What A Man's Got To Do

- James Belfield

It’s taken the best part of 35 years, but Don McGlashan is finally starting to fathom some of his early songwriting. As a 23-year-old, he spent much of his time between bands Blam Blam Blam and the Front Lawn sketching out songs and soaking up New York’s avantgarde and punk scenes that were turning out such acts as Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Laurie Anderson, with her eight-hour performance piece United States Live.

One of those songs, No Plans for Later, ended up on the first album of another of his bands, the Mutton Birds. He now calls it an “odd, ungainly” two and a half minute experiment. At odds with the bold pop of Dominion Road and that closing cover of Woodstock-era Nature, it never made its way into the band’s live set.