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

I hate it here... Get me out of here....

"This messy room of an album...
Sings songs of the ruined Christmas,
The one that everyone's had.
Songs of praise for the empty.
Lullabies for the mad.
Alien love songs for the breakdown.
Cushions of sound for the broken soul.
68 minutes and 32 seconds of someone losing control,
And finding beauty in the spider webs of broken glass
Behind their eyes.
Dancing with the rhythm of the hypnotized.
Flirting with, but stopping short of suicide
And thereby saving us all.

And if you aren't careful, you can
Sing yourself sane.
Sing yourself sane.
Sing yourself sane."

-- the Tim Byrnes song/poem version of this review, circa 2003 (and still available on Debut CD, kiddies) 

     The fairly short version of the bio: 

     Alex Chilton, ages 16-19: Rock (or at least pop) star, as the inexplicably (alright, it was the speed and the multiple takes) gravelly voiced singer of The Box Tops. And as good as "The Letter" remains, "Cry Like a Baby" and especially "Neon Rainbow" are the real ticket. A singles band (in which Alex was pretty much the only one to actually play on the records), to be sure, but one that put out material that still holds up nearly 40 years later. And that's not nothing.

     Alex Chilton, ages 24 on: A cult-legendary mess, who until at least recently made his home in New Orleans. Still pops up every few years with a rare flash of brilliance (his contributions playing on/producing the first Cramps EP, the "No Sex" single, and especially its uncategorizable B-side "Wild Kingdom"), a quirky album that never quite holds completely together (Like Flies on Sherbet, Feudalist Tarts, High Priest, et al.), or far, far worse (see also Tav Falco's Panther Burns -- how DOES one gets kicked out of a rockabilly band for bad behavior, anyway?)

     It's also worth mentioning that sometime not-so-pre-Katrina, Alex lent the last-week-mentioned Ray Davies his Martin, for use on the just-released Other People's Lives (which I'll probably get to reviewing in a couple weeks, once this list is completed). For that alone, the boy gets props.

     Alex Chilton, ages 19-22: (Usual) front man and lead guitarist for the criminally overlooked Big Star. #1 Record (which also prominently featured original co-leader Chris Bell) was the quintessential early '70s pop-rock record (in the very best sense of the word) ... and fell on largely deaf ears. (You can hear the Cheap Trick version of "In the Street" every time you turn on That '70s Show, though.) The second album, Radio City, was arguably even better --although it's worth noting that with the departure of Bell (who died in a car crash only a few years later), this was now totally Alex Chilton's game. A little more rebellious, more than a little more discordant -- and produced the hit that never was (at least for them -- it would have to wait for The Bangles to resurrect it 20 years later), "September Gurls."

     Alex Chilton, age 23: Goes in the studio (with only drummer Jody Stephens and a cast of dozens of Memphis studio musicians, including Steve Cropper and legendary producer Jim Dickinson, accompanying him) and self-destructs on tape. Not until four years later, in 1978, would PVC come to the rescue and put out the album that everyone should've (and still hasn't) heard:

#2. Big Star. 3rd/Sister Lovers/Beale Street Green.

      This is the sound of things falling apart -- some of it self-inflicted, some not. Most of it is. And yet, there's this overwhelming sense of humanness and/or humanity throughout the entire album. Maybe decency is a better word. Alex Chilton doesn't sound like he knows what's coming next -- and we're talking from song to song here -- but he asks us to trust him, even though he's almost certainly about to self-implode yet again. 

      And the thing is -- you do.

      And with this album at least, that faith pays off in spades.

      Musically, it's easily the most ambitious of the three Big Star albums -- string arrangements rise up, rock out, and/or fall apart at will; feedback hovers in the background and nearly drowns the album on its penultimate song (at least on the sequence I'm using -- more on that later). Simultaneously, the singer sounds like he's lost all ambition whatsoever, and is just using whatever little emotional resources he has left just to hold it together. And he doesn't always succeed in holding it together, either. Side Two is basically a descent into chaos. But oddly, it's even more fascinating to hear things fall apart before your very ears.

     And when life is doing the same, this is the album to haul out. It may very well be, from end to end, the most honest album ever created -- even more so than the primal-scream-meets-public-soapbox Plastic Ono Band.

     By the way, to clarify for any audiophiles out there: The track sequence I'm using (and the tracks themselves, rather than any later "bonus" ones) are from the original PVC version. It still makes the most sense to me, by far. It don't matter that Alex supposedly really wanted to end it with "Take Care" (which makes sense, but where the heck do you put "Thank You, Friends," then? surely, not second), and, more egregiously, open it with "Kizza Me" (which, while certainly fun, is easily one of the least of the songs here). And with that, I'll go right to...

