“There She Goes” by The La's

"There She Goes" is the song that made the La's more than a rumor: a blast of chiming guitar pop written by frontman Lee Mavers and tucked onto the band's one and only album, The La's. It first came out in 1988, and when it was reissued in 1990 it climbed to number 13 on the UK Singles Chart.

Mavers sings it bright and breathless, John Power backs him up and holds down the bass, John Byrne's electric guitar rings like a bell and Chris Sharrock keeps the drums skipping along. Bob Andrews produced it and Steve Lillywhite mixed it, and it sounds sun-dappled and a little dizzy, a love song that never stops to catch its breath. Rolling Stone allowed that it might be about heroin or might simply be about unrequited love, and nobody has settled the question.

It beat Britpop to the punch by four years, and Rolling Stone later counted it among that movement's building blocks. NME ranked it at number 22 on its list of the 500 greatest songs, and in 2007 put it at number 45 among the greatest indie anthems.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.