a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

Where Was I?... oh yeah, life....

Now that I'm caught up on the musical front for awhile...  (No, wait...

• for a non-narcotic mindbending experience from the Slav-punk-ska-pop-bluegrass band from Santa Cruz that MADE me invent the term "transportational device," find Camper Van Beethoven's Cigarettes & Carrot Juice box set and hit Play; or...

• for a morality play that's like a punch in the gut (or several), go for Pedro the Lion's Winners Never Quit instead; or... 

• for something totally other, containing some incredibly beautiful instrumental music bordering on the classical, the spoken-word intro that sounds like Tom Waits auditioning for Slingblade notwithstanding (and which nonetheless fits the atmosphere well), track down Godspeed You! Black Emperor's f#a#(infinity)....

...OK, now I'm done....)

....it's time for the annual review, both professionally and personally....

1) Yep, two years here now. Go figure. Some interesting work stuff coming down the pike, which is meant to come to fruition in a hurry (i.e., in all likelihood, hire authors in the next couple weeks, and get it all online by the beginning of the year). That's about all I can divulge, but it's ambitious to be sure.

2) The latest in a series of family members to consider moving here arrives Friday, in the form of my wife's sister & brother-in-law, who sold their house in Jersey and've been touring the country in an RV to figure out where to retire to. Said brother-in-law needs to work a few more years and he was a developer/ contractor, so there's plenty to do here. And as my other brother-in-law arrived here last October) who knows? I'm betting elsewhere (i.e., closer to their oldest son in Portland -- their youngest is back in Jersey, and that clearly AIN'T happenin' -- or possibly by his brother in AZ), but who knows? But we'll show them a good time while they're here....

3) ...especially as they timed their trip to see our girls before they take off for their respective missions trips to Portugal and Uganda early next week. Yeah, you read that right. Nervous? Yeah, especially as the youngest daughter will be about 15 miles from where some of the fighting still goes on in northern Uganda, and has never been overseas. (Our oldest has been to Eastern Europe twice, so the Azores should be easy in comparison, especially having bricks thrown at her crew in Romania two years ago. ) But the backstory to that assures me that God's in control; it's pretty clear she's meant to go. (If you haven't heard of Invisible Children, go look it up & do the math. And Gulu does appear to be a pretty well-established humanitarian outpost, as not only missions groups but UNESCO are stationed there.) Speaking of God in control....

4) We appear to have landed on a new church pretty quickly, thankfully. It's based in the small town directly south of us but will begin having additional services at a high school two miles south of us in August (as most of the congregation is actually from up here), so the timing's good, as "staying local" has been a big consideration since arriving here. We've also had the benefit of sitting down with another family, who I've been pumping with every question I can think of, because it was not fun agonizing over whether to walk out on a church for the first time in 15 years & I don't care to revisit it. And as said family was a significant player in our former church (before we arrived) and left for similar reasons (and actually, have a very similar background -- in fact, he's a co-worker here, albeit in a different department).... well, let's just he has some unique insights into where I'm coming from, that I trust his judgment, and that he's been very straight about both the plusses & minuses. (Said church also has an interesting history, as they were of a VERY different denomination, did a Bible study with their leadership about 10 years ago, collectively discovered a little thing called grace and equally collectively went "Crap, we've got it all wrong!" and cut ties.) On that note, it's been the most solid teaching I've heard on a weekly basis in... well, since leaving our mother church and planting 10 years ago back in Jersey. (And said plant just finally closed on a church building after meeting in a high school themselves the last 7 years, so that was good to hear too. I can't count the elder meetings where we agonized over location and/or potential deals elsewhere where we got jerked around by a certain Newark diocese [Blast you, Spong, you can't let them DIE! ], so I know they gotta be pumped.) Anyway, we're moving forward, and it feels that way too.

5) And in a different type of moving forward, while our girls are gone for a month, we'll be taking our first vacation since coming out here (as Year 1 was spent moving here and Year 2 was spent working on my mother's estate back in Jersey... fun stuff ). Anyway, Santa Fe looks cool; and this will be going on while we're there. (I've mentioned my wife's an artist, right?) Anyway, I'm ready.

