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

Olly oxen free...

     So here we are, at last. And we're going even longer today. Like, really long. Like, "let's see if motime's got a word limit" long.

     But first, let's recap one more time where we've journeyed over the last few months:

 #10 - Television. Marquee Moon and Adventure.
 #9 - Public Image Ltd. Second Edition.
 #8 - The Waterboys. Fisherman's Blues.
 #7 - The Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground (3rd album).
 #6 - Genesis. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
 #5 - Vigilantes of Love. Slow Dark Train.
 #4 - John Lennon. Plastic Ono Band.
 #3 - The Kinks... Are the Village Green Preservation Society.
 #2 - Big Star. 3rd/Sister Lovers/Beale Street Green.
 
     So (again), in a list already populated by the likes of Johns Lennon & Rotten, Ray Davies, Lou Reed and Peter Gabriel, why do I now turn to place a songwriter and his ragtag band -- rejected even by the same lame genre (t)he(y) helped create -- atop our pedestal?

     For the much fuller story, by all means visit Andre Salles' Tuesday Morning 3 a.m. site (also at left), and this link in particular:  http://tm3am.com/article_extra_tst.htm. The shorter version goes something like this: 

      Daniel Amos (a band, not a person -- a la Pink Floyd, only based on Old Testament prophets instead of latter-day blues singers) got its start in Southern California in the mid-'70s, beginning with an Eagles-style sound, a theological self-inflation that Jesus People gobbled up, and a first eponymous album that was basically disowned by its creators not too long thereafter. (I still think "Don't Light Your Own Fire" is the best song from the first three albums, though.) The second album, Shotgun Angel, introduced some neat Beatles-like touches and generally was a quantum leap from the first album, but still duly kicked Firefall's butt and kept the fan base happy. 

      The unsettlement -- and veering off into "dat debbil music" -- began with the third and very transitional album, the mostly appropriately named Horrendous Disk. By this time, the band was clearly now the vehicle of founding member Terry Scott Taylor -- a fact that would become a lot clearer after they got out from under the mighty thumb of this album's producer, one Larry Norman (aka the self-proclaimed "Christian Bob Dylan," prompting T-Bone Burnett to quip sometime later that God got so tired of hearing it that He had no choice but to save the real Dylan). But I digress.

      The genius of Taylor/DA -- and the advent of a years-long effort to complete alienate their original fan base -- at last emerged with the four albums that followed, collectively called The Alarma Chronicles. Part sci-fi series, even bigger part satire, and yet an entirely new-wave theological treatise that baldly wore its influences on its sleeve, respectively covering the irresponsibility/indifference of the Church (Alarma!), the turning of the knife inward to address the author's own irresponsibility/indifference (Doppelganger), the threat of technology against humanity or anything that looks like it (Vox Humana), and, at last, reunion with God (Fearful Symmetry)....

     ....the author's self-flagellation for his perceived failure in communicating the latter message resulting in what many consider the band's best (and yet worst-selling) album, Darn Floor Big Bite. Far from being an album that triumphantly sings God's praises, the music is correspondingly raw, edgy, and near-desperate in its attempts to achieve any degree of communicate, either to or from God -- "Language is weak, but I keep on speaking," Terry declares on "The Unattainable Earth." (The album's title comes courtesy of Koko the Gorilla, describing an earthquake in sign language. Terry renders the phrase a metaphor for our own inability to describe/reach God. Gee, wonder why the American Church Triumphant didn't embrace this one?)

     Cut to a few years (and several DA/Terry solo albums) later. A mysterious album, which could best be described as Christian lyrics couched in painfully clever funky frat-house music, appears: Let's Spin. The band is an unidentified bunch called The Swirling Eddies. (Well, they're identified, but with names like Camarillo Eddy, Spot, and Berger Roy Al, it's pretty clear that we're dealing with aliases.) A "Guess the Eddies" contest soon follows, and sometime thereafter our heroes are identified.

     (If anyone else is thinking XTC/Dukes of Stratosphear here, you're tracking along great -- I've called DA the Christian XTC on any number of occasions. Musically it's remarkably apt; and obviously both Terry Taylor and Andy Partridge share a God obsession, even though it's from directly opposite sides of the coin.)

