEA. I SUPPOSE WE COULD TRY THAT, ALTHOUGH MOSHs ARE NOT THAT EASY TO FIND ANYMORE. IT’S REALLY NOT NECESSARY, THOUGH. WE CAN CERTAINLY UNDERSTAND WHAT A MOSH IS CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING. THE POINT, THOUGH, IS TO USE THE MOSH LIMITATIONS AS AN ADDED CONSTRAINT.
Ray: Sort of like composing new music for old instruments.
Molly: YEAH, NEW MUSIC FOR OLD MINDS.” (p. 239)
What in the hell is a MOSH? It’s an acronym Kurzweil made up to differentiate generic human beings from their technologically enhanced successors. As explained to him by the imaginary Molly on page 237, it stands for Mostly Original Substrate Humans. On page 306 of The Age Of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil himself defines it thusly:
“In the last half of the twenty-first century, a human being still using native carbon-based neurons and unenhanced by neural implants is referred to as a MOSH. In 2099, Molly refers to the author as being a MOSH.”
A few seconds later, we come to the last segment. You’ll find the portion with Molly on page 252 which ends Chapter 12. The last section where Kurzweil loses contact with her is actually the opening lines of Epilogue: The Rest Of The Universe Revisited found on page 253:
“Ray: Maybe we should kiss goodbye?
Molly: JUST A KISS?
Ray: We’ll leave it at that for this book. I’ll reconsider the ending for the movie…
Molly: HERE’S MY KISS….NOW REMEMBER, I’M READY TO DO ANYTHING OR BE ANYTHING YOU WANT OR NEED.
Ray: I’ll keep that in mind.
Molly: …THAT’S WHERE YOU’LL FIND ME.
Ray: Too bad I have to wait a century to meet you.
Molly: OR TO BE ME.
Ray: Yes, that too.” (p.252)
“Ray: Actually, Molly, there are a few other questions that have occurred to me. What were those limitations that you referred to? What did you say you were anxious about? What are you afraid of? Do you feel pain? What about babies and children? Molly?…” (p.253)
The unorthodox backing track eventually grinds to a halt and slowly fades out as the CD shuts off.
The full final conversation between Kurzweil and his imaginary cybernetic plaything in Chapter 12 of The Age Of Spiritual Machines goes on for 18 pages, 19 if you count the start of the Epilogue. In some of the portions excised for the mystery track, Molly throws out random quotes from famous figures, there’s a brief discussion about government intrusions into privacy, human rights applying to humanoids, quantum computing, virtual food in place of the real thing, imagining your own body and bringing it to life, and of course, Kurzweil constantly hitting on a married robot. (In real life, he too is married with 2 kids.)
R.K. and Molly is also heard, but not in its complete form, on the credited enhanced portion of Spiritual Machines, a rare acknowledgement of a CD Extra on a Sony Records release. (In most cases, this is normally not indicated on the outside packaging.)
When you put the CD in the CD-ROM drive of your computer, the track starts playing as you watch a crude animation set in a hospital. At any time while R.K. and Molly plays, you can click that snail in the upper right hand corner which takes you to another screen. (If you let the animation play out, you’re taken there automatically.) It’s here you’re encouraged to create a login name in order to visit an Our Lady Peace “secret site”. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist anymore (it was discontinued by 2003) but cached portions have survived.)
Six years later, Our Lady Peace released their first compilation of hits entitled A Decade. The two popular singles from Spiritual Machines appear midway through the CD.
Before In Repair begins at the 15-second mark of track 10, against another sparse electronic mood arrangement, Kurzweil makes the following prediction:
“The year is 2029. The machines will convince us that they are conscious, that they have their own agenda where they have our respect. They’ll embody human qualities. They’ll claim to be human. And we’ll believe them.”
This quick clip, entitled R.K. 2029, is also from Spiritual Machines and unlike its secret placement on A Decade, it’s properly credited and given its own track number separate from In Repair on the earlier album. As before, it’s sequenced right before the song begins.