6) So, this might be the last post of length for the next month. A couple shameless posts will be coming down the pike in the next couple weeks, but I'm'a gonna try powering down for awhile (hey, three significant-length posts in a week is pretty good, you know), 'cause fall should be VERY interesting and/or busy. Anyway, time to go get that annual review workwise (and I hit my goals, so that should be a pleasant lunch with my supervisor).... Peace out for now....

Posted by: burninglight at 19:03 | link | comments

Let the Youth Movement Begin

As promised, a couple new artists, even if their releases can't be considered new anymore (both were 2006). For that matter, both have actually been around for the better part of five years in indie form -- although for one it's an honest-to-gosh (and apparently long-awaited) first full album, and for the other, it's the first one of theirs to get some tread via college radio (and only their second full-length one, and the first one wasn't that long).

In both cases, if you like yr music acoustic and earnest both are well worth your time. One's decidedly more polished and other decidedly more stripped-down and creaky -- and knowing that each is a blessing for some and a curse for others (astute observers should have little question of where I land on this), knowing which is which will also help you decide where to go first.

Alexi Murdoch -- Time Without Consequence. Imagine a more radio-friendly Nick Drake, and you'll know exactly how you feel about this. It's one you can hand to the wife who can't believe you just bought yet another CD and say "But y'r gonna like this one. Trust me." (And trust me, I have, and she did.) Granted, it doesn't top Beck's Sea Change on the Drake-imitation scale (and as that one captured not only the sound but the soul, probably nothing ever will), but it's a very worthy and enjoyable effort. And even if it's too late to enjoy for Spring, Fall's not all that far away. Yeah, it sounds like that.

You may have even heard the fine, fine closer "Orange Sky," which has played in the background of any number of poignant TV moments over the last few years, and that refrain/mantra, "In your love, my salvation lies, in your love, my salvation lies...." And it probably still is the best song here. (And come to think of it, the music is strong enough throughout that he gets away with a lot of lyrical repetition on this album.) But there's plenty to take in before then, all of which holds its own quite nicely. The album's almost more a long (if hopeful) melancholy sustained for nearly an hour, but moments and phrases pop through the atmosphere to make sure you're still listening, as well you should be....

...such as, working backward, the coda of the seven-minute-plus "Shine" -- "time to believe in what you know / And you don't need strength to be strong / time to believe in what you know" -- and the nearly seven minutes of engaging instrumental that follows, simply called "12" and occasionally bellowing out the word "shine" during what's easily one of the two loudest moments here.... (I've never heard of guitarist Joel Shearer before now, but the boy can wail when called upon to do so -- and now I see he also contributed to Richard Thompson's previous album Front Parlor Ballads -- definitely would like to check out his band Pedestrian [as opposed to several other bands by the same name] after hearing this)...

...or the quiet majesty of "Wait" that grows larger and larger over the course of six minutes, and the fact that it enables him to actually pull off singing some variation of the line "Won't you wait for me?" for the last two of them... or that line in "Dream About Flying": "Well sometimes I feel like I'm drowning / Actually, it's most of the time..."

....or the propulsive feedback-laden "Home" -- which again, curiously, like the even louder "Shine" is also one of the sparsesest moments here lyrically, with its variations on the line, "When do we really get to go home?... maybe then we already are home...."

...or the tense guitar riff that carries along the dark encouragement, "don't forget to breathe / we're all lifers here, no eleventh-hour reprieve.... / keep your head above water / but don't forget to breathe."...

...or the somber, moaning cellos that open then drive this album's sad yet bouncy opener, "All of My Days." The decision whether to heed the cellos' call is now in your hands.

 

The Kamikaze Hearts -- Oneida Road. As previously alluded in a capsule review a month or so ago, THIS is the album I've been waiting a dozen years for Son Volt to put out. All the affecting monotone drawling you can eat, but more sugar AND more fiber. Actually, there's two primary voices (and songwriters) here -- Troy Pohl would be the Jay Farrar soundalike, while Gaven Richard reminds me quite a bit of Robbie Schaefer from Eddie from Ohio (and if y'r going "huh?" buy Looking Out the Fishbowl and FIX that, FCOL), only reaching from even further back in the sinuses. Matthew Loiacomo (mandolin, banjo, background vocals & drums), Bob Buckley (guitar, dobro, background vocals) and Nathan Giordano (bass), in turn, help create the atmosphere that makes their home your home from note one.