     Of COURSE, Let's Spin goes on to be their best seller since Shotgun Angel.

     Never one to shy away from offending the powers-that-be-CCM (or TBN as well, in this case), the Eddies respond to their newly rediscovered success with Outdoor Elvis, an album that makes the most sarcastic moments from The Alarma Chronicles tame by comparison. (OK, "Autographs for the Sick" still more than holds its own here.) A bloody brilliant album, wherein the rock is rockier, the funk funkier, and the weirdness... well, weirder. All while fighting the system from the inside, with declarations ranging from "I'm just a cynic talking 'bout a white-bleached sepulcher" to "I don't want speak.... interface or link.... with yer little Gawd" to berating a Church who "want to believe the worst / but they'll believe in anything / shoot their own wounded / sacrifice their offspring," destroys its heroes as quickly as it builds them up ("Let's all kill the giants of Tiny Town"), and just plain does the damnedest things, and usually when the cameras are directly on them ("The face of Saint Paul in this butt roast / Assures me that I'm  going up to heaven").

     You'd have to go 250 years back to Dean Jonathan Swift to get Christian satire this good, my friends, and yet so much more. How else does an album that not only features the most heartfelt love song Terry's ever written, IMHO ("Blowing Smoke") and a dead-serious and affecting acoustic tribute to Billy Graham but also the indescribably obnoxious "Attack of the Pulpit Masters"  ("moneymoneymoneymoneymoneyforministrymoneyforsatellitesmoneymoneymoney"), the Barbie-Dreamdoll-on-acid-meets-Revelation "Mystery Babylon," "Arthur Fhardy's Yodeling Party" - which is exactly what it sounds like, the perfect Britpop of the title song and "Driving in England" (taking verbal two-by-fours to idolatry and conformity, respectively), et al., somehow hold together as a perfect tour-de-storm-the-gates-of-heaven-by-force?

     And of course, it also featured the song guaranteed they'd never play this CCM town again, "Hide the Beer, the Pastor's Here," a hysterical anti-hypocrisy tirade that sticks in your head like bubblegum (just try not saying "BOB Jooooooooooooooones" or "Bi-oooooooooooo-la" after hearing this) and concludes with a two-minute-long laundry list of Christian colleges with anti-alcohol (but not anti-pride) policies. (Apparently some colleges were also offended that they didn't make the list.)

     The album's closer, "Elimination," goes on to answer the band's less-than-imagined critics ("Shut up.... Go to hell.... Get a job... Retire") with, "We're the band that won't go away." Nonetheless, the album pretty much guaranteed that all but the hardcore fans would. And did.

     For all that, Outdoor Elvis was literally everything you could have possibly imagined of a Terry Taylor/DA creation - musically off the wall, lyrically take-no-prisoners, and somehow still able to remind you that God was in control ("Bounce him off the rubber sky / And he'll come back to taunt you / A slingshot snap, brings you back / A lover's eyes still haunt you").

     And yet, now that the unattainable earth had been completely scorched, the next album had no choice but to go places you couldn't imagine. According to firsthand accounts from the band, members were encouraged to come up with the most off-the-wall song titles imaginable, then Terry & Co. would write the lyrics to accompany them. And the band somehow manages to come up with music to accompany that. And yet, all roads somehow still lead, if not drag you forcibly, back to God. It certainly is the easiest way to explain how the album opens with a song called "I Had a Bad Experience With the C.I.A., and Now I'm Gonna Show You My Feminine Side." And to thereafter explain how that becomes rendered a lyrical treatise on how the mystery of love is best transmitted in secret. And how there's almost no point in trying to describe what it sounds like. Heck, it even explains why Terry looks like a dead ringer for Roy Wood on the cover of this puppy.

     Enough already. Our #1 album:

#1. The Swirling Eddies. Zoom Daddy.

     Another interesting twist is that the aliases have been dispensed with here. The Swirling Eddies were now officially and openly: Terry Taylor (vocals, guitar), fellow founding DA member Jerry Chamberlain (guitar), literal rocket-scientist (just ask NASA) Greg Flesch (guitar, piano), the late great Gene Eugene of the band Adam Again (keyboards, piano), bass mammoth Tim Chandler (whose peers can be counted on Phil Keaggy's left hand), and drummer David Raven (for some reason founding and continuing DA drummer Ed McTaggart largely didn't participate in the Eddies' pantheon, but Dave turns in a great job here & elsewhere).

