Alan's Album Archives

In-depth reviews of classic or neglected albums, mainly from the 1960s and 70s, now a 30 volume e-book series.Artists covered include Beach Boys, Beatles,Byrds, CSNY, Dire Straits, Grateful Dead, Hollies, Jefferson Airplane/Starship, Kinks, Monkees, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Searchers, Simon and Garfunkel, Small Faces, 10cc, The Who+Neil Young.Sister site to https://kindredspiritbooks.blogspot.com/ (scifi novels) and https://alonsyaliensdrwho.blogspot.com/ (Dr Who episode reviews)

Monday, 28 January 2013

The Last 10 AAA Songs Listed Alphabetically (News, Views and Music Issue 180 Top 10)

Here we are with a sequel to last week’s feature on the first 10 AAA songs listed alphabetically. What a cracker it was: we started off having ‘A Bad Night’ with Cat Stevens and ended up having ‘A Great Day For Freedom’ whilst in between covering the crashing chords of ‘A Day In The Life’ and enjoying ‘A Better Place’ with The Hollies. What could possibly compete with that lot? Well this lot, possibly, the last 10 AAA songs if you list them alphabetically (discounting ampersands, numbers, brackets and funny squiggles anyway), starting with ‘Y’ and running all the way up to ‘Z’! What surprises me is how many ‘lasts’ these songs represent in more ways than just the alphabet...(is there some sub-conscious nedd to use the last two letters of the alphabet to express goodbyes and signifigant endings? Or have I simply goner monkeynuts again?...) Hold on to your seats, record collecting doesn’t get more anorakky than this...

“Your Loving Flame” (Paul McCartney, ‘Driving Rain’ 2001)

There are, approximately, 2000 AAA albums out there (almost as many as there are stars in...well...a small patch of sky) so the odds of having the same album crop up twice in the same list seem pretty low. However this is the first of two entries by Paul McCartney’s ‘Driving Rain’ album for which Macca must have had songs beginning with ‘Y’ on his mind. This song is a classic piano ballad, the highlight of the album and by far the best song out of the handful Paul wrote for second wife Heather Mills. Intriguingly the piano chords are subtlety similar to ‘My Love’, his song for Linda and the lyrics are similarly dodgy (well, less ‘inspired’ than the music anyway) but the tune is one of those ‘sounds like its been around for five generations’ McCartney classics. The song was reportedly written in a hotel room in America who – hearing that they had a famous musicians staying with them – got the porters to bust their backs lugging a grand piano up to Paul’s suite ‘just in case’ any music happened while he was there. The medical bills were well worth it – this is arguably the last 100% classic of the McCartney canon to date.

“Your Mind Has Left Your Body” (Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and David Freiberg, ‘Baron Von Tollbooth And The Chrome Nun’ 1973)

A track from the last and most obscure record out of the Kantner/Slick solo spin off trilogy, this album came out pretty close to the release date for ‘Dragonfly’ the first Jefferson Starship record where all three musicians were on a real creative roll. This is a Kantner song, less political than his others for the record and recounting either a dream or a drug-induced stupor where nothing is what we think it is. Sleepy, slow and ominous, it’s an atmospheric highlight of a record that’s been ignored by Airplane fans for far too long. Kantner and Freiberg (once of ‘Quicksilver Messenger Service’) were never better, adding a bass rumble over which Grace simply soars. It’s a shame that the three of them never made another album and that indeed Freiberg will be all but silenced creatively by the time of Starship’s third LP with a split between Kantner and Slick already surfacing by the following year. Another song that’s more or less the last 100% classic Jefferson moment (well, except for ‘Dragonfly’ and some of the songs on Grace’s ‘Dreams’ LP anyway) but at the time was just one jewel among many.

“Your One And Only Man” (Otis Redding, ‘The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads’ 1965)

One of my favourite Otis songs, this is a groovy beat ballad which plays to all of Otis’ strengths: a lyric he can get his teeth into, an expressive vocal line that’s filled with tonnes of emotion but a slightly more subtle and muted backing than usual that enhances the realism of the song. This song from Otis’ second record ‘Soul Ballads’ is one of the singer’s own songs and it fits him like a glove, giving him a chance to get more and more emotional as the song winds out of control, only to slap back down to earth with an unexpected bump. There’s a neat early use of minor keys, too, that Otis was only beginning to use near the end of his career but it suits the singer well, his typical ‘Mr Pitiful’ character determined to break through every obstacle in his path to be with the one he loves.

“Your Possible Pasts” (Pink Floyd, ‘The Final Cut’ 1983)

How different the lives of all of us might have been with just a few accidental mist-steps down the road of life. For Roger Waters they flutter behind his main character for his final Floyd album (the teacher from ‘The Wall’, revealed to be a scarred war victim from WW2) ‘some bright-eyed and crazy, some scattered and lost’, warning his future to ‘take care’. This simple, emotional man is hardened by the battles he experienced in his youth and its left him unable to express love ort feeling, something that in turn he passes on to the unfortunate kids of the 1940s and 50s in his care. How different his life could have been had he not experienced death and injuries on such a scale; how different the pupils’ lives might have been without such an evil presence bullying them through their formative years. All this leaves The Teacher an unhappy but believable, coming home from a hard day’s corporal punishment to bark at his wife ‘do you think we should be closer?’, fighting his way past everyone in life because that’s how he’s been told to behave. One of the more thoughtful songs from ‘The Final Cut’, a rollercoaster stop-start ride that’s difficult to listen to but highly revealing about the characters within.

“Your Way” (Paul McCartney, ‘Driving Rain’ 2001)

‘Driving Rain’ is back on this list again with a sweet acoustic love song that was also written for Heather Mills. The opening bass descend while the guitar stretches upwards is an old McCartney trick (Wings used it a lot, especially on their first few B-sides) and the bouncy tune is very Macca, although the pedal steel is a nice, new sound to add to the mix. The lyrics are slightly deeper than they sound on first hearing too, the sound of a character used to getting his own way bowing before the might of a bossy power and accepting that for the sake of the relationship its better to ‘lose’ a few battles to win the war (thus making this song perhaps the best description of the brief Macca-Mills relationship). Unfortunately the song doesn’t really know where to go after its strong beginning and the song simply repeats itself therein, ending up on an uncomfortable chorus (‘Your way is mine, your way is right, your way is mine tonight’).

“Yours Truly, Confused, N10” (Ray Davies, single, 2008)

Ray Davies has been a grumpy old man since at least the age of 23. ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone?’ is not the sort of song most youngsters from the 1960s thought to write and yet Ray wasn’t fooled by the talk of hippies and utopias (you only need to hear the very last Kinks song ‘Did Ya?’ from 1993 to see how little he thought of music’ greatest decade). However even the 1960s seem like paradise compared to the then-present of 2008, a world that’s gone mad and is obsessed by celebrities, has an ignorant media full of rampaging spin doctors, where politicians act as terrorists and where crime is so rife that no one cares about their fellow human beings any more. Ray’s narrator is distraught, writing this song as an ‘open letter’ to the press getting more and more passionate with every verse while the unexpected return of a brass section (for the first time since 1975) gives the song a traditional basis quite at odds with the noise overdubbed on top. Relegated to an EP and later a ‘bonus’ track on a solo best-of, this song is one of Ray’s best in years, a logical conclusion to the last 45 years of songwriting. The postcode, by the way, is one for ‘Muswell Hill’, the area of London in which Ray (and Dave) were born although at the time this song was released the elder Davies brother had been living in America for some time. Probably for good reason given some of the comments made in the song.

“Yvonne’s The One” (10cc/Paul McCartney, ‘Mirror Mirror’ 1995)

Fans of both artists forget that for a time Paul McCartney and 10cc’s Eric Stewart were best buddies and writing partners. They weren’t together that long (their album ‘Press To Play’ was received really poorly by press and fans who should know better – its actually one of Paul’s best five LPs and the pair had a falling out over whether Eric should ‘engineer’ the record as he had with 10cc) but still hit a rich vein of magic, some of which was still being recycled by the time of an ill-fated 10cc reunion in the 1990s (when Eric and Graham Gouldmann were ‘forced’ back into working together after their record company decided they still owed two more albums). Paul never released his version of the song, which is a great shame – its a catchy pop song with one of Macca’s best ever middle eights ful of regret and longing which has only ever appeared on bootleg and is probably the best single song in the McCartney canon yet to be released now that ‘A Love For You’ finally came out in 2012). 10cc’s later version is horrible by comparison, sped up and with a reggae limp for backing that seems at odds with the song’s good humour and sweet memories. Given the fact that the album was made at short notice (allegedly with Eric and Graham working in separate studios) you can understand why the song was revived, but why not stick to the original arrangement – Paul sang it in lovely falsetto on the original which is a good near-match for Eric’s own voice. Sadly this Yvonne really isn’t the one, but the first ‘demo’ version of the song is.