     ...the "original" and truest opener, "Stroke It, Noel." Yeah, the title's essentially a crude joke directed at one of the several violin players on this song, but the song itself is anything but a joke. Think: Tonio K. doing "The Funky Western Civilization" as a chamber piece, or the generous what-else-are-we-gonna-do band on the Titanic, only this time it's providing the musical accompaniment for a nuclear holocaust rather than an iceberg. (Or heck, byrnes' "Bless My Soul" as performed with the Brodsky Quartet.) A transcendently baroque pop song that sounds almost (ironically?) optimistic amidst its circumstances:

Well, they say that we're the lazy men
Drinkin' our white wine
We could go right insane
'Cause we can buy the time

Oh, keepin' an eye
On the sky
Will they come
Oh, the bombs

Do you wanna dance?

      "For You," written by drummer Jody Stephens (the only original member still standing by this point) is a simple love song that continues the baroque feel of this album. And it's a feel that "ain't gonna last"...

     ...as evinced, at first, by the rockers that immediately follow, the aforementioned "Kizza Me" and "You Can't Have Me." The former is a fairly candid love song to his girlfriend at the time. Alex shouts, "I want to feel you deep inside / I want to feel you / Kizza me / Lesa, why NOT?" The accompanying music sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis and the violin section going West Side Story on each other, while the guitars cower in the corner, before Alex at least snaps delightfully at the end, "That's enough, baby!"

     And to employ another byrnesism, the latter song announces that the singer's playing for keeps - even while he knows full well that it's all for nothing (and nothing for all). The details are fuzzy, but the striking images within convey more than enough: "Gymnast, working out on the parallel rails / Cutting trails, screams and wails / Face go pale, never fails / You do steal things, unawares, but I don't care... / The drummer said you were not very clean / And I know what he means... / You can't have me / You can't have me -- not for free."

      In all, a strong but not life-changing group of songs (with the very possible exception of "Stroke It, Noel") to open this. But that's all about to change -- and you too, boy.

     The raw sense of alienation, failure - any number of feelings we don't want to experience but invariably do - that dominates the rest of the album begins promptly with "Nightime." Think Nick Drake covering The Cure's "How Beautiful You Are!" Strings soar and sour around the acoustic groundwork, as the singer's perspective quickly and quietly shifts from rapture to disgust:

And when you're in the moon
Oh, you look so pretty
Caught a glance in your eyes
And fell through the skies...

I'm walking down the freezing street
Scarf goes out behind
You said, get them away
Please don't say a word
Get me out of here
Get me out of here
I hate it here
Get me out of here

      I'd mentioned my "sleeper song" theory back in the Waterboys review -- i.e., that song that lies in wait while you absorb a really good album, then at last kicks in and transforms it into a great album (and/or makes it a great album in a brand-new way). "Blue Moon" is the sleeper on this one. It's "Kizza Me" without any of the wiseassness -- a gentle, bare-souled love song that, when it finally hits you, gladly reduces you to human rubble:

While you sleep, you'll see me there
Clouds race across the sky
Close your eyes, and don't ask why
And I'll be a blue moon in your eyes.

Morning comes and sleeping's done
Birds sing outside
If demons come while you're under
I'll be a blue moon in the sky.

Let me be your one light
And if you'd like, a true heart
Take the time to show you're mine
And I'll be a blue moon in the dark.

      While "Take Care" would've been a fine closer for the entire album, I can't imagine putting it anywhere but after "Blue Moon," and thus closing Side One. Having been totally disarmed by the last two songs, Alex now offers some gentle, wise advice for the few thousand people still listening, and especially the more vulnerable among us: "Some people read idea books / And some people have pretty looks / But if your eyes are wide / Then, all words aside / Take care / Please, take care."

      A mock cha-cha intro kicks off Side Two, then is abruptly interrupted by the real song, "Jesus Christ." I need to get this on a Christmas mix sometime. An ironically unironic (or is it unironically ironic?) gospel tune, it starts things back up nicely, not to mention a great sax solo at the end. It's a simple chorus - "Jesus Christ was born today / Jesus Christ was born" -- complete with closing invitation to join in, "And we're gonna get born now..." An uplifting moment, before heading almost methodically and certainly headlong into the abyss...

      ... starting with a cover of the Velvet Underground & Nico's "Femme Fatale." As opposed to the original, related by the Femme Nico herself, this one comes from the perspective of the willing victim. An achingly sad treatment of an already great song, and the irony that then-girlfriend Lesa provides the back-ups here was probably lost on none of the players here.