None of these specific lines appear in The Age Of Spiritual Machines, but similar sentiments are expressed in much longer form on page 153 in the following paragraph. The heart of the book’s premise, which feels heavily influenced by Blade Runner, is found in these words:
“Just being–experiencing, being conscious–is spiritual, and reflects the essence of spirituality. Machines, derived from human thinking and surpassing humans in their capacity for experience, will claim to be conscious, and thus to be spiritual. They will believe that they are conscious. They will believe that they have spiritual experiences. They will be convinced that these experiences are meaningful. And given the historical inclination of the human race to anthropomorphize the phenomena we encounter, and the persuasiveness of the machines, we’re likely to believe them when they tell us this.”
Just like the rebellious replicants who easily pass for human unless you test them for emotion.
A more succinct assertion awaits on page 280 of the Timeline section. At the very end of the summarized 2029 predictions, Kurzweil writes:
“Machines claim to be conscious. These claims are largely accepted.”
Right at the start of track 11, we don’t hear Life right away. Instead, with Turner gently noodling in the background, Kurzweil returns. Using another fictional character to illustrate the conviction of his basic theory that cybernetic humans are simply superior versions to their mortal predecessors, he presents the following scenario in 19 seconds:
“Have we lost Jack somewhere along the line? Jack’s friends think not. Jack claims to be the same old guy, just newer. His vision, memory and reasoning ability have all been improved. But it’s still Jack.”
In Chapter 3, Of Minds And Machines, Kurzweil introduces a hypothetical situation involving the made-up example of the aforementioned Jack beginning on page 52. Near the start of paragraph three, he writes:
“Our friend Jack (circa some time in the twenty-first century) has been complaining of difficulty with his hearing. A diagnostic test indicates he needs more than a conventional hearing aid, so he gets a choclear implant…This routine surgical procedure is successful, and Jack is pleased with his improved hearing.
Is he still the same Jack?
Well, sure he is. People have cochlear implants circa 1999. We still regard them as the same person.”
After opting for “newly introduced image-processing implants”, having already acquired “permanently implanted retinal-imaging displays in his corneas to view virtual reality”, near the bottom of page 52, Kurzweil writes:
“Jack notices that his memory is not what it was, as he struggles to recall names, the names of earlier events, and so on. So he’s back for memory implants. These are amazing–memories that have grown fuzzy with time are now as clear as if they had just happened.” Even the bad ones.
“Still the same Jack?” Kurzweil asks at the top of page 53. He eventually answers, “yes, it’s still the same guy.”
And then, in paragraph four on that same page, you’ll read a slightly different version of what Kurzweil recites uncredited on A Decade. The first two lines of the mystery track are exactly the same. But starting with the third line, there are slight changes. (I’ve highlighted them in bold.)
“Jack also claims that he’s the same old guy, just newer. His hearing, vision, memory and reasoning ability have all improved, but it’s still the same Jack.”
In the book, following this passage, Kurzweil goes on and on about Jack, his enhancement possibilities and the constant questioning about whether “new Jack” can still creditably be seen as the “old Jack” despite seeing dramatic physical improvements that aren’t human, for another two pages in that chapter.
On page 126 of Chapter 6, Building New Brains…, he brings up Jack again, summarizing the ethical dilemma of whether a person who downloads themselves, or rather, gets “scanned” into a new and improved cybernetic body can still be the same human being they once were:
“Subjectively, the question is more subtle and profound. Is this the same consciousness as the person we just scanned?”
Kurzweil gives a conflicting answer:
“If he–Jack–is still around, he will convincingly claim to represent the continuity of his consciousness. He may not be satisfied to let his mental clone carry on in his stead.”
R.K. Jack is an uncredited, exclusive outtake since it did not appear on Spiritual Machines.
More than two decades after being wowed by Kurzweil’s thought provoking, yet now somewhat discredited and often overly rosy “futurism”, Our Lady Peace revisited the subject for an unexpected sequel.
In 2022, the band released Spiritual Machines 2 and launched an unusual tour to promote it. Once again, Kurzweil provided voiceover narrations, this time bragging about his supposedly accurate predictions from the previous century (something he also does in The Age Of Spiritual Machines when referring to the first book he wrote, The Age Of Intelligent Machines). He even offers new ones. Everything is properly listed and in the right order.