“Zilch” (The Monkees, ‘Headquarters’ 1967)

‘Mr Dobelina, Mr Bob Dobelina...China Clipper Calling Alameta...Never mind the furthermore the plea is self defence...It is of my opinion that the people are intending...Chickens...Elepehants...Zilch!’ If that isn’t the single weirdest lyric in the whole of the AAA canon then, well, I’m a spice girl (‘Writealot Spice’ how does that sound?) but it all seemed to make more sense back in 1967 when psychedelia was in the air and The Monkees caught the bug more than most. This song’s parent LP ‘Headquarters’ is a fascinating cornucopia of every sound available in March 1967 from pop songs to protest to rock to country, but it’s in the little segues (this song and ‘Band 6’) where the band’s humour and personality come through in an attempt to add more of ‘themselves’ into a record they were also writing, producing and playing on for the first time. All the phrases were ‘in-jokes’, overheard by the band on their world tour and cobbled together in a sort of low budget version of The Beatles’ ‘Revolution 9’, though quite why the band used ‘zilch’ as a title (slang for ‘zero’) is anyone’s guess!

“Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” (The Hollies, ‘The Hollies’ compilation, 1985)

Yes, we really do mean the Disney track from ‘Song Of The South’. And yes, you’re right, that is a strange choice for a song which might be why it sat on a shelf at Abbey Road for some 20 years before being revived for a compilation. Actually, it’s pretty good, the song being revved up beat style with some superb drumming from Bobby Elliott and a throat-tearing vocal from Allan Clarke and Graham Nash that even makes lines about bluebirds sitting on shoulders sound like they are urgent and important. The Hollies had a thing about ‘birds’ at the time (no not that sort!) also recording ‘Rockin’ Robin’ in the same period.

“Zor and Zam” (The Monkees, ‘The Birds, The Bees and The Monkees’ 1968)

We return to The Monkees for our final song – and what a song it is folks! Betrayal, Royalty, wars, hatred and revenge, with two brothers going to battle over some minor falling out and expecting the citizens they ruled over to give up their lives for the cause. The song was written by Bill Chadwick (a Monkee audtionee himself who worked for a time as Micky’s stand in in the TV series) and was written as the title song for an animated TV series that sadly never happened (they’d probably have struggled to come up with plots every week but on the basis of this one song alone it would have been fab!) Micky (the real one that is) was rarely better than on this song, a perfect two minute miniature masterpiece where the citizens revolt in the name of love and peace, leaving the two kings of the title reflecting on their loss of power and status. They held a war – and nobody came.

And that really is that folks, the Alan’s Album Archive canon literally from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ in two compact weeks (although you’ll have to view the other 280 odd issues and counting to read about the songs in between!) We’ll have another dozen songs or so for you to read about next week in our usual review section – till then, so long for another week and see you soon!

A NOW COMPLETE List Of Top Five/Top Ten/TOP TWENTY Entries 2008-2019

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144) AAA Top 10: The Motor Car (News, Views and Music 156)

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145) AAA Singles With The Most Weeks On The US Billboard Charts (...

This week we’re going to have a look at the 10 AAA singles that spent the most weeks at number on the American chart ‘Billboard’ – and it makes for...

146) AAA Albums With The Most Weeks On The USA Billboard Charts (...

Following on from last issue’s study of the American Billboard charts, here’s a look at which AAA albums spent the most weeks on the chart. The...

147) AAA Songs Featuring Whistling (News, Views and Music Issue 1...

There are many dying arts in our modern world: incorruptible politicians, faith that things are going to get better and the ability to make decent...

148) The Session Musicians Who've Played On The Most AAA Albums (...

This week we’ve decided to dedicate our top ten to those unsung heroes of music, the session musicians, whose playing often brings AAA artists (and...

149) Top 10 Silliest AAA Album Titles (News, Views and Music Issu...

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150) A Short Guide To 10 AAA Spin-Off Bands (News, Views and Musi...

What do you do when you’ve left a multi-million selling band and yet you still feel the pull of the road and the tours and the playing to audiences...

151) Martin Kitcher "The ATOS Song (You're Not Fit To Live)"

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152) AAA Songs (More Or Less) Exclusive To Film Soundtracks (News...

In honour of this week’s review of an album released to cash in on a movie soundtrack (only one of these songs actually appears in ‘Easy Rider’...and...

153) AAA Alcohilic-hic! Songs (Top 10 News, Views and Music 164)

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154) The human singing voice carries with it a vast array of emotions, thoughts that cannot be expressed in any other way except opening the lungs and...

156) AAA Songs About Carlisle (News, Views and Music Top Five Iss...

Everyone has a spiritual home, even if they don’t actually live there. Mine is in a windy, rainy city where the weather is always awful but the...

157) AAA Songs About Children Being Born (News, Views and Music I...

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158) The Best AAA Outtakes (News, Views and Music Issue 168)

Some artists just have no idea what their best work really is. One thing that amazes me as a collector is how consistently excellent many of the...

169) The Last 10 AAA Songs Listed Alphabetically http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-last-10-aaa-songs-listed.html%20%0d170

170) Tributes To The 10 AAA Stars Who Died The Youngest http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-10-youngest-aaa-stars-at-time-of.html%20%0d171

171) The 10 Best Songs From The Psychedelia Box-Sets ‘Nuggets’ and ‘Nuggets Two’ http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-best-of-two-nuggets-psychedelia.html%20%0d172

172) The 20 Most Common Girl’s Names In AAA Song Titles (With Definitions) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/girls-names-in-aaa-song-titles-from.html

17 3) NME/Melody Maker Questionairres Filled Out By AAA Bands http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/nmemelody-maker-questionairres-filled.html

174) Top Ten AAA Bootlegs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/top-10-aaa-bootlegs-news-views-and.html

175) Days Of The Week AAA Style http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/days-of-week-aaa-style-news-views-and.html

176) AAA Musicals http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/aaa-musicals-news-views-and-music-issue.html

177) Interesting AAA Line-Ups That Were Or Nearly Were http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ten-interesting-aaa-line-ups-that-were.html

178) The 101 Greatest AAA Songs Of All Time (Maybe?!) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-greatest-101-aaa-songs-well-ish-see.html

179) Mrs Thatcher Meets The Devil http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/mrs-thatcher-meets-devil-plus-intro-for.html

180) First Recordings By Future AAA Stars http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/first-

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181) The Ten Oldest AAA Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-ten-oldest-aaa-songs-news-views-and.html

182) AAA Artists (Books Of Paintings) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aaa-artists-books-of-paintings-news.html

183) AAA Appearances on TV Show 'Colour Me Pop' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aaa-appearances-on-colour-me-pop-tv.html

184) AAA Years In Song http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aaa-years-in-song-news-views-and-music.html

185) A Tribute To Storm Thorgerson Via The Five AAA Bands He Worked With http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/a-tribute-to-hipgnosis-via-five-aaa.html

186) Five Top AAA Apps http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/top-five-aaa-apps-news-views-and-music.html

187) The Ultimate Grateful Dead Concert Setlist http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-ultimate-grateful-dead-concert-top.html

188) Surprise! Celebrating 300 Album Reviews With The Biggest 'Surprises' Of The Past Five Years Of Alan's Album Archives! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/celebrating-300-album-reviews-10.html

189) Top Ten Dave Davies Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/top-ten-dave-davies-songs-news-views.html

190) Comparatively Obscure First Compositions By AAA Stars http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/comparatively-obscure-debut.html

191) Famous AAA Fathers: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/famous-aaa-fathers-news-views-and-music.html

192) The Best Five AAA Re-Issue CD Series http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-best-five-aaa-re-issues-series-news.html

193) Evolution Of A Band: Comparing First Lyric With Last Lyric: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/evolution-of-band-comparing-1st-lyric.html

194) Ten Of The Best AAA Riffs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ten-of-best-aaa-riffs-news-views-and.html