      "O Dana" picks up from there, only this time it's a mea culpa from the singer to the girl he can't seem to make things right with, even if he cared to try, and you're not at all sure that he does:

I'd rather shoot a woman than a man,
I worry whether this is my last life
And girl, if you're listening
I'm sorry, I can't help it...
 
We seldom know what things are
Two illusions going very far...

     At least that song's saved from total darkness by the soulful, almost upbeat arrangement. All pretense of joy, or even motivation, is abandoned by the next song, "Big Black Car." It's here that the album begins to sound like it'll fall apart at any moment, and/or the sound of someone overwhelmed by his own numbness, emphasized by the plodding, barely-in-synch arrangement.

I can't feel a thing
I can't feel a thing...
Nothing can hurt me
Nothing can touch me
Why should I care?
Driving's a gas
It ain't gonna last.

      The way Alex hisses "last," though, suggests that despite his deadness, he's trying to make even this moment last -- that somehow, things could become even worse.

      And the aptly named "Holocaust" delivers on that suspicion. Arrangements fall apart even further here -- cellos and feedback randomly creak in and out, as some eery female vocals show up just in time for the singer to deliver the emotional epitaph. It's a harrowing song, on the most personal of levels:

Your eyes are almost dead
Can't get out of bed
And you can't sleep
You're sitting down to dress
And you're a mess
You look in the mirror...

Your mother's dead
She said, don't be afraid.
Your mother's dead
You're on your own
She's in her bed...

Everybody goes
Leaving those
Who fall behind
Everybody goes
As far as they can
They don't just care.

You're a wasted face
You're a sad-eyed lie
You're a holocaust.

      Things completely fall apart, yet compellingly in the way only a human trainwreck can, with "Kanga Roo." I mean, we're talking post-Floyd Syd Barrett territory here, people. Feedback rushes in, screeches above, rumbles underneath, and those damned strings still won't leave, amidst some lyrics that tell you the singer's got nothing left, no matter what angle you come at it from: "I came against / Didn't say excuse / Knew what I was doing / We looked very fine / 'cause we were leaving / Like Saint Joan / Doing a cool jerk / Oh, I want you / Like a kanga roo." In a way, the album as concept ends right there. And yet the album itself doesn't.

      NOW, we get "Thank You Friends." A happy, buoyant "doo-dooooooo" chorus backs up the declaration: "Thank you, friends / Wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you..." Is he being ironic or dead serious? Both, I think -- a kiss-off to his enemies AND an expression of gratitude to those who managed to stick by him: "Without my friends I got chaos / I'm often a bead of light / Without my friends I'd be swept up high by the wind..." Did I mention that Alex turns in a great guitar solo that've fit nicely on the first two Big Star albums? Now I have. And again, I don't think you could end this album any other way.

      Since you'll have them on pretty much any re-issue you buy these days, it's worth mentioning the bonus tracks. By and large, that's all they are - two originals even farther down the path of disintegration than "Kanga Roo" (yes, you heard that right) and three covers. "Downs" is flat-out weird - the sound of someone too stoned even for reggae (yes, you heard that right too) -- and "Dream Lover," the last track recorded for this album, sounds every bit of it. "Nature Boy," the Nat King Cole song, is the best of the bunch, capturing at least some of the weariness, alienation and poignancy of the "official" album; and the covers of "Till the End of the Day" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" are faithful but not overwhelming (although the former's pretty good). 

      But take my word for it: Stick with the original scope and sequence above (that's why they give you track programmers, you know). And enjoy the sound of things falling apart, because that's what things do, after all. 

Posted by: burninglight at 20:16 | link | comments (3)

Comments:

#1  24 March 2006 - 17:44

 

I've always thought that 'Holocaust' would be a great National Anthem cause it'd be so much fun to watch opera singers try to do it at baseball games. Ever heard the 'Live in London' version of it and 'Kanga Roo'? He's fronting the Soft Boys (who he'd met that night) and the resulting carcrash is a wonder to behold.

timbyrnes

#2  24 March 2006 - 18:04

 

Alex Chilton fronting the Soft Boys....??? Yikes.

burninglight

#3  18 September 2009 - 18:42

 

I love to jump on a band wagon.. you know.....3 YEARS a number of months after your fine post.
Its called "catching up"
-being a Gaffer, and having a 9 year old (who was 6 then) in me home.
Thanks pard-this looks like a Band to explore. THis blog has more than sparked my interest !
More Peace than Out
JiminY

Anonymous

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