And while Oneida Road is indeed less finished-sounding than the aforementioned Time Without Consequence, 1) that's part of the charm for me personally, and 2) you can thus actually hear the potential here, and that's even more part of the charm. It's pretty obvious this Albany, NY band has more in them than even this, and I'll be looking forward to hearing that too when it comes. Not that they're not already beginning to hit stride at the same time y'r hitting "play." So let's talk about what's in front of us, roll down the windows and hit the gas....

...'cause "Top of Your Head" will make you want to find a car to climb into and discover as much country as you can put your hands to, the wistfully hoping-against-hope lyrics aside: "You said, "What a mistake it was to come this far"... Now our voice was raised just a bit / We're talking in the car / 'Bout the good things we'll have in the end / But today you're weeping / Y'r curled up in a ball...." "Defender" takes things into a more minor key and deeper into bluegrass mode; this is probably the place where I cite Nickel Creek in this particular review, as well I should. It certainly holds it own.

"You Can't Just Get Up and Leave" is a more upbeat and disarmingly wry song directed at an ex-girlfriend: "Yes, I've dreamt about killing someone, of course I have / Where do you think all this came from?... /'cause in this world, everyone knows you can't go on like that / You can't get up and leave without looking like a rat." Leading into the even more upbeat (musically, at least) "No One Called You a Failure," which actually recalls a bit of "Brown-Eyed Girl" in the intro.

"Half of Me" drops the album back into a lovely bittersweetness -- "Look at a photograph we just took / Your eyes reflecting me on the side / Half of me is with you and half me's away.... I think all of this is holy as the truck starts again / Everything I am is here" -- all the while building up the emotional momentum until you discovered you've already been knocked flat on yr back. "Wolfert's Roost," in turn, is a brief vignette of upstate New York life, wherein little details like the golf course, the pharmacy, riding home at 3 in the morning but not before hitting the drive-thru, all coalesce in the space of two minutes.

"Ash Wednesday" had to've been the single. Once again, it's time to roll down the windows and crank it up. It's the sound of living in the moment (as a lot of this album is), and even if the moment doesn't have anything unique to offer it still has a splendor of its own ("And just like the day before, we'll wait it together / Goddamn, what a beautiful day," indeed). And after three-plus minutes of sheer joy, we segue flawlessly into bittersweetness yet again with "Deer Hunter," another quiet vignette where the even more impressionistic lyrics take an even wider back seat to the music.

After a few moments of silence comes the nine-minute closer, "Guyana Central High School Class of '78," a mandolin-led ballad that so slowly and chillingly yet gorgeously dawns on you, if the title hadn't already given the deliberately-anything-but-funny punch line away, that (Richard's voice aside) you could swear The Band was still among us:

Reverend Jim, he spoke at the commencement
He was listing at the lectern in his robe and his sunglasses
He looked out on the class
It seemed like he might be wrapping up
So we call drank the dregs of our Dixie cups
And threw them down on the sharpened summer grass
Sat back in my folding chair and waited there for my new life to begin
Tried to keep the children calm
Let his words bury us over.
He said, "I'm so proud of all of you
I'm so proud of all of you
I'm so proud of all of you
I'm so proud of all of you..."

Powerful? OH yeah. Go to kamikazehearts.com and buy this thing, so these guys can afford to tour, oh say, 1,800 miles away from the East Coast for awhile.

Posted by: burninglight at 21:58 | link | comments

Now the Party's Getting Started!
(or, the 20th-Century Rock-and-Roll Literary Curmudgeon Refuses to Die, or Even Take a Well-Deserved Old-Man Nap)

You know, it IS a little weird that most of my reviews involve older artists. In some ways it makes sense, as a lot of them are artists I grew up with and have an emotional attachment to and/or history with. Still, you'd think I could find some younger artists to enjoy. Not that I haven't tried. (Have I mentioned my disappointment in the latest Modest Mouse CD lately? )

On the other hand, there's something thoroughly gratifying about seeing people way older than me create music that's still viable and vital. (That's a compliment, by the way.) It's a needed kick in the butt for whenever one thinks he's too tired or used-up to keep up. I mean, this column features a 68-year-old man who's kicking butt like he's still in his 30s, for crying out loud. Who cares if these guys haven't been considered "pop artists" for a few decades (and/or ever)? They still speak volumes, and I'm still more than happy to read those volumes.