195) Twenty AAA Milestone Moments Part One 1956-66 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/twenty-aaa-milestone-events-part-one.html

196) Twenty AAA Milestone Moments Part Two 1967-80 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/twenty-aaa-milestone-events-part-two.html

197) Eleven Random Recent Purchases http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/eleven-random-recent-purchases.html

198) Five AAA Outcasts Who Know More Than They Let Onhttp://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/five-aaa-outcast-characters-who-know.html

199) That's Why They Call It The (Top Ten) Blues! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/thats-why-they-call-it-bluesaaa-top-ten.html

200) The Monkees In Relation To Postmodernism (University Dissertation) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/university-dissertation-monkees-in.html

201) The Music Never Stopped: AAA Youtube Video #5 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-music-never-stopped-alans-album.html

202) Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain': Was It About One Of The AAA Crew? http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/carly-simons-youre-so-vain-was-it-about.html

203) Ten AAA Stars In Further Education http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/aaa-stars-in-further-education-top-five.html

204) AAA Dramas and Plays http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/aaa-dramas-and-plays-news-views-and.html

205) Abandoned AAA Album Covers http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/abandoned-aaa-album-covers-top-ten-news.html

206) Chinese Horoscopes AAA Style http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/chinese-horoscopes-aaa-style-top-twelve.html

207) Top Ten Songs The Beatles 'Gave Away' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/top-ten-songs-beatles-gave-away-news.html

208) AAA Song Titles That Are The Same As Other AAA Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/aaa-songs-with-same-titles-as-other-aaa.html

209) Updates to Our 'Special Editions' #1 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/updates-to-our-special-editions-on.html

210) Most Parodied AAA Albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-most-parodied-aaa-album-covers-news.html

211) Longest Average AAA Songs Per Album http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-longest-average-aaa-songs-per-album.html

212) Shortest Average AAA Songs Per Album http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-shortest-average-aaa-songs-per.html

213) An AAA Guide To The Twenty Best Dr Who Stories http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-20-best-doctor-who-stories-aaa.html

214) AAA Songs and Albums Based On Books http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/aaa-songsalbums-based-on-books-and.html

215) Top Ten AAA Concert Quotes http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/top-aaa-quotes-from-concerts-top.html

216) Top Ten Surrealist AAA Lyrics http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/top-ten-sureallist-aaa-song-lyrics-news.html

217) AAA 'Christmas Presents' we'd most like to have next year http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/aaa-christmas-presents-wed-most-like-to.html

218) Review Of The Year 2013 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-year-2013-news-views-and.html

219) Nominate This Site For A Shorty Award 2014 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/nominate-this-site-for-shorty-award-2014.html

220) A Tribute To Phil Everly http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-tribute-to-phil-everly-everly.html

221) Dr Who and the AAA (Five Musical Links) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/dr-who-and-five-musical-links-to-alans.html

222) Five Random Recent Purchases http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/five-random-recent-purchases-news-views.html

223) AAA Grammy Nominees http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/aaa-grammy-nominees-top-twelve-news.html

224) Ten AAA songs that are better heard unedited and in full http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/ten-aaa-songs-that-are-better-unedited.html

225) The shortest gaps between AAA albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-shortest-gaps-between-aaa-albums.html

226) The longest gaps between AAA albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-longest-gaps-between-aaa-albums.html

227) Top ten AAA drummers http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/03/top-ten-aaa-drummers-news-views-and.html

228) Top Ten AAA Singles (In Terms of 'A' and 'B' Sides) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/top-ten-aaa-singles-and-b-sides-news.html

229) The Stories Behind Six AAA Logos http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-stories-behind-six-aaa-logos.html

230) AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! The Best Ten AAA Screams http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-best-aaa-screams-top-ten-news-views.html

231) An AAA Pack Of Horses http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-songs-about-horses-top-ten-news.html

232) AAA Granamas - Sorry, Anagrams! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-anagrams-news-views-and-music-issue.html

233) AAA Surnames and Their Meanings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-surnames-and-their-meanings-news.html

234) 20 Erroneous AAA Album Titles http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/twenty-erroneous-aaa-album-titles-news.html

235) The Best AAA Orchestral Arrangements http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/fifteen-great-aaa-string-parts-news.html

236) Top 30 Hilariously Misheard Album Titles/Lyrics http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/top-thirty-hilariously-misheard-aaa.html

237) Ten controversial AAA sackings - and whether they were right http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/ten-controversial-aaa-sackings-news.html

238) A Critique On Critiquing - In Response To Brian Wilson http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-critique-on-critiquing-in-response-to.html

239) The Ten MusicianS Who've Played On The Most AAA Albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-ten-musicians-whove-played-on-most.html

240) Thoughts on #CameronMustGo http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/thoughts-on-cameronmustgo.html

241) Random Recent Purchases (Kinks/Grateful Dead/Nils Lofgren/Rolling Stones/Hollies) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/six-random-recent-purchases-kinksg.html

242) AAA Christmas Number Ones http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/aaa-christmas-number-ones.html

243) AAA Review Of The Year 2014 (Top Releases/Re-issues/Documentaries/DVDs/Books/Songs/ Articles plus worst releases of the year) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/aaa-review-of-year-2014.html

244) Me/CFS Awareness Week 2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/mecfs-awareness-week-at-alans-album.html

245) Why The Tory 2015 Victory Seems A Little...Suspicious http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/why-tory-victory-seems-deeply.html

246) A Plea For Peace and Tolerance After The Attacks on Paris - and Syria http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/a-plea-for-peace-and-toleration.html

247) AAA Review Of The Year 2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2015.html

248) The Fifty Most Read AAA Articles (as of December 31st 2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-fifty-most-read-aaa-posts-2008-2015.html

249) The Revised AAA Crossword! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016_07_10_archive.html

250) AAA Review Of The Year 2016 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2016.html

251) Half-A-Dozen Berries Plus One (An AAA Tribute To Chuck Berry) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/an-aaa-covers-tribute-to-chuck-berry.html

252) Guest Post: ‘The Skids – Joy’ (1981) by Kenny Brown https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/guest-post-skids-joy-1981.html

253) AAA Review Of The Year 2017 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2017.html

254) Guest Post: ‘Supertramp – Some Things Never Change’ by Kenny Brown https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/guest-review-supertramp-some-things.html

255) AAA Review Of The Year 2018 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2018.html

256) AAA Review Of The Year 2019 plus Review Of The Decade 2010-2019 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-alans-album-archives-review-of-year.html

257) Tiermaker https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2019/06/alans-album-archives-on-tiermaker.html

258) #Coronastock https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronastock.html

259) #Coronadocstock https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2020/05/coronadocstock.html

Sunday, 20 January 2013

News, Views and Music Issue 179 (Intro)

January 23rd:

Dear all, what a shock this last week has been! We’ve lost (or seem about to lose) HMV (a shop very close to my heart), Jessops and Blockbuster and all the Government can say is isn’t it wonderful that the unemployment record is still ok (thanks, no doubt, to a ridiculous number of unnecessary sanctions to slew the figures). If HMV does go I shall be very sorry indeed – in fact there’s not much point shopping anywhere physically anymore as that’s where the majority of my presents and a good percentage of my collection reviewed on these pages have come from. Our partners Amazon are extremely valuable too, but you can’t browse the shelves of an online warehouse and a whole way of life for music collectors like us will be gone if HMV are forced to shut their doors for the final time. Things are getting desperate – and the Coalition have no answers, no patented paths to set us free (not to mention they don’t know where we want to go and it’s definitely not the same place as me; 10 points if you spot the musical reference there).