Mike Turner, the founding guitarist responsible for initiating the original project and who left the band after their 2002 American breakthrough Gravity, was brought back just to help spearhead the follow-up.
Molly, the fake humanoid Kurzweil lusted after in print and on record almost a quarter century ago, doesn’t appear on Spiritual Machines 2 but was brought back to life for The Wonderful Future Theatrical Experience, Our Lady Peace’s tour in support of the album, which also featured her creator in holographic form.
Five years after her first appearance in The Age Of Spiritual Machines, Molly was also revived in Kurzweil’s 2004 book, The Singularity Is Near. 15 years after their last fake conversation, not only does he talk to her from the year 2104, bizarrely he also converses with her 2004 version at the same time. In fact, the two Mollies talk to each other.
Although, there is an extensive conversation about the supposed future of virtual sex (which hasn’t really exploded yet, ahem), I’m happy to report Kurzweil no longer has a raging boner for Molly. It’s true what they say. We really do slow down when we’re older.
Molly, on the other hand…
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, September 1, 2023
2:56 a.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 
The History Of The Mystery Track – You Oughta Know What Happened To 1000 Mona Lisas
When a song captures the zeitgeist of its era, when it excites just as much as it inflames, chances are it will survive beyond its moment. Its power, its vulnerability, its authenticity, despite the contrary view of its detractors, will resonate for the years and even decades to come.
One such track from the summer of 1995 stood out more than any other. Despite not qualifying for Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles Chart (there were no commercially available physical copies to buy domestically), its presence on radio and TV was ubiquitous. You could not escape it, no matter how hard you tried. It was simply everywhere.
Meant to exorcise some emotional trauma from a relationship gone very sour indeed, it caused such a sensation it even divided feminists, some of whom questioned the wisdom of releasing a song they argued reinforced the worst stereotypes of the unhinged, scorned woman.
Inevitably, when a track like this explodes into the mainstream, there are covers. In 1996, noted Toronto scenester Jaymz Bee and his band released a loungy cocktail version. That same year, Weird Al Yankovic included a snippet in his polka medley of recent alternative rock hits. 25 years after the original’s phenomenal debut, Beyonce slipped in an excerpt during her performance of If I Were A Boy at the 2010 Grammy Awards. Of the three, only Mr. Bee had the courage to not censor “fuck”.
Back in the summer of 1995, long before anyone else decided to take a shot, an up and coming punk band from Hollywood was game. What started as a lark led to an unexpected hit of their own, their only one to date. In the ultimate irony, their biggest success, covering someone else’s breakthrough song, became their own and unfortunately, unintentionally led to their undoing.
1000 Mona Lisas had stuck it out in the LA club scene for a few years in the early 90s (Weezer opened for them in 1993) when they finally caught a break. RCA Records was interested in signing them.
Rather than put out a full album right away, the band decided on a shorter release which they simply named The EP. Only five original songs were planned for inclusion. But at the last minute, a sixth cut, a Buried Song tucked away on track five, would ultimately be added.
“We were sitting at Bottom Of The Hill [a music club] in San Francisco,” frontman Armando Prado told MTV.com in November 1995, “and we were thinking, what can we do to mess with people…”
Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, both the listed version and the hidden Jimmy The Saint Blend, had been blowing up huge that summer receiving extensive airplay on various radio formats. The video, featuring her touring band who didn’t play on either of the studio recordings, was in high rotation on MTV and MuchMusic.
“It was at the end of July,” Prado told MTV.com, “and she was starting to get popular.”
The trio started playing it during live shows and it received an “enthusiastic” reaction, according to Billboard Magazine in their January 20, 1996 edition. One fan in particular wanted them to record it for The EP.
In a little over a decade, Brian Malouf had already accumulated a remarkable list of credits. He was twiddling the knobs and adjusting the faders while Michael Jackson was demoing the Bad album. He discovered Everclear. And he ended up mixing Pearl Jam’s Even Flow among many other hit songs.
By the mid-90s, he was the A&R guy for RCA. Despite the reluctance of 1000 Mona Lisas, he insisted they include their version of You Oughta Know on The EP. They ultimately agreed to make it a mystery track. (Morissette and her producer Glen Ballard are properly credited as the songwriters in the liner notes.) You’ll find it with 2 minutes and 8 seconds left on track 5. (After the last listed song, Instilled And Lost, also listen for the occasional “wheeee!” from someone in the band (it sounds like Prado) which pops up at 2:10, 3:07 & 4:32.)
“I really just thought maybe a college radio station here or there might pick it up,” Prado told MTV.com, “but it’s been playing all over the country.”
“The buzz on 1000 Mona Lisas began late last summer [1995] as their version of ‘You Oughta Know’ started lighting up playlists from KROQ Los Angeles to WXEG Dayton, Ohio,” reported Billboard in its January 20, 1996 issue, “often in close proximity to Alanis’ original. RCA didn’t promote the track as a single; demand for the tune built by word-of-mouth while the band was on the road.” The song was also put into heavy rotation on CFNY, Toronto’s modern rock station, which had already been playing Alanis for months.
With just a minimalist piano accompanying him, Prado earnestly sings the opening lines. Then, after one last piano flourish, the rest of the band suddenly thrashes into the mix jacking up the volume and quickening the pace. Prado maintains his deadpan delivery until things are slightly slowed down as he and his bandmates scream out the chorus.
“I didn’t change the gender in the lyrics,” Prado revealed to MTV.com, “because I wanted to stay true to what it was, I didn’t see any reason for messing with her lyrics, it’s her song. I definitely respect what she’s done.”
In the second verse, Prado does make a slight alteration at the top. “You seem very well” is replaced with “you look peaceful”. (It sounds like he mixed up the lyric with the next line “things looks peaceful” and just decided to keep it in.) And after another shrieked out chorus, instead of a solo followed by another set of words, the band simply repeats the chorus one more time and everything ends cold.
So, what did Alanis herself think of this tighter, faster, punkier reworking of her most famous song? According to Billboard, she was mixed.
“For her part, Morissette says it feels funny to hear 1000 Mona Lisas sing ‘You Oughta Know’ ‘because the song is so personal to me….[1000 Mona Lisas] obviously like the song, and they’re passionate about what they do, so God bless ’em.'”
But according to Prado himself, as noted in the July/August 1996 edition of Impact Magazine, she was more complimentary when she met the band backstage:
“She came to our show in Salt Lake City [in November 1995] and said she liked it…I told her we’d do ‘One Hand In My Pocket’ [sic] next and she cracked up!”
The gig took place at the Zephyr Club. In mid-April 1996, Prado told Deseret News that playing her song right in front of her was a trip:
“It was good for the adrenaline.”
Like he told Impact Magazine, their backstage encounter was a highlight of the evening:
“It was cool meeting her.”
Morissette had every reason to be flattered by the band’s rendition. Despite doing the song just for fun, it’s one of the best mystery track covers of all time. Morissette’s unvarnished contempt and bitterness towards Dave Coulier was pure punk rock anyway, even if the slick, superior Chili Pepper arrangement suggested otherwise. It took 1000 Mona Lisas all of two minutes and eight seconds to fix this.
While talking to MTV.com in November 1995, Prado let slip another secret. 1000 Mona Lisas had recorded another mystery track, this one for their first proper album.
Three months later, New Disease debuted. Four minutes and thirty seconds into track 14, the band revs it up again, this time for a hit song from the mid-70s.
Around the same time Martha the sheepdog was frolicking around on their Scottish farm, Paul & Linda McCartney had also adopted a feisty puppy.
“We’ve got a Labrador puppy who is a runt, the runt of a litter,” McCartney told a reporter while promoting his third Wings album. “We bought her along a roadside in a little pet shop, out in the country one day. She was a bit of a wild dog, a wild girl who wouldn’t stay in. We have a big wall around our house in London, and she wouldn’t stay in, she always used to jump the wall.”
Frequently escaping her owners to go prowling around town, when she returned from one such excursion, the McCartneys were surprised to learn how busy she’d been:
“She came back one day pregnant. She proceeded to walk into the garage and have this litter…Seven little black puppies, perfect little black Labradors, and she’s not black, she’s tan.”
They named one of her newborns Jet, which also happened to be the name of one of his ponies he also had at the time.
While making Band On The Run, as McCartney later revealed to Australian radio in 2017, some of the lyrics were inspired by his first wife’s Dad:
“It was kind of – a little bit about the experiences I’d had in marrying Linda. Her dad [the entertainment lawyer, Lee Eastman, McCartney’s longtime manager for decades who died in 1991] was a little old fashioned and I thought I was a little bit intimidated, as a lot of young guys can be meeting the father figure. And if the dad’s really easy-going, it makes it easy. It wasn’t bad but I was a bit intimidated, probably my fault as much as his.”
Mixing fact (“I can almost remember their funny faces/That time you told them that you were going to be marrying soon”) with Lennonesque surrealism (“with the wind in your hair of a thousand laces/Climb on the back and we’ll go for a ride in the sky”), the song is catchy enough to forgive the deliberate, and in this case, literal flights of lyrical fancy.
Initially, there were no plans to release Jet as a single. But the album Band On The Run was underperforming on the sales chart compared to what McCartney had accomplished more easily with The Beatles. Struggling for the critical respect John Lennon was easily garnering for his own solo work, the LP needed a belated, added push.
It took Capitol Records’s promo man Al Coury to convince him to put Jet out as a 45. In the end, two versions were issued: the full-length album cut and a three-minute single edit. The song would peak at #7 on the Billboard singles chart, #2 in the UK. And Band On The Run would ultimately become a multi-platinum smash, the biggest record McCartney would release with Wings.
Jet became a concert highlight for decades. During McCartney’s tour in support of the 1993 album Flowers In The Dirt, it was one of the only Wings songs regularly played during shows.
“We mastered `Jet’ off a cassette we recorded a few years ago,” Armando Prado told Deseret News. “It’s a song I’ve always wanted to cover.”
“We don’t want to be known as a cover band,” Prado declared to MTV.com, “so we may be ending that pretty quickly. This one cover [You Oughta Know] has gotten us more notoriety for doing covers than we care to have, but it’s also really gotten us where we are.”
As expected, this unlisted take of Jet is much faster than the original. No slowed-down reggae detours in this version. There’s a quick guitar break but no melody-mimicking keyboard solo, no vocal improvs popping out of the background and certainly no saxophones.
Prado also makes subtle lyric changes. “That time you told them that you were going to be marrying soon” now reads “How come you told me that you’re going to be marrying soon?” which changes the whole dynamic of the song. Instead of a worried fiance concerned about what his future wife’s father thinks of him before their wedding, this Jet is about a guy who belatedly realizes he’s the side piece.
And for some reason, the opening line of the last verse – “With the wind in your hair of a thousand laces” – loses the L in the last word. Either he made another mistake and left it in or maybe he’s a poker fan, I don’t know.
When I reviewed New Disease for my college newspaper in 1996, I found the record hit and miss. As for Jet itself, following the more substantive You Oughta Know, it felt “disposable” by comparison. And truthfully, I don’t remember ever hearing McCartney’s original until much later on. But today, it’s a rollicking, affectionate mystery gem that deserves to be rediscovered.
Unlike what happened to Wings in 1974, Jet would take 1000 Mona Lisas no further, despite being given a big push in the band’s accompanying bio sent to radio stations with New Disease. It failed to match or eclipse the surprise success of You Oughta Know. The frustration of not being able to generate hits through their own material also took their toll. Modern rock radio wasn’t buying what they were selling anymore. Nu metal was becoming the new thing and they couldn’t compete.
In the May 23rd, 1998 edition of Billboard Magazine, there was an article about their label RCA Records which was going through its own creative and commercial struggles. In a brief notice midway through, there was a short paragraph focusing specifically on the unrealized potential of 1000 Mona Lisas:
“With internal and external stress,” Billboard vaguely concluded, “the band eventually broke up.”
In 1997, Prado recorded another song under a different name, B.U.G.S., for a benefit album entitled Generations I – A Punk Look At Human Rights. And then he left the music business altogether. After successfully completing medical school, he has since become a nurse. (When contacted for comment through his public Facebook account, there was no response.)
Hopefully, the stress of being in a rock band helped him prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
3:36 a.m.
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on September 5, 2023 at 3:36 am Comments (1)