Anyway, next entry I'll probably get to a couple newer artists I've discovered (both releases were 2006, but as not too many people are aware of either it won't hurt to give them a little more exposure). This week, however, is reserved for a Phil-Keaggy-handful of rock artists with brains and hearts that clearly haven't given out on them just yet. So, in keeping with the spirit of this, let's do beauty before age.... OK, let's put that another way: youngest to oldest....

Tim Byrnes -- The Instruction Manual of Love. (Sorry about the image. Tim'll have let you know when it's officially available, as the link at his site is now expired.)

Our favorite mo'timer (no doubt gratified to be the young'un here) is back with his first release since 2005's Debut CD (which was only in the sense that it was actually a CD), and this one's full-length and everything. 12 new songs, which cover the fairly rough odyssey tim's been on the last few years (you can read his own past punk rock blues entries for the details).

The usual caveats: 1) No-one will be mistaking this for a CCM album, so if you can't hear the beating heart for the self-avowed atheism don't bother (and if so, yr loss); 2) As this is a transfer from a home cassette, this is a decidedly lo-fi affair. And for the first few tracks, the -fi is even lower than usual. Bear with it. Not only the sound quality but the songs themselves get better as it goes along. That's not to say that the melancholy, self-mocking "I Know What You're Thinking" and the decidedly "Watching the Detectives"-ish "The Murder Weapon" don't have merit, just to say that what comes afterward moves past what we already know.

"On Rock & Roll," tape squeals and all, begins to take things up a notch, but not until about halfway through, when Tim declares:

We did the cool jerk in the basement, singing "yeah, yeah, yeah"
As we got taller, we all got too hip for "yeah, yeah, yeah"...
I guess I'm bitter, 'cause I didn't die 'fore I got old
I guess I'm bitter, 'cause I bet my life on rock and roll.

Which then gives way to some particularly cool guitar work. Which continues well into the great-titled  "Burn Down the Internet," a quiet rant that lets the guitar do even more talking.

Now that y'r sitting up and taking notice, "Benediction" begins. The start of the song is just that, a quiet blessing: "Let there be light, in dark corners / Let there be warmth, in the coldest heart.... Let there be trust and understanding / Of our brothers and sisters, in all their flaws..." To which Tim abruptly pulls the rug out from underneath at the end, "It'll never happen / 'Cause we're too f***ing dumb."

"Lurid" is actually more funky than lurid, although if Tim's not addressing a past self he's addressing someone a lot like it, "Oh there, little brother, what hey you, why are you so dazed and shaken? / Was it some book or the drugs you took that makes this mess y'r makin'? / Was it the myth that you phoned in with, you know the sound of yr black heart breaking' / Or was it your anti-dance romance stance that left you here forsaken? / You and me, boy -- outside, anytime." Which then gives way to some more fun guitar work, and lots of it.

The title song is "Benediction" in reverse, in more ways than one. Wall-of-sound guitars slap you right from the get-go, and the lyrics follow closely behind: "The soul is dead, the flesh is weak... Morning prayer becomes hate speech / What we can be is still just out of reach... God is dead, but I cannot / Take blame or credit for that gunshot... You are nothing but a thought / and I am nothing but a thought / I am nothing." There's even a reprise of the old Tension Envelopes song "Theatre in a Crowded Fire" in the lyric "confessions of a chronic liar...."

It comes down a notch from there, though not way down. "Who Had Who" is a Hendrix-like blues (and I've mentioned the guitars already, right?), while the wall of sound returns for the dirgier "I Don't Know." Things lighten up for the playfully self-mocking "Punk Rock Blues": "Guess I got too old for punk rock, so now I gots to play the blues / If you want to work in this town, buddy, play some songs that we can use." The Randy Newman-like asides serve the song well too, before Tim shrugs, "Things ain't all that bad -- I just want to play the blues." Which is then answered editorially by "Blues Punk Rock," which sounds more like the Sex Pistols than Randy Newman, especially given its "don't it suck, don't it suck, don't it? " chorus.

