Television -- "See No Evil"
Television doesn't sound punk to a modern audience, but they were there when it all started. Musically, however, the guys in the band were simply too talented to play straight-up faster-louder. "See No Evil" is the closest they ever got to punk, but more importantly this song serves as a kind of manifesto for the band's aesthetic vision, which is closer to that of the French Symbolist poets (such as Paul Verlaine, for whom frontman Tom Verlaine renamed himself) than it is to that of The Ramones. I won't even try to decipher Tom Verlaine's lyrics, but they evoke a kind of gutter-bound romantic perspective, embracing the city, from Broadway to the Bowery, in all its filthy glory. The title of the song says it best, presenting life as aesthetic experience, beyond good and evil. A great way to introduce the best album by one of the most distinctive bands of the 1970s.
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