     Also, this isn't an original thought (thank Fred Sanders, Great Books professor at Biooooooola, for this one), but this album really is the answer to Darn Floor Big Bite. Wherein a half-dozen years earlier, Terry agonized over the ultimate unknowability/indescribability of God, the response to that mystery is written all over this album, in the form and the person of the Incarnation.
It really is the perfect Easter album. And you still have time to get it.

     And now for the songs:

     The eery, loopy "...C.I.A...." has already been introduced, but it's worth noting that from the opening notes, Chandler makes this album his... well, I can't say it here, but it's a good thing. Having the privilege (and I mean privilege) of exchanging words with him on a number of occasions, I've joked (seriously) that I don't think he's as good as Bruce Thomas, but honestly, that's really about it (and, in fact, you'd have to go back to Elvis and the Attractions' Imperial Bedroom , The Who's Quadrophenia, or far too many Yes albums, to hear a bass player own an album like Chandler does here).

     (BTW, I say this not just to suck up. Even Tim (byrnes, that is) can tell you from personal experience that Chandler's as good a guy as he is a bass player. Why he wastes his time with The Choir is beyond me. But at least he got a Grammy nomination out of it.)

     But really (and anyway...), the album's only getting warmed up.

     It takes a big step forward on "Mr. Sharky." Really, how many songs -- let alone on a "Christian" album -- give props to Charles Bukowski? (OK.... besides Modest Mouse.) But there you are. A song about temptation, and how it always wants more, and always takes more than it gives or even promises:

mr. sharky and the boys are getting restless
they've got junky eyes, and i'm another fix
sharky likes to hear me beg for second chances
so he can tell me that he'll fix it in the mix...
it's a feeding frenzy
we're all fat and friendly
they've got the cash to lend me now
and i've still got some dreams
but it's a cordial slaughter
and gettin' harder and harder
to keep treadin' on in the dangerous waters
and to keep my own nose clean
so fatten up, boys!

      Some great screams by Terry on that last line, by the way. So far, things are serious but still fun. And the fun factor gets upped a couple notches on the next song, "Disco Love Grapes," probably the partyingest song about communion y'r even going to hear. Again, some great funky bass by Chandler, and some neat angular guitar (from Flesch?), as Terry invites us all to come join the celebration: "pick some love grapes - drink a little wine from the fruit of the vine / grow love grapes - everybody's gassed, saved the best for last / stomp love grapes - pick a bottle up, fill another man's cup..." 

      Things turn decidedly dour with the next song, "Nightmare at the Elks Lodge." As opposed to the eternal party of "Disco Love Grapes" is the, um, world party here, that seems like an eternal sigh and sounding every bit of it here. Wine glasses clink over a dreary arrangement as Terry moans, "last request.... the party is ooooooooover now...." Basically, you'll either love the concept and roll with it, or hate the claustrophobic sound collapsing on itself and want out long before the song's over. Again, some great interaction between the bass and guitar on the "chorus," where the invitation is once again extended, even here:

balloons are sad and deflated
the dancing feet tired and numb
the banners and lights have all faded
the party is over and done
and angels, they tap at the windows
their taxis are parked at the curb
and safely back home they will take you
if you would just say the word
say the word  

      "The Golden Girl of the Golden West" revisits Outdoor Elvis' "Mystery Babylon" and promptly gives her a bumpy limo ride to LA, wherein she jiggles all the way through. About as vitriolic as this album gets, and one of many songs where the lyrical wordplay spills out like Elvis Costello in a meth lab:

She's a corporation raider on the sports bar beat
A giant dodging 49er with two athletes feet....
An earth-shaking quaker with a fundamental flair
There's a method to her madness in that presbytery stare...
She a golden girl, of the Golden West
A liposuckin' diva with a saline chest....

