It seems like I’ve invoked Hüsker Dü and Bob Mould quite a bit in this space lately. This week’s One for Friday selection is a natural extension of that trend.

As I’ve noted, Bob Mould loomed large during my college radio years. Hüsker Dü was one of the touchstone bands of the station, and Mould was an especially accomplished alumnus of the group. He was also fairly prolific at that time. His first solo album came out around two years after the last Hüsker outing and his sophomore effort was out by the following summer. If his debut release was noted for its more contemplative elements, Black Sheets of Rain was a potent demonstration that Mould could still deliver fierce, pummeling guitar rock removed from the trio that helped him make his name. It was powerful and resonant, soaked in the gloomy moods implied by the album title.

It was also one of my lifelines back to the radio station that felt more like home than home did. The album came out at the beginning of the only summer of my college years that I abandoned the city the school was in to save money by living at home. I had no Internet to keep connected to 90FM and no comparable radio station in town. I was desperate for information about the new music that was hitting rotation, anything that would provide a respite from the music that dominated commercial radio that summer. Mould’s Black Sheets accomplished that nicely. It spent much of that summer on the turntable in my basement bedroom and I was occasionally gifted with the video on MTV.

Even though I didn’t get the chance to play the record when it was new, I pulled it out of the stacks quite a bit when I returned that fall. As was often the case, I was especially fond of the songs that somehow sounded best towards the end of the a late night shift. Alone in a dimly lit station at 1:30 in the morning, certain songs took on a greater profundity for me. “Last Night” was one of those songs. It’s straightforward and comparatively sedate and somber. It’s probably not the best song from Black Sheets of Rain, but it has that wonderful, elusive capability to place me back in the radio station every time I hear it.

Bob Mould, “The Last Night”

(Disclaimer: I’m often amazed by what albums are and aren’t in print. Perusing Bob Mould’s discography, this seems to be one of the few titles that isn’t readily available for purchase on CD. It is, however, available as MP3 downloads if you’re so inclined. Since that won’t provide due compensation to the proprietor of your preferred local, independently-owned records store–and may very not provide due compensation to the artist, either, given the tomfoolery we know labels engage in with digital sales–the song is offered up here. Should I be contacted by anyone with a fiscal stake in this song, or who is bestowed with due authority over it for any other reason, I will gladly remove it from this space. If you want to send a little money Bob Mould’s way, I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you bought his new book.)