Money is tight for almost all of us at the moment (well, except for the MPs who voted for a 32% pay rise in April – and no that didn’t make the news and yes it is true). However we’ve had a couple of comments recently saying that ‘if only you had a donate button I’d give money to you’. Yes, we’re shocked as well. With the help of our IT technical advisor the Face of Bo we now have a ‘donate’ button o our Blogspot site (although we’ve had to make it a ‘help!’ button seeing as we can only legally use the word donate if we’re a charity according to Paypal) We don’t expect you to pay anything. We’re proud to offer our services for free and give something back for the great music we receive, but I had to do it when someone asked for it, if only to keep the job centre quiet. Rest in peace that our site will always be free (well in my lifetime anyway) and will always be there, somehow: it doesn’t cost much to maintain and at the moment my illness means I have nothing better to do with my time anyway. However we thought you’d better know why there was suddenly a huge button on ther site saying ‘help!’ – and no this isn’t a plug for the Beatles song!
One last point. Details are sketchy so it won’t appear in our ‘news section’ yet but word is that the long awaited Stephen Stills box set will be available in mid February to join the Crosby and Nash sets (which are now seven and five years old respectively). The set is titled ‘Carry On’ but that’s all the details we have at present – we’ll let you know more when we hear it! Meantime here are some more news stories for you, available by clicking this link:

http://paper.li/f-1347835090

Nils Lofgren and Grin "1+1" (1972)

“Right along, stars at dawn, and I feel like I’m broken inside, tell me I’m wrong pretty lady because the strong part of me keeps carrying on by your side” “I miss you oh how I cry, right like back when you die, my love was misunderstood, I wouldn’t leave if I could” “I thought love might be more but it hurts me at night, deeper now than before I won’t live by the light, spending all I could take baby that was my first mistake, baby please don’t hide, you’re too nice and besides that I’m going to love you tonight” “You ain’t got to hide away, you ain’t got to hide at all, if you’re wondering how I’m going to move you, it’s my slippery fingers that’s all” “Here I come again on a Saturday night after the first love that ever felt right, ask me ‘is it right to love another guy?’, at first I say ‘yes’ and then I say ‘why’?!” “Everyone’s trying to love the one I love, I don’t think they really understand love, it’s easy to fall and it’s harder to part, but my love it always comes from the heart!” “I tried hard to be your friend, love is dangerous but it’s quick to end, a friend like me is of the mind, it shouldn’t never ever have to end unkind” “I got the feeling you’re leaving, I got the feeling you’re gone!” “Don’t let girls get you down, they’re just beautiful, don’t let tears find your eyes, they’re lost ladies in disguise, don’t let crowds change your clown, desperate daughters shopping around, don’t let girls get you down, they’re just beautiful” “Hi, hello home, it’s good to be alone, hope it ain’t been hurting you this missing me, I been away so long I thought you felt wrong, play with me tonight, sing some harmony” “Now I can be your fool or I can be your friend, but I need a little love and sympathy, it’s hard to recognise that somewhere in your eyes my eyes used to dance with yours in harmony” “Seems as though each time she feels the warmth of someone kind some thing’s always happening to make her change her mind, it’s a feeling that when someone gives she shouldn’t even take, so instead of living off herself she finds someone to break, please my lord, please my lord lead her to my home, bend her heart remember that her love was just a poem” “When you cry I feel so dad, you’re the only one I had, here’s a melody to sing your feelings to...” “She cried at midnight, tears run down till dawn, hated a crowd she tried stopping but just had to keep right on, she cried for freedom, a sad sigh long with love, all you lonely people grasping things you just don’t know of” “I give me heart to you my soft fun, I’m lying, crying, God I’m dying by you, you’re not given to be such a lonely one, it hurts me inside but that’s alright” “She hides in rooms, hating her past, afraid to cry, scared to die, can’t separate this one from the rest”

NILS LOFGREN AND GRIN ‘1+1’ (1972)

White Lies/Please Don’t Hide/Slippery Fingers/Moon Tears/End Unkind//Sometimes/Lost A Number/Hi, Hello Home/Just A Poem/Soft Fun

Most of the small number of Nils Lofgren reviews around in the ether seem to start the same way: with bags of talent, tonnes of charisma and a stage act to die for, Nils Lofgren really could have been somebody. The fact that Nils played guitar with Neil Young, was a member of Crazy Horse for years, later ended up in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for most of their tours and records and later still was the only member of Ringo’s All Starrs band to last for two tours in a row makes the lack of instantly recognisable Lofgren hits played on the radio and the disgracefully small section on Nils in the Guinness Hit Singles and Albums books hard to take for his many fans. Yet it’s hard to see what else he could have done. The album we place before you for your delectation this week is perhaps Nils’ best known work, an inventive record made when Nils was still in his teens, was working with then-international superstar Graham Nash and is produced by none other than Neil Young’s comrade in arms David Briggs (virtually the only time in his long career Briggs ever thought another act was worth producing). To boot the timing of this early career peak (after a so-so first record the year before) couldn’t have been better: by the time of its release Nils had already played on most of Neil’s ‘After The Goldrush’ record (one of the must-have purchases of 1970) and the well received eponymous Crazy Horse debut album (where Nils, un-credited, co-writes one of the songs of the decade on ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’). Hearing the youthful energy on ‘1+1’ and its pioneering use of the two sides of a vinyl record as two very separate entities, a product that wouldn’t have you have to wonder why this album didn’t become a million seller, an album the equal of those made by bigger names Nils had already made his name for by giving a helping hand.

However the road to stardom is rocky for almost everyone (even the Spice Girls were failures from various modelling, acting and singing jobs – although actually I can see that somehow) and despite being billed ‘as the next big superstar likely to break’ for at least the first eight years of his career it never quite happened for Nils, who chased one dream after another only to see none of them turn out quite the way he wanted. All Nils Lofgren album undeniably have something to offer, some more than others but out of all the Lofgren canon ‘1+1’ is the album that to me seems the most likely candidate for as breakthrough. There are better Lofgren albums than this around admittedly (‘Damaged Goods’ being easily the best and most consistent though not terribly representative of his sound), but ‘1+1’ sounds the most complete somehow, the record that best shows what Lofgren had to offer the world that no one else could: a winning mixture of punkish adolescence and childish naivety, dressed up in orchestral arrangements straight from heaven and rock posing straight from hell. Nils even has the maturity and insight to split these songs into two to cater for the fans who’ve fallen in love with either side of his personality, potentially the first time ever a songwriter had delivered two such contrasting sides (send me a comment if there’s an example you think I might have missed!) The Rolling Stones will take much of the credit for the idea in 1981 with ‘Tattoo You’ but that’s a special example anyway, seeing as it was cobbled together from leftovers that had been in their vaults for years. Also, unlike the Stones there is no ‘number’ on the record sleeve telling you which to play first, although both CD re-issues of the album that I’ve seen (one its own and one a two-fer-one with follow-up ‘All Out’) put the ‘rocking’ side first and the ‘dreamy’ side second.

One other reason this album could have been big was that Nils was part of perhaps his greatest ever band, Grin – a group who in truth were closer to Wings than The Beatles in democratic terms (even their name was derived from Lofgren’s own) but were a really good fit for their times in the early 70s, energetic and spirited but with a touch of depth that allowed them to make ‘symphonic poems’ and light pop ballads after 20 minutes of fierce rocking numbers. Both bassist Bob Gordon and drummer Bob Berberich share Lofgren’s eclectic tastes for lots of genres and the latter even adds his own gutsy bass rumble to a few songs for reasons of colour; certainly both musicians deserve better than to fade into obscurity after the band split in 1974 (in two records time) and would have brightened up some of Lofgren’s later, lesser bands in the decades to come. Brother Tom isn’t part of the band yet, Grin being restricted to a power trio not that dissimilar to The Jam in six years or so’s time, with Nils the main writer, singer and guitarist throughout their short run.

If there’s one thing that hurts this album it’s that it probably tries a little too hard to cover every style known to man in its 10 songs. Not content with dividing this album up into ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ numbers, Lofgren – still searching for his own style – comes up with five variations on each. The ‘rocking’ side finds Grin starting off as catchy pop-rockers with a killer riff on ‘White Lies’, turns aggressive punk on ‘Please Don’t Hide’, slips to gutbucket blues for ‘Slippery Fingers’, end up as rock Gods on the take-no-prisoners guitar showcase ‘Moontears’ and then slips into a hybrid somewhere between heavy metal and music hall on ‘End Unkind’, a song that doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry (so instead it ends up with a curious sound effect that sounds like a little of both). The dreaming side is almost as schizophrenic (or should that be quintaphrenic?), the band starting with simple laidback acoustic rock on ‘Sometimes’, turning into 60s Merseybeat on ‘Lost A Number’, a sort of country-folk-rock-with-Beach-Boys harmonies hybrid on ‘Hi, Hello Home’ before turning orchestral on the final two songs, the muted ‘Just A Poem’ and the overblown ‘Soft Fun’. The first ‘Grin’ album was almost as jarring as this too, switching from a heartbroken ballad to heavy metal posing in its first two songs, but the sheer range of styles on offer here means that the listener never quite gets to grip with who Nils Lofgren is. As the decades wear on and the albums mount up Lofgren’s art will find better ways of mixing these genres into something whole, often with a blues frill to the rock and ballad leanings within, but for now this is a collection of expert ingredient styles thrown into a melting pot that doesn’t necessarily make for the most consistent or edible bit of baking.

