It’s no surprise to find the song playing as the central characters in Scarfies – Robert and Duncan Sarkies’ smart evocation of Dunedin 80s student life – knit themselves together in their new home is ‘Death and The Maiden’. The Verlaines’ single could well be the ultimate 1980s student anthem.
The words and The Verlaines’ name itself have enough pretension and mystique to provoke the air of difference that keen young minds seek. And they fit the infectious and similarly appropriate, clangorous rush of trebly, reverberated guitar with locked-in rhythm, broken up only by a woozy, off-kilter middle, perfectly. Flip that July 1983 single and you get ‘CD, Jimmy Jazz And Me’, where The Verlaines’ Graeme Downes imagines himself in bohemian Paris with Claude Debussy and James Joyce.
Flying Nun reissued Hallelujah - All The Way Home and Juvenilia in December 2013.
Graeme Downes - vocals, guitar
Jane Dodd - bass
Alan Haig - drums
Phillip Higham - bass
Craig Easton - guitar, vocals
Greg Kerr - drums
Anita Pillai - keyboards
Robbie Yeats - drums
Mike Stoodley - bass
Gregg Cairns - drums
Paul Winders - guitar
Darren Stedman - drums
Russell Fleming - bass
Stephen Small - keyboards
Tom Healy - guitar
Rob Burns - bass
Chris Miller - bass