Which leaves us with the closer, "To Give You Love," which could've closed any number of Lou Reed albums with dignity. It's a simple confessional of the writer's failings, laid bare for all to see in the space of two minutes, before giving way to the riff that becomes a rather majestic coda for the last three-plus minutes:

I don't go deep enough
I'm not true enough, to give you love....
I don't go near enough
I don't fear enough, to give you love...
I don't go long enough
I'm not strong enough, to give you love
I don't go straight enough
And I hate too much, to give you love.

 Easy listening? No. Rewarding listening? Yep-PERS.

 

 Graham Parker -- Don't Tell Columbus. Take Tim's God-stance, keep the anger but substitute biting, dismissive cynicism for the introspection and raw nerves (and pub rock for guitar hero-dom), and you kinda get where Graham Parker's been coming from for most of his career. I daresay it thus gets in the way for me more than Tim's approach, but likewise, one can choose to sigh wistfully over the top of those moments and keeping bearing down on the considerable honesty and wit therein.

And Don't Tell Columbus is another good collection. There's nothing here quite on the level of "Dislocated Life" from 2005's Songs of No Consequence, but there's a lot that's close, and it's a much more solid collection from beginning to end.

Interesting also to note that for the rest of this column, everyone here's either got an America song, an Iraq song, or both. With Graham -- who relocated from Britain to upstate New York 20-plus years ago -- we get the former in the autobiographical and triumphant (in a damn-I'm-resilient kinda way) "I Discovered America":

With my bony-chested t-shirt, some stolen guitar licks
Navigating by dead reckoning in 1976
And when the mighty chains of darkness had me on the ropes
Everyone said "quit now" - that's when I found hope

So please don't tell Columbus
Don't tell his queen, for sure
That I had the accurate compass
And I discovered America.

.... and the latter in the skiffle-rocking, delightfully snippy "Stick to the Plan":

Don't pay no attention to what the experts say
Too much intelligence gets in the way...
Put on your uniform and go to the front
Don't be too sensitive
That's a stunt you don't need when you're stripping them naked
And attaching the wires
Because it's only a frat party and all Arabs are liars

Good things are coming if we stick to the plan
Good things are coming if we stick to the plan...

 Elsewhere:

"England's Latest Clown" takes Graham's trademark sinister soul sound and directs it back across the Atlantic at British pop celebrity: "They threw him into Wandsworth for a month of penance / He nearly got molested by the other tenants / But he came out looking handsome with a ton of pride / With muscles on his muscles and Kate Moss by his side."

On the other end of the spectrum are two paeans to love and faithfulness into old age (and heck, how many musicians can claim a successful single nearly-30-year marriage?), "Somebody Saved Me" (marred slightly by the God-slurs but nonetheless undeniably and affectingly grateful for the love he's received -- "I can't calculate what that's worth") and the understated acoustic-only closer, "All Being Well":

I'll see you when the leaves are falling, all being well
And when our hearts are all but stalling, all being well
I'll hold you in my arms and tell you that nothing can break this spell
I'll see you when the road stops winding, all being well.

And then there's the quiet epic "The Other Side of the Reservoir" (seriously -- this might be the first eight-minute song in his 30-year career), which takes us back musically to such ancient classics as "Watch the Moon Come Down," and personally takes me 1,800 miles back east, and to those annual late-April trips to the Catskills right past the Ashokan alluded to here. Delivered in a way half-condemning-half-envious, it captures both the moment and the bitterness of a lost friendship:

Well, time has a funny way of doubling back on itself
And showing the things that really last - was it just yesterday
You left for greener pastures -- or was that way back in the past?
I got some photographs of a long lost valley
Now filled with water shore to shore
That rolls under miles of land right down to New York City
But at least no one's thirsty any more...

So what were they thinking when they dug that hole
And flooded the meadows green and fair
Was it so satisfying, they didn't hear people crying
As they watched their lives get moved elsewhere...
 
I heard you live there now, and that you've settled down
And accepted the vastness of it all
Maybe I'll get in touch, I've heard that there's so much
On the other side of the reservoir.

Really, that's enough evidence to go on, and I have miles to go before I sleep, so moving on....