Then again, that might be why I love ‘1+1’ so much. Albums today find artists finding one style that suits them and then sticking to that style come what may, whether it’s in or out of fashion. There’s little time or space for experimentation anymore and certainly no time for a band to find its feet (Grin were hard done by, having their contract terminated after just four albums, but in 2013 they’d be lucky to make a second one if the first wasn’t a hit) so that when you do get to fall in love with someone’ work you invariably learn all you need to know in the opening few bars. Grin date back to a time when music could have gone in almost any direction: with the 60s gone and mourned for across 1969 and 1970 (and without the Beatles left to show the music world the way forward) rock and roll did indeed become as fragmented as this. In 1971 (as a general view at least) heavy metal began to grow, rockabilly and blues made a comeback, protest was in but so was lightweight glam rock, while prog rock reached ever further into outer space and folk-rock brought us back to Earth with a bump. Nobody back then could have predicted what would be the next big thing and indeed most people interested in music squabbled about what was the music of the day. Rock and roll, in any form, had become split into lots of pieces any one of which could have coagulated into the next big movement (in the end nobody is really unified until punk, which at least split people into lovers and haters unlike the grey area of the rest of music of the times)– and almost all of those possible futures are on this record. Had I been around in 1971 I’m willing to bet that I’d have worshipped this LP, with my favourite songs from it changing on a daily (if not hourly) basis as the sounds came and went out of fashion. Hearing it in 2013 I still love it, but the whirling sea-changes from one sound to the next mean that ‘1+1’ isn’t built for easy listening.

Two things you can’t fault the album on are musicianship and melody. Some of the catchiest rock and ballad songs of the decade are on this album, from the blistering ‘Moontears’ (which contains possibly the best rock and roll riff Pete Townshend, Ray Davies and Keith Richards failed to use) and the classy gorgeous melody of ‘Soft Fun’ (a song which is terribly overdone on this album but will blossom into a real beauty on future Nils Lofgren live sets). Interestingly these two songs I’ve singled out are the only two that the casual Lofgren fan (if there is such a thing given his passionate fanbase!) might now, regulars in the live set that both grow into entirely new beasts on stage with the passing years. ‘Moontears’, here an abject exercise in Rock God posing and a lean, fat-free explosion of noise wrapped up in two minutes could sometimes last for seven or eight on stage, while ‘Soft Fun’ here sounds like a demo compared to later live versions that make the most of the song’s aching longing and risk of commitment (even though this version features everything but the kitchen sink – and probably has that low in the mix somewhere). I’ve read that the sessions for this album were hurried, small label Spindizzy clearly not having the resources or the patience to let this band hone their craft, but that small window of opportunity brings the best out of the group (which might be why this album is the second-shortest of Nils’ career, lasting just 34: 24). The rough edges left in the mix on side one fizzle and burn like all good rock bands should, with a minimum of overdubs (that curious sound effect on ‘End Unkind’ aside) and fuss, the trio clearly playing in the same room (rare for rock in 1971). Lofgren’s guitar is recorded with real clarity, his effervescent runs adding swathes of colour to the silhouettes carved out by the other two, along with occasional piano and accordion (also played by Nils, fresh from his experiences learning the former instrument overnight to play on ‘After The Goldrush’ at Neil Young’s request). The other eight songs are, to varying degrees, pretty successful to mildly successful attempts at capturing the same magic and certainly improve on the first, horribly inconsistent first album ‘Grin’ (made up of three out-and-out classic and nine cases of filler).

Talking of filler, Nils hasn’t yet learnt how to write lyrics as inspired as his melodies and the Achilles heel of ‘1+1’ is undoubtedly the words. To be fair, I’ve heard worse – especially by inexperienced 19 year olds working under pressure – but in retrospect I do wish Nils had found a writing partner in this early part of his career. Songs like ‘Please Don’t Hide’ and ‘Slippery Fingers’ end up sounding a little like generic empty rock songs, which is an awful shame given how many complex twists and turns the accompanying music goes through, while the ‘dreamy’ side (where so much emphasis is given on the vocals) is even worse. ‘Home and poem’ are rhymed at will on ‘Hi, Hello Home’, a rhyme which is unbelievably repeated again on ‘Just A Poem’, while I’m having trouble deciding if the peculiar words in the verses of ‘Lost A Number’ are an attempt to spoof early rock and roll a la 10cc (who scored big with the similar-sounding ‘Donna’ while this album was being made) or the sound of an inexperienced writer under pressure trying to sound like his heroes (and failing). However, even in the lyric department this album has its fair share of gems: ‘Moon Tears’ features possibly the best set of lyrics about adolescence not to appear on The Who’s run of early singles or ‘Quadrophenia’, ‘End Unkind’ features some clever quick-paced rhyming, ‘Just A Poem’ is the essence of a Renaissance painting in simple pop song form and best of all ‘Soft Fun’ is (on paper at least) an abstract tender poem that’s evocative and descriptive and quite unlike any other song made before or since. Frankly, if this album was written to order then perhaps Nils future record companies like A&M, CBS and Rykodisk should have followed suit.

Given the sheer scale and range of the album it’s hard to find a coherent message in this album, but the theme of loss keeps cropping up again and again. I don’t know for certain but I’m willing to bet that Nils had his heart broken at least once during the preparation of this album (or, possibly, that this hurried second album was inspired by events from earlier in his past only briefly touched on in ‘Grin’) because, like ‘Pet Sounds’, it feels as if there’s a chronological story of heartbreak somewhere in these grooves but that the order of the story is missing. It could simply be that there is no connection between the songs and that its all imaginary but, well, that’s boring so I’ve had a go at coming up with my own story: It could be that Nils’ narrator falls in love (‘Sometimes’ and ‘Just A Poem’), offers his declaration of devotion (‘Soft Fun’), only to lose his girlfriend’s telephone number (‘Lost A Number’), fails to track down his beloved (‘Please Don’t Hide’) only to find out that she’s keeping out of his way deliberately (‘Slippery Fingers’), spreading nasty rumours (‘White Lies’) and breaking his heart (‘after the first love that ever felt right’ ‘Moon Tears’) before giving up the pursuit entirely (‘End Unkind’). Meanwhile Nils gives up looking for his love and return home, shattered, vowing that ‘home is where the heart is’ and that he’ll never go out searching for happiness again. Even if I’m only partly right, it still sounds as if a still teenage Nils is suffering by someone’s hand, cautiously trusting his beloved just long enough to open his heart and have it hurled into the fire of heartbreak in spite of his courage. As ever with songwriters, you sense we’re not getting the whole story here (‘Lost A Number’ is the only song at fault and ends bizarrely, the girl seemingly knowing that he’d lose the number but track her down anyway so she moves house, taking the time to pin a picture of ‘her two beautiful rainbow eyes’ to her living room wall and trusting that the new residents won’t mind or take it down – which sounds like a cover up for something Lofgren doesn’t want to think about to me). Well, hey, at least the plotline for this story hangs together better than ‘Mama Mia’ or the Spice Girls’ ‘Viva Forever’!

Overall, then, ‘1+1’ isn’t a perfect album by any means. Even treated as a second album made to a tight deadline it doesn’t have the insight of ‘With The Beatles’, the intelligence of the Moody Blues’ ‘In Search Of The Lost Chord’ or the sheer power of Oasis’ ‘What’s The Story Morning Glory’. I’ll tell you something though – if I’d been part of the music business in 1971 and got hold of a copy of this album then I’d have joined every other music critic of the day, chomped on my big cigar and said ‘this boy’s got talent and a real future’. oR, to put it another way, had I been Neil Young and Nils had bravely knocked on my stage door and asked to sing me these songs I’d have hired him on the spot too (although arguably I wouldn’t have made Nils learn to play the piano from scratch), assuming I hadn’t been scared of the talent on show. To put Nils’ achievements in context the only other AAA stars to have come up with an album this good at such a young age are Lulu (15 when she scored her first hit, as we’ll be seeing next week) and The Small Faces (who were 19 and 18 when they made their first album for Decca), neither of whom were doing any songwriting at that age. Yes there are holes on this record – and we have indeed picked at one or two – but there are a million reasons why this record isn’t the best thing ever made. What’s amazing in retrospect (given the date of the recording, the age of the participants and the speed with which things happened) is how much of it works and works very well, inventing a few new concepts (such as the two themed sides) along the way for good measure. The worst of all this talent on display is that it never quite works out this good again for Nils, who really should have blown the world away on ‘1+1’s release and that of all his 18 studio albums to come only ‘Damaged Goods’ truly makes good on the promise shown on this album – and then by going in probably the only directions this eclectic album doesn’t cover (think John Lennon’s primal scream album crossed with an old blues singer with a taste for hip hop! but so much better than that description makes it sound...)