      And again, the subject matter gets flipped over on its ear, as the album gets dead-serious -- if still bordering on the bizarre -- in a hurry. We swing from the Whore of Babylon (either literally or figurativelt) to (and where else WOULD we go, given our incarnational subject matter?), the "Sweet Mother of God." The words continue to spill in some form of (to again quote Fred Sanders) "freakishly erudite" glossolalia that captures everything good and bad (and obviously we're not just talking Christian/non-Christian but the deep division of Protestant/Catholic over Mary) and once you're completely rolled over, still leaves you to decide what the heck to do with all of it:

monumental apparition
ornamental grave beautitian
satirized and patronized
undersized and glamourized
matriarchal wisdom seat
sentimental paraclete...

Bride and the groom, sun and the moon
altar queen wonder, suffering lover, covering buffer, hovering mother
blessing and testing, confessing and pressing, inerrant, transparent, domestic, majestic
idyllic, angelic, filling, dispelling, foretelling, compelling, instilling, indwelling
favoring, laboring, savoring, flavoring, healing us, sealing us, stealing us, leading us
ponder her, honor her, venerate, magistrate, bond to her, long for her, sing to her, cling to her

And I'm not so sure there's anything wrong with her.

      And no, there's won't be any air to come up for just yet. Just when it couldn't get heavier, it does. "The Twist," which closes Side One, is basically The Passion of the Christ in musical form, filtered through the Chubby Checker metaphor as metal opera and directed right at YOU, whoever you are. But especially the church.

Then look me in the face
At least what's left of it
Tell me that you love me, just a little bit
Or nail me down, break the skin
Hard enough to do me in
But don't leave me hanging, dying, dangling, twisting in the wind...

And when the sun grows dim
This will be your sign and wonder
That soon we'll meet again
Just like we did last summer (remember that?)

      Yikes.

      Side Two, naturally, opens with a polka. A really happy polka. With yet more stomping Chandler bass.

      "God Went Bowling" is beyond a delight. It's no mistake that when the opportunity came to participate in a DA fan tribute album, this is the song I picked. (And several people actually said they "got" it for the first time after hearing the more stripped-down version.) Sorry, no mp3s online anymore, although you can see the clips from the "video" (with complete lyrics) here: http://www.bubbs.biola.edu/~fred.sanders/godbowling.htm.

     The basic message -- and really, the most important one I can offer you -- is: God took a chance on us, and still does. The bridge still gives me chills (of the good kind) just typing it:

We want an infinite meddler, a fix-it-quick man
But he gets off his high horse, gets dirt on his hands
And he woos us like a lover, through each bloody cessation
And hangs on the cross with the rest of creation.

      "Multipurpose Man" returns to the big-time wordplay, as well as to the Doppelganger theme of our own duplicity and how we try to stuff God into the same box we put ourselves in. "I'm your very own, living multipurpose man / Your cowardly lion and blemished lamb / And I'll be saved and I'll be damned..."

      "Pyro Sets a Wildfire" would be the "single" here, such as it is. Kicking off with a "Honky Tonk Women" drum intro, it's somewhere between an genuine apology and a not-so-subtle declaration that the singer'd probably do it all again, given the chance:

i never meant to trip the minefield hidden here in paradise (put stink weed in the bouquet)
i never meant to fire a lethal weapon or to terrorize (put poison in the buffet)...
i never meant to cut my tender fingers on your angel hair (put the sawdust in the gas tank)
i never meant to hide tacks in the cushion of your mercy chair (make a brother walk the gangplank)

i've maybe taken too much on
naiveté and youth is gone
but at least the juice is still turned on
i'm dancing on a live wire
i've summoned up a thunder cloud
i always meant to do you proud
still certain things are not allowed
like setting off a wildfire
wild-fire....

      "Some Friendly Advice" would be my least favorite here - as opposed to the lyrics elsewhere, the laundry list here is basically just that. Still, there's DA/Eddies fans who obsess over it, going as far as take up the suggestion in the band's liner notes to do as many of the 200+ activities here as possible - anywhere from picking your nose to feeding the hungry to milking a cow, going to confession, walking around nude, to eating a corn fritter. It's basically a goofy encouragement to stop and smell the roses: "Something that you wouldn't ordinarily do / Something just a little bit different for you / Like forgiving a friend, and an enemy too...." And, as I've said enough times elsewhere in this list, it's a (in this case, proscribed) time to catch your breath, before the charge to the end.