Richard Thompson -- Sweet Warrior. Yes, the best guitar player in the universe has plugged back in, and yes, it is cause to celebrate. And yes, his own Iraq song has stirred up quite the controversy already. But the real reason you should get this is.... well, because it's a Richard Thompson album. And a Richard Thompson album means great guitar (in any form), acerbic if nonetheless deeply felt lyrics, and a melodic style that turns Anglo-Celtic folk on its Middle Eastern head (or is that Middle Eastern folk on its Anglo-Celtic head?).

That said, it's probably his best album since 1999's Mock Tudor, certainly since 2003's The Old Kit Bag. And yes, for pure guitarishness, this just might be his best performance since his solo masterpiece Across a Crowded Room (that'd be 1985, boyos, and that one had a boatload of post-divorce bitterness to drive it). At 70 minutes, it might be a little long (see also "Sneaky Boy"), but not by much.

Let's just jump into the "official" controversial Iraq song, The minor-keyed shuffle "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" (short for "Baghdad's," that is) is the lament of a soldier who doesn't want to be there and is pretty sure he's gonna die there, which finally explodes in an barrage of not-so-friendly guitar fire:

Dad's in a bad mood, Dad's got the blues
It's someone else's mess that I didn't choose
At least we're winning on the Fox Evening News
Nobody loves me here...

Another angel got his wings this week
Charbroiled with his own Willie Pete
Nobody's dying if you double-speak
Dad's gonna kill me.

It's not hard to hear similar sentiments woven into "I'll Never Give It Up" ("There's no halfway with you / You see red, white and blue / What holds your head on could use another screw... You're someone I can't help betray / Because you built me up that way") and especially the arguably more controversial "Guns Are the Tongues." Albeit a slap in the opposite direction, and intended more for Northern Ireland than Iraq, the scenario still isn't difficult to transfer:

They said he was just nineteen
A headcase but his record was clean
Just the kind they were looking for....
The car was a rolling bomb
Blew all to Kingdom Come
They marveled how far
His boots had traveled...

Guns are the tongues, Little Joe
The only words we know
The only sound that'll reach their ears.

Not that it's all strum-and-dang here. "Take Care the Road You Choose" is a pretty love song from someone who knows he's too preoccupied with the gallows:

If I ever get out of my mind
Guillotine myself to stop me dreaming
And let me heart go where it will
Without those other voices screaming...

With my radar I'll find you, darling
No regrets to blind you, darling
And never look behind --
Take care the road you choose.
 
On the other hand, "Mr. Stupid" might win the award for verbal slap of the album: "When your friends point out you're stuck with / a Neanderthal for an ex / Don't fret about it, darling / I still sign my name on cheques." And on the guitar side, "Bad Monkey" sounds like it could've come off the aforementioned Across a Crowded Room. The boy shreds it big-time.

Anyway, buy it. Get depressed and have fun with it.

Ian Hunter -- Shrunken Heads. I repeat: Sixty-freakin'-eight. (OK, 67 when it was recorded. Point being....) What I said about Patti Smith a couple weeks ago goes double here. Granted, Ian Hunter's never been the best technical vocalist (think: if Dylan really WAS a rock singer), but he's never had trouble conveying boatloads of emotion, and he doesn't here either. Shrunken Heads is his first album in six years, and while he's mellowed a little, you wouldn't know the Original Shaded One was even half his age here (some deliberate and all-too-typical self-deprecating lyrics aside).

To employ a byrnesism, Ian Hunter's music (especially at his peak with Mott the Hoople -- who remain, I also repeat, one of only three real rock-and-roll bands to have ever walked the earth) has always been full of those moments when faith and faults collide (i.e., here's another guy that oughta tour with Mike Roe), and the mea culpas start early here, with the greasy, stomping and absurdly likable "Words (Big Mouth)":

I owe you an apology about last night
Well I was just letting off steam
Black Dog lurking in the alleyway
Alcohol arriving with the key
Open up the floodgates and out it comes
Like a river full of gravity

Words... Nasty little lizards...
Grammatical bacteria
One thing's for certain, baby
I got a big mouth.

"Fuss About Nothing" is another fun rocker (more cowbell!!!) initially about a con man, but possibly a different one than first suspected: "I got a bridge I can sell ya / I got a pyramid / I got a time share in Florida / How'd ya like a piece of it?... Never forget: I'm doing my best / I am a man with a vision / But if it's left to the left / There won't be nothing left / You're making a fuss about nothing."

The anthemic ballad "When the World Was Round" decries a life dictated by those things and people we avoid than the things we purport to live for:

Timing your life to the monsters, the monsters that won't go away
And you win some, you lose some, you ain't got much choice 
so you choose one (what have you done) 

Everybody lies 'n' we're stuck in the middle 
I think I liked it better when the world was round
There's too much information but not enough to go on ...
And I don't think we deserve this 
No, I don't think we deserve this
I think I liked it better when the world was round
Give me a reason to believe it
Give me a reason to believe it
I think I liked it better when the world was round
Maybe we can make it better
Maybe we can make it better 
I think I liked it better when the world was round.

And at the coda, I once again say: Sixty-freakin'-EIGHT. Put that in your pipe, smoke it, and breathe deep. I mean, crap. And I mean that in the best of all possible ways. It's a great, great moment.

And there ain't a lot of nuance in "Brainwashed," just a great rock-and-rant: "Don't forget to accessorize, makeup by the gallon.... If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck / Baby you been brainwashed.... / Who's that over-made-up clown, twisting my religion / Brainwashed, brainwashed, they're still falling for it / You're still falling for it." Likewise, "Stretched" is a Mott-like piano/guitar-dueled accusation hurled at a wayward comrade: "Drain that poison from your mind / Or it's gonna take you down / Stretch -- fish outta water -- ya' swim against the tide / Ain't no talkin' sense to ya' / Jekyll 'n' Jekyll 'n' Jekyll 'n' Hide..../ I loved you like a brother -- deep down sad / You were the best friend -- I ever -- I ever -- I ever -- had."

The one hint we get at the singer's age comes in the fun (c'mon, call it what it is -- shitkicking), "I Am What I Hated When I Was Young." Just when you think you know where it's going -- "I don't wear designer clothes / I ain't got pins in my nose / I ain't got a tattoo on my bum / I am what I hated when I was young" -- it turns the tables: "I'm the original mixed-up kid / I ain't proud of what I did / Now I'm older, calmed down some / I hate what I used to be when I was young / I hate what I used to be when I was young / I hate what I used to be when I was young."

And then there's them America songs again (from yet another British emigre from the '70s). The thoroughly Mellencampy "Soul of America" starts at the base of the Twin Towers and ends up metaphysically protesting on the White House lawn:

And the Manhattan skyline blew my mind the first time
We went down to the scene of the crime
Lookin' for the soul of America...

The sins of the fathers revisit the sons
The toil of tradition, the roar of the guns
It's a God-awful job, but it's gotta be done
Protecting the soul of America
And them good old boys in their three-piece suits
Feathering their nests while they're rallying the troops
They cut off the flowers, don't worry 'bout the roots
Eroding the soul of America

There's souls in the city, there's souls in the sand
Putting up with the latest indignities
You can find soul all over this land
Except in the places it oughta be.

"How's Your House?" keeps the rant domestic, from the perspective of a Katrina victim trying to keep the faith: "Now the reason I believe in the good book still / If FEMA won't help me, I know the good book will / So if anybody asks yuh, how's your Mom and them / Just tell 'em I was asking / Where are ya when ya need 'em?"

No Ian Hunter album is complete without an elegy or two, and this one's no exception. The title song grieves over a fallen society and the leadership taking it further down: "Nothin' matters anymore / The rich get richer, and the poor get sorer / This house is haunted and the streets are dead / We're all the mercy of shrunken heads."

And the closer, "Read 'Em and Weep," is more than a little like the classic "Irene Wilde" -- and after all these years, it still just about reaches that height:

On a warm summer day, in the hour of my youth
I walked the four miles to your door
You wore a straw hat, high heels to match
And the whitest cotton dress I ever saw
When I tried to hold you, you turned away
You don't have to tell me, it's all over your face
I can see the writing on the wall
And there's a distance in your eyes that says it all...

I wanted you so badly, but I failed
Now all I got's these little paper trails.

Read 'em and weep indeed. But don't forget to crank up and enjoy before that.

Posted by: burninglight at 23:04 | link | comments (9)

Posted by: burninglight at 15:47 | link | comments