Note: as explained above, there is no ‘side one’ or ‘side two’ with this album, merely ‘rocking’ and ‘dreamy’ sides so can be heard in either order. However seeing as both CD copies of this album have put the ‘rocking’ side first that’s where we’re going to start with- please skip to the track ‘Sometimes’ if you wish to hear this album the other way around!

‘White Lies’ fulfils the ‘rocking’ remit rather well, being a pounding, breathless, exciting rock song that changes keys almost as often as the lying lover of the narrator changes her mind. Taken at a blistering pace, ‘White Lies’ really shows off Grin at their best, with the best group harmonies the band ever did (sounding very Beatlesy), surrounding a rough and gritty Lofgren vocal. The backing track is quite special too, dominated by Nils’ acoustic guitar but with Bob Gordon’s high bass work giving the sound much of its to-and-fro tension, the slightly breathless feeling you get travelling over bumps in the road, unsure where the band are going to land next (if indeed they land on their feet at all). Nils’ acoustic solo in the middle is less impressive (he’s not quite the guitar king he’ll be later in the decade) but even that gives the song a polish and maturity that shows off this band’s eclectic nature at its best. The lyrics work less well, being rather empty generic pop about lies between boy and girl friends, but that said even these are deeper than they first appear. You’d expect from the rather angry mood of the song that Nils’ narrator was fed up of being lied too, but it’s actually more complex than that – the chorus actually runs ‘don’t stop telling white lies’, because the truth of having all his faults laid bare is too much for the narrator (Lofgren will go on to develop the idea on one of his career best songs ‘Sticks and Stones’ from ‘Silver Lining’, where name-calling will always hurt). If the lyrics were written after the music then despite being rather obvious they’re a good fit – both the words and music to this song are seeking for the truth, hauling the listener down various cul-de-sacs on the way and switching this way to avoid hearing the truth. An energetic and impressive start to the album.

‘Please Don’t Hide’ dispenses with all those smooth edges at once, an angry, angular rocker that’s not too far astray from the punk songs to come at the end of the decade, with only a very Neil Young-ish guitar part to add the colour. Grin are at their primitive best on this song, pounding out the narrator’s please of wanting to get next to the girl of his dreams with suitable desperation and anxiety. There’s even a repeat of the central guitar riff from ‘White Lies’ stuck in the middle of the song, linking verse and chorus, which is interesting because it’s almost the same song in reverse (the teller of the ‘white lies’ trying to get the narrator to come out of his shell and face the truth, with the desperate plea ‘I’m going to love you tonight’). Nils’ vocal is even better than on the last song, with real sawdust in his voice, howling out his belief that their love ‘was misunderstood’ and vowing to spend the rest of his life trying to woo his loved one out of her shell. So convincing is the performance you reckon he’s probably still there in his old age, camped outside her door (even though she probably moved out decades ago). Again, if this song has a fault it’s the lyrics, most of which you could probably guess already from this outline if you haven’t already heard the album (‘I miss you oh how I cry, like love inside when you die’), but for a second song in a row there are enough melodic twists and turns to keep our interest and a towering performance saves what could have been a mediocre song in another’s hands. Listen out too for Nils’ guitar work on this recording, which is the first real time he develops his trademark sound of a fizzing Stratocaster played with a distinctive ‘slide’ sound, merging the notes together in an other-wordly howl (the ending of the song shows this especially, the rest of the band coming to a full stop with Nils’ guitar reverberating on into the ether, an unstoppable force of nature).

‘Slippery Fingers’ is a chance to take pause for breath, a gutbucket blues taken at a slower tempo than the other songs on this ‘rock’ side and with the deeper, gruffer, rawer tones of drummer Bob Berberich singing lead. A slightly seedy tale of a woman being pursued even after she’s said ‘no’ several times over, the narrator reveals that once she feels his ‘slippery fingers’ she won’t want to slip away at all. Poor Berberich was born in entirely the wrong era – both his vocals and his powerful drumming belong in the punk and new wave era – and sound a little at odds with the rest of the album and still sounds most unexpected now, never mind back in 1971 when ‘punk’ was still a term for a ‘whippersnapper’. The vocal and the lyrics are hard to hear anyway, even with Nils’ harmony so what we have to study really is another fine melody and backing track. Nils picks away at his guitar with style on what must have been a difficult backing track to create, while the two Bobs are impressively tight together considering that Bob Gordon had only been in the band a few months by this stage (replacing original bassist George Daly on the eve of the first Grin album). The riff is a good one too, dirty and dangerous and way better than any of the pale re-treads bands like Slade and Kiss will come up with in a few years’ time, genuinely intoxicating with their slight whiff of feedback and relentless power and urgency. Overall ‘Slippery Fingers’ isn’t one of the album’s better tracks but it’s interesting to hear the band try something different.

‘Moon Tears’, on the other hand, is the album highlight, a storming demented rocker played at double-speed that reaches so many peaks inside its two minutes that’s it almost a relief when it ends. Nils’ classic song about rejection really deserves to be better known, the narrator revealing to us that his latest girlfriend, ‘the first love that ever felt right’, has broken up with him too, leaving him downcast and crestfallen, ‘here again on a Saturday night’. She asks him if it would be alright to see ‘another guy’ – being a nice guy the narrator says ‘yes’ before walking home alright and wondering ‘why?!’ Cue a fabulous chorus where Nils is either doing a bit of astrology (being a Cancerian, albeit on a Leo cusp, he is a ‘moon’ baby and perhaps too nice and reasonable for his own good), calling out to the traditional symbol of romance the moon or simply reflects on how isolated and desolate our satellite looks, sorrowfully following the bountiful planet Earth around in the sky. A second verse then reaches even higher, the wronged adolescent declaring that no one else will ever understand her like he would have done and arguing ‘sometimes I think I’d feel better dead!’ Having reached another peak, Nils then hollers ‘come on!’ and flies into one of the best guitar solos ever recorded, a howl of despair that sounds like its ready to fall apart at any time before a second overdubbed guitar part joins it in its wail and the two chase each other back to earth, overlapping each other’s parts in superb style (in concert this part was played by Nils and brother Tom leaning over to play each other’s guitars! Fab!) Complex and clever, this solo is nonetheless perfectly cast for the song and the sound hovers during the third and final verse, a roar of feedback waiting to pounce. Opening with ‘listen!’ that final verse then tries to come to terms with the tragedy , reasoning that ‘it’s easy to fall and it’s harder to part’ before turning one more twist of the knife with the line ‘but my love it always comes from the heart!’ Having thus presented his case for why ‘he’ should be a candidate for true love the song has nowhere to go and simply falls back unexpected to a gut-wrenching wordless wail from Lofgren as he slumps in the corner, his energy spent. I feel as if I haven’t done it justice here, but ‘Moon Tears’ really is a fascinating, hard hitting song that’s still among the best Nils has ever written. This short but fierce original recording is arguably still the best, a ridiculous display of technical ability as if only by pulling off the impossible will Nils’ narrator ever see his girl again – however this song sounds pretty special in concert too, slowed down to a slower tempo and spending more time between the peaks, with the solo generally played while Nils bounces upside down on a trampoline! (for the best example see Nils’ 1979 gig at the Rockapalast, for my money the best concert he ever gave).

