Credit: Cheryl Dunn
Sat 17 October 2026 10:00, UK
Out of nowhere, the right song can completely break you open. For James McNew of Yo La Tengo, it happened over a drink in an Auckland pub, when Chris Knox’s ‘Not Given Lightly’ came on the jukebox.
The story comes from McNew’s choice of nine favourite records, where Knox’s second solo album, Seizure, earned its place. For the uninitiated, Knox is a founding father of New Zealand’s lo-fi scene who, along with Alec Bathgate, pioneered the wonky, distorted sound that their band Tall Dwarfs became known for. They used unconventional objects in the absence of a drummer and created a unique sound that would influence a generation of indie musicians.
McNew was already a Tall Dwarfs devotee when he saw Knox open for The Clean at CBGB in 1989. Knox played alone, he recalls, “On an Ovation Breadwinner guitar, mostly distorted by a Crowther Hot Cake pedal. I don’t think he played one Tall Dwarfs song, but he did most of these [Seizure] and maybe some new unreleased ones.”
The songs Knox opted to play fell on receptive ears in McNew, who found them “personal and funny, and unforgettably catchy”, most of which would end up on Seizure. “It contains ‘Not Given Lightly,’ perhaps the most perfect love song ever written – I burst into tears.”
As a Yo La Tengo fan, who’s been fed the classics through her father over the years, hearing Knox’s songs through McNew’s ears feels like finding the X on a treasure map. It’s an album of small, strange pleasures, where tracks need little more than a fuzz pedal and Knox’s voice. The production wobbles from track to track and songs fade out before you’re ready, yet it never feels careless. Sincerity matters more than polish, which is what holds the album together.
In ‘Not Given Lightly’, layered vocal harmonies make it one of the album’s most memorable moments as well as the most exposing. Built on a simple percussion loop and a clean guitar tone, it’s a love song to his partner Barbara, with a borrowed title from a line in The Velvet Underground’s ‘Venus in Furs’. Stripped of cynicism, the unguardedness of the lyrics is allowed to shine, which may be why it ambushed McNew so completely.
That’s the lasting power of Knox’s music. Slug Magazine went as far as arguing that without Knox there would be no Pavement, no Yo La Tengo and no Neutral Milk Hotel. It’s a rather large statement, but a grown musician weeping into his drink at the pub makes a decent case.
Further reading: From The Vault
On June 11th, 2009, Knox suffered a severe stroke that damaged his speech as well as the right side of his body, provoking the most telling show of respect from his disciples. Yo La Tengo, Jay Reatard, David Kilgour, The Mint Chicks and Shayne Carter recorded Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox, a benefit album to fund his rehabilitation.
It was a cruel twist for a songwriter whose vulnerable voice was one of his greatest instruments, and while his stroke has limited Knox’s public appearances, Flying Nun’s 2015 vinyl reissue of Seizure gave a new generation the chance to hear what floored McNew. Just don’t listen to it in a pub, unless you’re happy to cry into your pint.
