Pub Jojo
Life is a journey. Having ultimate respect for the journeyer, I am probably going to enjoy everywhere he goes. Even though I picked Modern Lovers Live as my favorite album, my favorite song currently is "Time Has Been Going by So Fast" from the latest album.
i voted for modern lovers but i really do love EVERYTHING jonathan has done, obviously i have faves but i can put the whole lot on shuffle and be happy 
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I voted Rockin' & Romance. Never has a more perfect album been made. But I love every record Jojo has put out. The latest three records have been three of my favourites. His attitude to his love of this era is heartstoppingly beautiful.
The Modern Lovers is an incredible record for very different reasons, but still unmistakably JoJo. I understand if people like that and none of the others (and the other way around), but that's not how I feel. Even if he is a total brat! Made even more wonderful by the fact that he can admit that.
This was the hardest question I've had to answer in a long while! I chose "Rockin' & Romance", but I truly could have picked any album from "Jonathan Sings!" up to his most recent record and been happy with my choice.
I voted for Jonathan Sings and I think that this and Rockin n' Romance are the golden records. For me Jonathan with a full band (with female voices and the 'dialogues" between him and them) is much much better from the minimalistic sound Guitar/Drums.
I love everything Jonathan does but in the years after Modern Lovers 88, you can find beautiful songs but usually not such a suprising sound (except songs like "When We Refuse to Suffer" redux).Even the covers of his own songs don't add something to the originals (e.g The Neighbours, Vincent Van Gong). For the Modern Lovers record, I listened it some years after the Jonathan Sings. I love it, I find it so modern, and for sure it is one of the most historic R'n R records ever.
I'm not going to vote as I love so many of them (maybe a three way tie of The Modern Lovers, Jonathan Sings! and Rockin' and Romance.)
I think he has always been great, though some of his albums didn't happen to turn out so well as others.
But I just wanted to say that I think recently Jonathan has returned to something resembling the style of his early work recently as he gets older. I'm thinking of songs like "Nineteen in Naples" and more recently the cellphone song. Both of these I could imagine the young adenoidal Jojo shouting out. And "Girlfriend" and "Old world" are two other early songs that Jonathan still plays.
If the question was stated which album do you think was the best, I would probably say either rockin' and romance, or rock and roll, but for some reason my current favorite is back in your life.
Such a special sound.
Abdul and Cleopatra - Superb Opener! Nice clean sound, and the background vocals are just perfect.
Shes gonna respect me-I'll admit, at first I didnt really like this song, but it has grown on me. It seems like jonathan is experimenting with a special kind of feel with this one and affection.
Lover Please - good instrumental. Definitely is one of the tracks that gives this album a distinctive feeling.
Affection - a classic. Great song, but honestly this songs only really works the full way in concert in my opinion.
Buzz Buzz Buzz - man, what a great feeling!
Back in your life - I picture jonathan singing this to someone's parents trying to convince them that he is genuine. Beautiful song.
Party in the woods tonight - Great campfire-feel song. The Bears are all there, the'yre in the pink. They brought their favorite records, too bad they stink!
my love is a flower - such a delicate song, with superb lyrics.
I'm natures mosqito - possibly my favorite song off the record. feels so real.
emaline - melts you.
lydia - I love this! I love hearing old shows where he play's this one! Especially the one in Belgium where he played it after "The range is calling". Does anyone have any info on that song?
I hear you calling me - appropriate closer.
This album get's forgotten about it seems. If you don't have it, get it! It's worth it. Actually all JR albums are worth it.
if anyone needs it's time for put your address here. I don't want other people to have to pay rediculous money to hear this special record like I did
I said Modern Lovers '88 was my favourite album.. actually I think it's just because it's the one I have bought most recently. Before that, it was probably Back in your life.. and before that another one.. All of this starting with Original Modern Lovers..
But you're right: there is something about the most recent albums that doesn't feel the same to me. I think it could be something about the melodies, something about the instrumentation and, probably most of all, I agree with Yiannis: I do miss the background vocals. But I guess it's OK.. I was probably born to late & things change. I still enjoyed my first Jonathan show a lot.
Pathetically I can't decide. I never have been able to really and I can't now.
And there are probably only 5 or so I could discount quickly (Original/Back in your life/RocknRoll/"the spanish one").
I can't split the others really. Sorry.
Nugrape, I don't have "It's Time For". If you'd email me at randi.r.paul@gmail.com, that'd be great.
I agree it's very difficult to vote, so I'll give my top ten of the moment.
1) Jonathan Sings! : In my first letter to Jonathan [in 1989], I asked him if he still played songs from this album, and I listed most every song, saying how much I appreciated the sentiments of each one. He replied, "Sometimes I play them. Yeah, they're good songs, but I sang bad." That Summer Feeling, Not Yet Three, When I'm Walking, and Somebody to Hold Me are most special to me...
2) Back In Your Life: I love Lydia. I love (She's Gonna) Respect Me and I used to always put this followed by The Girl Stands Up To Me Now on my Jonathan mixes. I love the feel of the backing vocals on this album, Modern Lovers Live, and Rock 'n' Roll with--I love these backing vocals much more than any other era. There is something magical about the backing vocals on The Morning of Our Lives, for example--okay, I know I'm drifting albums now, but same period...