After this ‘End Unkind’ seems like a let-down to end the side, but this song is not without its plus points too. A snarling, up-turned guitar riff and an interesting, jazzy hi-hat ‘sneeze’ drum part makes for a strong ear-catching opening which puts the song somewhere between fierce and comical, with the song possessing a distinctive lopsided waddle. Berberich is back on lead vocals for the second and last time on the album and does a good job, criss-crossing with Lofgren for a mesmerising middle eight where the pair re-enact the less than fond farewells of the two spurned lovers (‘I got da feeling you’re leaving!’ ‘Well I got da feeling you’re gone!’) However if the other songs on this album are too quick to throw their bag of goodies across the recording, this one arguably leaves it too late – the song takes its time to reach its climax point and then is left rather unsure of where to go, simply repeating the verse and chorus we’ve just heard. There’s also a lyrical ambiguity about whether the narrator wants the relationship to end in the first place. In the first verse he’s despondent, warning the listeners that ‘love is dangerous and quick to end’ and that he’s done everything he can to keep together with his beloved, upset more at the fact that the relationship has ended so nastily than that it’s ended at all. However by the second he’s as over-the-top as the narrator of ‘Moon Tears’ saying it doesn’t matter anyway (‘It doesn’t matter if I live or die’), while the rhyme of ‘unable to unwind’ is less inspired by the first verse (‘A man like me is of the mind things should never ever have to end unkind). Nils and Berberich both put in a sterling performance in the solo, Nils building up steam slowly before unleashing his guitar into a mesmerising sequence of twirling notes while Berberich perfectly times the switch from slow carefully plodding into sheer Keith Moon-style mayhem. However, the tack piano part seems out of place here, a little too close to music hall for the heavy rock feel the band are going for and overall there’s something uncomfortable about this song, which doesn’t know whether to pounce or pause. Things aren’t helped by the demented laughter that ends the song (and simply keeps going until you take the needle off the record if you happen to own this record on vinyl) which like the rest of the song doesn’t know whether to cackle in triumph at the fact the pair have split or to sob in horror that the relationship parted as it did. Intriguing.

The ‘rocking’ side is arguably slightly stronger than the ‘dreamy’ side, perhaps because Grin sound like a band rather there rather than leaving Lofgren to do most of the work. ‘Sometimes’ is a rather limp opener to the second side, with some of the dodgiest lyrics on the album (‘Don’t let jealousy win or you’ll fly straight to sin’) and a rather arch style that sounds wrong after hearing Lofgren pouring his heart into the opening five songs. That said, however, ‘Sometimes’ has a lovely melody line, one that’s almost McCartney-esque in the way it sounds so obvious someone surely should have thought of it in several centuries of musical composition. The song also has a lovely middle eight where Nils drops his songwriting workshop and sings from the heart, notably with more another moving verse about loss (‘Upon reflection I notice reaction every time I’ve been received, just because you’re sharing doesn’t mean someone’s caring’) and a partnership that only works one-way. Had the song been more like this it would have been one of my favourite songs on the album; unfortunately its a passing moment in a song that lazily tells us ‘don’t let girls get you down – they’re beautiful’ and ‘don’t let life get you down – it’s wonderful’. There is one good line, however, Nils going all alliterative for the satisfying description of girls out for love and who don’t actually care about the receiver: ‘Desperate daughters shopping around’. Listen out for Nils’ accordion work – the first instrument Nils learned to play long before he discovered rock and roll and the guitar which gives the song a traditional, folk song feel.

‘Lost A Number’ is a bit of an oddball, the sort of novelty pop song Neil Sedaka or Paul Anka rattled off at the end of the 1950s (there’s even a little of ‘Calendar Girls’ in this song’s bounce). However neither the song nor Nils’ performance of it feels like a novelty, despite some daft words about the narrator falling in love, writing the girl’s phone number down and then finding ‘the wind went and stole it when I wrote it down’. Most of the song is dreamlike, with the accordion back again and louder than ever, and Nils sounds either deeply in love or hypnotised until bursting forth on a very Merseybeat pop chorus complete with Beatlesy harmonies (‘Have you ever lost a number? It’s like losing your world. Have you slept on a cloud when there’s thunder? I need a shoulder – I lost a number’) The song then gets surreal, the narrator spending ‘three weeks’ searching for her door in between ‘tears’ (‘which made it hard to discover’) although we never find out how (did he check a phone book? Work the clues out Sherlock Holmes style? Or did he already have an idea of where she lived?) On tracking her house down he finds that she’s moved (inside three weeks?!) and ‘much to my surprise’ (and ours too) ‘on every wall and every room she’d hung a picture of her two beautiful rainbow eyes’. Eh?! I’m just about willing to buy that the love-struck narrator can remember his true love’s eyes after just one meeting, but – what the? If she cared about him that much couldn’t she have called him? Wouldn’t she just assume that if he hadn’t called her he didn’t care anymore? Couldn’t they both have gone back to the same place they met and saved the struggle present in the whole song? Why on earth did the landlord leave the pictures up after she moved out or if there’s new tenants didn’t they mind? I’d dismiss the whole thing as a bad spoof of some already pretty bad novelty songs if it wasn’t for a real depth of feeling in parts of this song. The unusual, dissonant harmonies on ‘I lost a number’ gives this dream-like song a real feeling of urgency and elsewhere there are some lovely little touches throughout. I think what we have here is the beginning of the real tale of how Nils met the girl he’s been writing about the whole album through but, hit by the realism that he can’t give the song a happy ending and keep it ‘real’ anymore he goes the other way and covers it up with the daftest ending he could think of. Bizarre.

‘Hi, Hello Home’ sounds like an early Hollies song, so it was no surprise when years after getting to know this LP I discovered that the harmony voice on this track is by none other than Graham Nash. Dear Graham – of all the musicians we cover on this site no one was (is?) better at talent spotting and offering a helping hand when its needed (a few examples – telling the Kinks’ management on a pre-fame package tour to ‘stop bullying them’ because they ‘already have the sound they need to make it big’; telling a dejected Crosby that the Byrds are made for kicking him out and that even if no one else does at least he ‘gets’ Crosby’s weird-tuning songs; various interventions and offers of support for Crosby, Stills and Grace Slick among others). Nash came across Nils via Neil Young and – intrigued that the more, shall we say, self-centred Neil should have been interested enough to help in anyone else’s career – listened out for Nils and even gave him $200 for an aeroplane flight he needed to see his future bosses at SpinDizzy for a contract. Nash stayed in touch and (un-credited originally) spent a day with Grin re-arranging the harmonies to this song and adding the high pitched wail. Those strong chorus harmonies are the highlight of a sweet little song about a road-weary musician coming back to his beloved home and vowing to never leave again. Along the way we hear about Nils’ country hick narrator being ‘lost’ in the big city, meeting so-called ‘friends’ who ‘lock me in rooms dark in misery’ ordering him to come up with some hits (hmm, perhaps the SpinDizzy meeting didn’t actually go that well after all?) and some more doomed romances (in one of the best lines of the album Nils recounts: ‘I’ve met all kinds of girls, some had claws, some had curls’). There’s a lovely moment too when, fed up of being surrounded by people but still desperate to make music, Nils sings his heart out in his house, the echo from the walls offering ‘harmony’ in more ways than one. You can see why the equally road-weary Nash took to this sweet little song, which could be seen as The Hollies’ ‘Look Through Any Window’ from the outside looking in, celebrating the safe haven of the home and turning its back on the busy, exciting world outside the door. The only shame is that the two never worked together again (as far as we know), as Nils and Nash have a lovely blend in their voices and a similar jubilant joi de vivre little dipped with melancholy about their work.

‘Just A Poem’ is an impressively mature piece from someone not quite 20 at the time of the recording. If the rest of the album has predominantly found the narrators feeling guilty about a break up and anxious to tell us how they tried hard to stay kind even to the bitter end, ‘Just A poem’ is a reflection that, however tight we hold on to friendships and loved ones sometimes these relationships are simply destined to fly away of their own accord. Nils the poet is still asking for the ‘Lord’ to send her home to him, but he’s already recognising that that will never be and instead asks for her to be happy and that he’ll remember her love like a ‘poem’ , something to learn from every time he thinks it over. The first verse, too, recognises that Nils’ narrator’s own kindness might be to blame, offering up too much kindness and not enough independence, with a self-destructive partner who always going to ‘break’ simply because she could. The orchestral accompaniment is a little on the twee side (especially the ending, with a harp and triple-tracked flutes playing a ‘cute ‘ phrase) but full marks to the engineer for keeping Lofgren’s voice central to the song and the strings ducked down low. The melody, too, is superb, full of rain but looking for the rainbow, full of sudden reaches upwards to the heavens and some earthly sighs too. Listen out for the repeat of the word ‘Sometimes’ - I’m convinced that ‘1+1’ is a concept record in some sense, dealing with the same relationship over a good 8 out of its 10 songs. ‘Just A Poem’ is probably the best song on the album barring the two more famous works ‘Moon Tears’ and ‘Soft Fun’, gorgeous and sensitive in equal measure.