     And I mean THE End. The last three songs are nothing more and nothing less for a cry for God to drop the damn curtain already.

      And the charge starts with "Art Carney's Dream." Indescribable. But I guess I have to try anyway. Over a funky melo-opera, with some driving climbing guitar along for the ride, Terry presents a rather unique vision of heaven and what his arrival would appear like:

I saw the humble and the meek passing by with the proud and important
but I kept my distance from them 'cos I smelled like Ed Norton
and I kept cutting my feet on the blades of sharp diamond grass
and all the sick and indecent things I'd done went by in just a flash...

then I caught sight of you, and your beauty broke my heart
I hung back in the deep shadows 'cos I was stinking to high heaven
well what could I do - your beauty broke my heart
wanted to crawl back in my manhole then, 'cos I was stinking to high heaven

well I admired the fine clothes of all the saints that were passing by
in their pretty chiffon gowns, their wings and their silk suits and ties
their language was a foreign tongue, maybe Latin or Greek
but all the prayers I whispered there to you were stupid, obscene and weak

then I got this idea to cover myself in a thorny bush disguise
and laying low I crept along the shores of the river of life
I saw a wondrous city of pure crystal with its streets all made of gold
and then I smoked a camel cigarette and shivered there in the cold

I turned around and saw a beautiful mansion all going up in flames
there was a stone sign in the front yard and on it someone had carved my name
and the angels rolled out a fire hose they were tryin' to save the place
I felt they could probably use my help, but I didn't dare show my face

and when the smoke had cleared, I cried out when I saw that everything was lost
there was no mansion anymore, just a single wooden cross
then an angel tapped me on the shoulder; he said "boy, you sure do smell like sin
and this place is pretty crowded, but I think we can squeeze you in"

then I caught sight of you, and your beauty broke my heart....

      If this puppy doesn't chill you to the bottom of yr spine, you probably stopped listening (and reading) awhile back anyway. So since we're alone now, dear friend, let's see this through to the end, shall we?

      The dream gives way to "Holy Holy Holy." Far from being the ancient (but nonetheless cool) hymn, it's a declaration tearing down the curtain between the sacred and profane that've done William Blake proud. Safely back on earth, the vision and what exactly to do with it continues:
 
i was feeling kind of haggard, low, and shadowy
like a ghost involved in assault and battery
just a figment of my own dark imagination
hangin' around backstage for an invitation to
walk the streets of light in new jerusalem
see what in my dreams at night, she had always been...
 
it's holy - and still a book
I believe it's holy - and still the sky
it's holy - and still tap water
holy, holy, holy

i caught a glimpse of something in someone else's eyes
there in the least likely face, of someone i despised
a trace of new beginnings, when tears are cried no more
and the moment that i knew it, i walked out my prison door
and into golden streets of light in new Jerusalem....

     With the title song, the mystery is fully revealed -- "Zoom Daddy" is no more and no less than feminine-side C.I.A. code for "Even so, come Lord Jesus."

     Or, if you prefer, the refrain of "olly oxen free" equals "I shall be released."

     But not before one more look back. Against the repeated re-introduction of "zoom daddy zoom zoom daddy zoom daddy daddy zoom daddy zoom daddy zoom ..." the plea for delivery becomes increasing focused and distressed, as the song escalates from daily nuisance to personal tragedy to global crisis:

i believe all you've said
i'm tryin' to take your advice
catapult out of my head
rocket to paradise
 
i'm like my dad (olly oxen free)
this movie's bad (olly oxen free)
i hate that jerk (olly oxen free)
i'm late for work (olly oxen free)...

that child's abused (olly exen free)
those eyes are bruised (olly oxen free)...
 
under a spell (olly oxen free)
feeling like hell (olly oxen free)
disease and war (olly oxen free)
can't take no more (olly oxen free)

      But just like its Revelatory source, we don't end with the bad stuff, and the album ends with -- call it what it is -- a declaration of triumph and an invitation for everyone to show up and join in:

no pain no fear (zoom daddy)
the coast is clear (zoom daddy)
the end is near (zoom daddy)
the time is here (olly oxen free)

     Tunnels do have ends, you know. That's why they're not called caves. This album has leveled me emotionally, spiritually, intellectually for that matter, any number of times, and more than likely will do so again sometime soon. Easter IS coming, you know.