3) Having A Party with Jonathan Richman: Because it does capture the energy of this period. This is about when I first started seeing Jonathan live. He was mostly solo, and I loved it. There was true spontaneity. When I Say Wife, Monologue About Bermuda...
4) The Modern Lovers: Hospital, I'm Straight. These songs almost knocked me down a few times. Strained youthful attempts of my own to play them for struggling partners, or would be partners, but they haunt me on so many levels. Plus with Government Center as a bonus track, and my fantasy about getting him to play this song to me and the other secretaries at one of my many office jobs. Well, if I'm going to include Government Center here, I've got to mention The New Teller, which is otherwise not included on any album listed and is one of my very favorite songs. Yes, these truly mark the Bermuda transition, but I think true fans see the seamlessness across all of Jonathan's writing and performance.
5) Lost Songs: Really, Jonathan is a live performer. Many, many great songs of his have never made it to an album. For me, Let's Say We Just Met is at the very top of this list. I made a ringtone of it that plays when my wife calls me. To me, this song says best what Jonathan has said in many other songs. If you do not have this song, lemmeknow and I'll help make it happen! Many other great lost songs...
6) Precise Modern Lovers Order: Not on the list if I'm reading correctly, but it should be! Jonathan was doing a show at the Palms Playhouse [formerly of Davis, CA] one year on my birthday. I was nervous and excited because I really, really wanted to make a very special request. I knew Jonathan normally does not do requests [at least not unless they jibe with what's in his mind], but I'd also heard him say more than once that he's a softie for birthdays, so I thought this was my best chance. Jonathan on my birthday at my favorite venue to see him, the place where he did the most intimate, melancholy, moving performances. I had read about the song, well heard it described as more of a monologue where he would cry in the middle, banging the microphone on the stage on his knees. I knew it was on the bootleg Route 128 Revisited, but long before the internet I was nowhere near finding it. Well, on that fateful day, I had a bad fight with my on again, mostly off again romance of the time, and in frustration did not go to the show at The Palms. But I wound up at a record store and found Precise Modern Lovers Order, and much to my delight a version of A Plea for Tenderness. I was so excited about the whole album, but overwhelmed by the passion, intensity, starkness of A Plea for Tenderness. I got my birthday request after all! And though I doubt he'd ever conjure this one up, it certainly would be an amazing treat to see him recreate this. Though if I had to choose one request of a song I've never seen him do live, I'd have to ask for Let's Say We Just Met...
7) Jonathan Richman: This one is frequently #1 for me, but this is just the way it unfolded this Saturday night. Miracles Will Start to Happen, Everyday Clothes, A Mistake Today for Me, and Cerca remain three of the most important Jonathan songs to me. I wish these were still available to him.
It's Time For: okay, so in case you have not noticed yet, I'm a romantic...It's You, This Love of Mine, Ancient Long Ago...these songs make me swoon.
9) Modern Lovers Live: The aforementioned Morning of Our Lives only official recording here [and my favorite version anyways] makes this mandatory on the list. But despite having heard hundreds of other live shows, the energy and feel of this show makes me wish I could have been there for countless 1970s concerts of all types and lineups. Again, the backing vocals, the playfulness, I'm A Little Dinosaur. We can do anything!
10) Oh, it's a tie for all the rest. And yes you have noticed that my choices are all over a decade old. I seem to only like a few songs from any of the recent albums, which I hate to admit, but it's true. I don't even normally compartmentalize albums in that way. I loved the raw sorrow of the majority of the songs of I'm So Confused. I Can't Find My Best Friend as closing. For me, this is as powerful a closing as As My Mother Lay Dying. And for the brief window of time he played these songs about the real end of that relationship, you saw exactly where he was at. Other tied albums...for me, the country version of The Neighbors is absolutely perfect. I love it. And The Neighbors is the one song he played at each of the first 20+ shows I went to, so I feel this was his most personal and powerful statement about his partnership and view of life for so long. Springtime knocks me out. Oh, and I almost left out The Original Modern Lovers, which I truly love. Again, JR writes he's embarrassed about his singing and ad libbing--but they are great alternative versions, and some needed classics. I love Dance with Me, and where would I be without having heard Jonathan sing, "I could drink up everything you have, Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste."
Thanks for the indulgence. Can't believe I missed the contest for recollections. I guess I'm making up for it here! Congrats to all the winners and thanks for sharing your stories.
paz y amor,
DMD
In voting for Modern Lovers Live ... I am also voting for the songs that surely would have been included in the post-CD era (i.e. post-1984) albums:
Hospital (live)
Astral Plane (flying live in London)
Roadrunner (thrice)
all that plus:
1. I'm a Little Airplane
2. Hey There Little Insect
3. Egyptian Reggae
4. Ice Cream Man
5. I'm a Little Dinosaur
6. My Little Kookenhaken
7. South American Folk Song
8. New England
9. Morning of Our Lives
..and you have a perfect "bridge" album between Jonathan's "two sounds" as played by my favorite combo: D. Sharp, Leroy Radcliffe and Asa Brebner.
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