Show Me

Hey there, Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew has got a real beauty spinning right now, "Show Me" off Learning to Crawl by the Pretenders, and man, this one digs deep into something tender that Chrissie Hynde laid down when life was throwing curveballs left and right. She wrote it for her little girl Natalie, the one she had with Ray Davies, and you can hear that pure maternal pull in every line, asking the kid to show her what love really means in a world full of wars and disease and all that brutality. Hynde told people later she was not much for the sentimental stuff, even regretted naming the album Learning to Crawl because it sounded kind of pathetic to her, but the song itself sneaks in that hope anyway, welcoming the baby from outer space with the milky way still in her eyes. It was a departure for the band, softer than the usual sharp edges, more adult contemporary in feel, yet still rock solid with that chiming guitar from Robbie McIntosh laying down a long solo that feels like a pillow for her vocals. Released as a single in the States in eighty four, it climbed to twenty eight on the charts and eight on the rock tracks, but it never got the UK push, which just goes to show how these album tracks can sneak up and stick with you longer than the obvious hits. The whole Learning to Crawl record came out of pure survival mode after James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon were gone, and Hynde was dealing with being a new mother while rebuilding the band with Martin Chambers and the new guys. She has said in interviews that she was seven months pregnant when they hit the studio, feeling a bit embarrassed but deciding if she was doing it then it was still rock and roll, bolstering up the bravado to keep going. That album title itself nodded to Natalie learning to crawl around the same time the band was finding its feet again, and "Show Me" fits right in as this heartfelt meditation that echoes back to "Kid" from the first record but with more lived-in wisdom. Pitchfork and others have pointed out how she seeds the future with that welcome to the human race line, not sugarcoating it, and in Rolling Stone she pushed back against the tragic reawakening narrative people wanted to put on the whole thing, calling it just ten measly songs. Still, fans and critics alike see the beauty in how she dumps some of that grief and joy into the track, the way she always has with songs that capture those random twists of fate. Over on the fan site they have got the promo video up, just the band performing straight up, letting the music do the talking like they always preferred, and setlists from the eighty four tour show it getting played live alongside the heavier stuff, proof it held its own in the mix.

Now if you want to dig into how Chrissie Hynde got this whole Pretenders thing rolling, it starts back in Akron, Ohio, where she was born in fifty one and soaked up all that AM radio Motown, country, and British Invasion stuff that shaped her voice. High school was not her scene much, no dances or steady boyfriends, but she would head to Cleveland to catch any band she could, falling for the idea of guys like Brian Jones or Iggy Pop out there living it. She studied art at Kent State for a while during those wild protest times, even witnessed the shootings, then dropped out and headed to London in seventy three with some savings and a stack of Lou Reed records, ready for bigger things. Over there she waited tables, worked a bit for NME, and hung around Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's shop on the Kings Road, rubbing shoulders with the early punk crowd, even teaching Johnny Rotten some guitar chords in her Clapham place. She tried short-lived bands like Masters of the Backside and the Moors Murderers, shared space with Mick Jones before the Clash, and got that reputation as the one who almost married Sid Vicious for citizenship in one of those wild stories that float around. By seventy eight she had demos in hand and Dave Hill from Real Records saw the potential, set her up with a rehearsal space, and she pulled together Pete Farndon on bass, James Honeyman-Scott on guitar, and eventually Martin Chambers on drums. They named it the Pretenders after that Sam Cooke take on the Platters song "The Great Pretender," a favorite of one of her old boyfriends, and their first single was the Kinks cover "Stop Your Sobbing" produced by Nick Lowe that hit the UK charts. From there "Kid" and "Brass in Pocket" blew it wide open, the debut album topping the charts and establishing her as this cool, astringent voice that mixed vulnerability with that tough rock attitude. She has always said she just wanted to play guitar and be in a band, same as she did as a teenager, and even with all the losses and the motherhood and the lineup changes, she kept that core going, the only continuous member through every album. You can catch more of her story and the band's ongoing stuff over at their official site, or follow along on the socials where they share the live shots and reissues.

For the Zoo Freaks who want to keep up with the Pretenders and Chrissie, swing by the official website at thepretenders.com, where they post the news, the tour bits, and all that. You can find them on Facebook at facebook.com/pretenders, Instagram at instagram.com/thepretendershq, and on X at x.com/ThePretendersHQ, all verified and posting the real deal without the scam accounts that pop up. There is a solid fan site too at pretenders.org.uk that has the old articles, the live shows from way back, the promo videos including the one for "Show Me," and plenty of that deep history. And of course you can always tune in and hang with the rest of the Zoo Freaks right here at THE ZOO for more of that freeform album rock goodness. This track and the whole record just show how Hynde turned all that chaos into something lasting, a reminder that you keep crawling forward no matter what the road throws at you.