     So go explore the ridiculously prolific catalogue of Terry Taylor and Friends (DA, Eddies, solo, Lost Dogs, et al.) and help the guy pay off his mortgage. The easiest place to do so (and the place that'll net them the most buckage) is danielamos.com. (From there, boy, y'r on yr own. .)

     And until we meet again: Zoom, Daddy.

     This was fun, if demanding. Looking forward to some more normal-length posts in the future, and about other stuff. Heck, maybe now I can even post something closer to the original "Intermezzo" I had intended a couple months back...

Posted by: burninglight at 20:43 | link | comments (10)

Comments:

#1  27 March 2006 - 18:52

 

whew! ok, ok, ok, i'll listen to it again as soon as I can. maybe this record's like 'blank generation': one i'll pull out every 6 months or so to see if I 'get' it yet. it's been nigh onto 30 yrs for 'blank generation' and i still don't get it. but we'll see. you certainly peaked my interest. i only remember 'alarma' and wasn't knocked out, but maybr now i'm settled enough to really hear it. who knows?

well yeah, jim knows, but he knows everything.

timbyrnes

#2  27 March 2006 - 18:57

 

Alarma is, admittedly, kinda dated musically. Which is also to say: You kinda have to get behind the message before the music kicks in with that bunch. Which obviously is a bit easier for ME.... :D

I don't know if y'll "get" ZD or not, but you won't have the same problems, I can guarantee that. And Chandler really IS quite the bass mammoth, so you oughta be able to enjoy it just for his sake. :D

burninglight

#3  29 March 2006 - 19:07

 

Yeah, I gotta admit the message kinda automatically turns me off. That is my problem and I really can't be fair to music or anything really that smacks of Christianity, or any organized faith actually. Chandler is indeed an amazing bassist, but it's like Randy Rhodes: amazing guitar player but I just can't sit through 3 minutes of Ozzy Osbourne whining about the devil to get to the solo.
That's why I like Sigur Ros, the lyrics are meaningless so I can just enjoy the beauty of the work without having to agree or disagree with the lyrical content.

timbyrnes

#4  29 March 2006 - 19:49

 

I gotta check out some of dis Sigur Ros of vich you speak sometime....

Anyway, think of it this way: If you can get behind someone dissing American Christianity (and I KNOW you can :P) -- and ignore the fact that it's an "inside job" -- there's still hope for a meeting of the minds between TB and TST.... :D

burninglight

#5  03 April 2006 - 15:07

 

What?!!!!

Anonymous

#6  03 April 2006 - 15:28

 

"What" WHAT?

:D

burninglight

#7  03 April 2006 - 15:30

 

And for that matter, WHO "What"? :PPPP

burninglight

#8  30 June 2009 - 15:50

 

wow i do have most of your top ten with the exception of your numbers one, two, five and eight. which i may have to check out.

television -- oh yeah. my fave song of perhaps all time however is on tom verlaine's solo record -- "breakin in my heart" -- that whole record is superb, actually.

but a top ten list without radio ethiopia? oh my.

limine

#9  30 June 2009 - 21:09

 

Hey limine: Yeah, give those ones a chance. Tim would have Big Star 3rd right up there, too, FWIW (and if the intro to review of said album hadn't given that away).

And I have a soft spot for "the Chrisitan ghetto," as the late Mark Heard put it -- too up front about their faith to get regular airplay, too honest to ever get carried in a Christian bookstore. :) There's been a few who've been able to straddle that line successfully -- U2 and Bruce Cockburn come to mind -- but unfortunately not many.

burninglight

#10  30 June 2009 - 21:17

 

And since you broached it, guess you haven't found THIS link yet: http://burninglight.us.splinder.com/post/643424. I'd have to say it's my LEAST favorite Patti album, actually. But again, tim'd side with you (as long as you don't put it above Horses), so there you are.

burninglight

Comments: