Buh-bye, Pam Bondi.
The jangle-pop classic “There She Goes” stands as the crowning achievement of a songwriter who’s been called “the J.D. Salinger of pop.” Liverpool native Lee Mavers, frontman of the La’s, earned the comparison because, like the reclusive American author, he created a critically acclaimed album and then stopped letting the public hear his songs.
The La’s – short for “lads” in Liverpool slang – predate the Britpop movement of the early ’90s by several years. Noel Gallagher of Oasis has often cited them as an influence, and many British critics consider “There She Goes” a Britpop anthem. It’s been released as a single twice, and Mavers hated them both.
It was first released as a single in 1988 to enthusiastic reviews but disappointing sales.
Except for bassist John Powers, the band’s personnel changed frequently. They spent two years recording and re-recording songs for their debut album, going through three producers and more than £1 million without satisfying Mavers. The third producer, Steve Lillywhite, cobbled together the LP over Mavers’ objections that it still didn’t capture their sound.
The band toured to promote it through 1991, and Lillywhite’s version of “There She Goes” was released as a single. This time it made No. 13 in the UK and No. 2 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart.
After the 1988 release of “There She Goes,” their record company tried to release a follow-up single, “Timeless Melody.” It sent out test pressings, and Melody Maker declared it Single of the Week, but – see if you can detect a pattern here – Mavers disliked the production so it was scrapped.
In 1991 the band’s only other constant member, bassist John Power, quit because he was tired of playing the same set they’d been performing since 1986. Mavers occasionally regrouped various musicians over the years but they never lasted long, and though some new tunes were added to their sets, no new recordings emerged.
Noel Gallagher, interviewed in 2011, lamented Mavers’ reticence about releasing anything.
People say Lee Mavers is mad or a tortured artist but he isn’t. He’s just lazy. Well, either that or he doesn’t want to tarnish the reputation of what he knows he’s already achieved. I’ve got two CDs worth of unreleased stuff which would knock you out. It should have been released as an album but it won’t see the light of day. But you see them when they reform and they’re still playing the same set as they were in 1986. You feel like saying to them, ‘For fuck’s sake …’ When I see him I say, ‘Hey Lee, when are you going to release your second album?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll do it when I’ve finished the first one…’ He’s still trying to nail his first set of songs right after 27 years.
“There She Goes” has been covered several times, most successfully by Sixpence None the Richer, who scored a No. 32 hit with it in 1999, and featured in several films and TV shows, allowing Mavers to coast along on royalty payments.
Will the world ever hear all the other songs he’s written? They have, sort of, through bootlegs, and the record company that inherited their material issued a box set of demos, live tracks and alternate takes in 2010. Yet there was no new material on it.
Hope persists, but J.D. Salinger’s unpublished corpus should put a damper on it. Salinger died in 2010, and his son Matt, executor of the estate, promised some of it would emerge. In 2019, he said he hoped to have something ready for publication by 2030.