‘1+1’ then ends in fine style with ‘Soft Fun’, the ‘epic’ of the album. Sadly after nine almost spot on performances Grin rather wreck this song, Lofgren peaking too early and screaming his vocal for the most part so that the song gets on your nerves rather than envelopes you in its beauty. The orchestra don’t help either, sounding like a Mantovani re-recording of ‘The Sound Of Music’ and rather blowing their big chance in the middle (where a guitar solo would have done the job far better). That said, I still love ‘Soft Fun’ as a song (and on its many live recordings), Nils’ narrator offering one last chance at reconciliation. The song opens with the unexpected sound of two rather bored children speaking the rather childish opening lines (written as a lullaby or nursery rhyme) but they make perfect sense in the context of the song, Nils saying once more that he hates to see anyone hurt and that if even if the only thing he can do to make us feel better is write a song then, by golly, that’s what he’s going to do. He then paints the tale of a broken, dispirited woman searching for meaning in her life; crying from midnight ‘until tears run down at dawn’ after another rejection, picking herself up because there’s no one there to take care of her, wanting nothing more than ‘freedom’ from her troubles. ‘Afraid to try, scared to die’ runs the second verse, with no way out the depression. Nils then offers his sympathy in the chorus, saying that he too is a ‘lonely one’ and that even if all he can do is cry with her than at least she isn’t alone (‘so that’s alright’). In this cleverly constructed song Nils could be talking about himself, the mysterious girl who crops up on all these songs (Nils perhaps imagining her life without him) or the listener themselves if they’re going through a hard time. The ‘Soft Fun’ nickname is even harder to work out: there’s nothing ‘fun’ about this song, which is more about the hard knocks in life (although the ‘soft’ part goes back to ‘Moon Tears’ savage destruction of everything kind within the narrator because he knows it only brings him pain). There’s certainly no doubting the strength of feeling in Nils’ vocal, Nils all but bursting into tears himself on his ‘believe me when I tell you...’ finale telling us we’re not alone. Admittedly, this overblown overcooked arrangement on the record places a whacking great veil over its true beauty, but ‘Soft Fun’ is a lovely song, Lofgren coming to terms with the darker side of life but meeting it head on, telling us that we’ll all survive the slings and arrows of life somehow if we open our hearts to each other. One of those songs that can be done in any number of different ways, it’s a shame that Nils isn’t yet experienced enough to know that less is more and that the best performances of this song in the future will nearly all be sung to just the one acoustic guitar. Still ‘Soft Fun’ is a likable song and a fine conclusion to the album and remarkably impressive for a 19 year old who could have taken the easy way out and simply wrote mindless rock songs for a living.

Overall, even though 1+1 doesn’t quite equal 10/10, there’s much to admire. The mistakes that are made are only made out of youth and tight deadlines and there’s a reason that musicians of the calibre of Graham Nash, Neil Young and David Briggs believed so strongly in Nils Lofgren and his band. Sadly Grin were never given a real chance – tied to a small record label with a low advertising budget, a style that’s inconsistent from one song to another and no hit single (though ‘Moon Tears’ would surely have done well if chosen) they ended up merely another really really good band in an era of geniuses. Heard now, some 40 odd years later, Grin have lasted better than many of the records around them, less tied to the times and with a more powerful imagination than most of their one-note contemporaries, but sadly life simply isn’t fair sometimes – co incidentally the theme of much of this record. Fans nowadays can hear these songs as part of either the ‘Best of Grin’ album that sold surprisingly well a decade ago or as a single CD with third album ‘All Out’ on the back, a more polished and thoughtful but less consistent album already covered on our site. The songs from ‘1+1’ more than hold up their own, so much so that you wonder how it all went so wrong so fast, Grin splitting after a pretty awful final album ‘Gone Crazy’ in 1973. Still, if they couldn’t break through to the big time with an album as good as this one then they were probably never going to. Of course there are things that need improving, ideas that are only half baked and some overblown orchestral arrangements to navigate but you have to say music-buyers in 1971 missed a trick with this album, which is one of the biggest forgotten gems of them all. Overall rating: 7/10.

Other Nils Lofgren/Grin reviews from this website you might be interested in reading:

'All Out' (G 1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/news-views-and-music-issue-54-nils.html

'Flip!' (NL 1984) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-120-nils.html

'Damaged Goods' (NL 1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-97-nils-lofgren-damaged-goods.html

The First 10 AAA Songs If Listed Alphabetically (News, Views and Music Issue 179 Top 10)

Dear reader, how many of you have laid awake late into the night mulling over the questions of the universe, such as ‘will there ever be another classic AAA album?’ ‘Will David Cameron bring Europe to its knees in as everyone who isn’t a millionaire works as a salve for eternity’ and ‘what AAA tracks would be listed first if the entire lot was placed in alphabetical order?’ (What, just me? Really?!) I can’t answer the first two impenetrable questions (although chances the answer is yes to both - the new Stephen Stills set sounds rather good and Cameron is pushing his luck even for him these days) but I can answer the third so here it is, the first ten AAA songs if you list them in strict alphabetical order (discounting numbers, asterisks, ampersands and brackets otherwise John Lennon’s ‘#9 Dream’ would be the winner on two counts). Suitably this little list covers almost as much ground as the site itself, with politics, breakdowns, utopias, peace and revenge just some of the subjects on offer. Who says we never bring you anything important, eh? Expect a similar list about the last ten AAA songs listed alphabetically next week!

“A Bad Night” (Cat Stevens, ‘New Masters’ 1968)

Poor Cat. There he was, settling down to write a love song about his latest girlfriend whose ‘cool’ even though ‘she’s never been to scho-e-ool’ and celebrating the fact that he’s a talented and rich teenager with the world at his feet. Like many of the songs on second album ‘New Masters’, however, all is not what it seems: the girl telephones him to say she won’t see him anymore and his world falls apart, the usual jovial Stevens backing of a brass fanfare and snappy rhythms turned on their head to sound anguished and anxious. The song then collapses before rebuilding in double time, an anxious Cat walking up and down his bedroom, unable to sleep, a million thoughts rushing through his head so fast he’s struggling to set them to music. Thus ends the ‘first’ stage of Cat’s career, with the laidback youth turning to a wizened, troubled man almost before our ears. More on this theme is to come in 18 months time, but not before a change of look, a change of sound and a nasty bout of TB change Cat’s sound for good.

“A Better Place” (The Hollies ‘Out On The Road’ 1973)

A sadly forgotten song from a rather forgotten album, recorded at a time when Allan Clarke had left the group to be replaced by under-rated Swedish singer Mickael Rickfors. The band’s first album with their new singer ‘Romany’ was a great record but sold badly, with EMI relegating this follow-up LP to release only in Germany (where the Hollies are, deservedly, ranked alongside the Beatles and Stones as the cornerstone of 1960s perfection and acclaimed much more than they ever were in the UK or US). One of the last collaborations between guitarist Tony Hicks and his next door neighbour singer/comedian Kenny Lynch, it’s an intriguing song with Hicks, Sylvester and Rickfors all playing grungy guitar riffs and a delightful vocal somewhere between Scott Walker and Lynch himself. The narrator wants to fill the world with peace and love, making it a ‘better world for everyone to live in’ but hits the generational divide head on, with his family and friends urging him that drinking and fighting are the manly things to do. Some great Hollies harmonies help make this song a neglected classic, from an album that deserves to be much better known.

“A Century Of Fakers” (Belle and Sebastian, ‘3...6...9 Seconds Of Light’ EP 1996)

The Belle and Sebastian EP collection ‘Push Barman To Heal Old Wounds’ features two goes at this same song. One, ‘A Century Of Elvis’ is a jokey song about the King of rock and roll being re-incarnated as a dog; this second song (which uses exactly the same backing track) is much more serious, discussing the haves and have-nots of the world and asking deep questions about how unfair the world is. Seemingly written as an attack some Governmental figure (the song was released during John Major’s last year in power which might be a clue) this track asks us all to open our eyes before history makes us, recording the 20th century as a ‘century of fakers’ and people ‘making blinkers fashionable’, scared to disclose the truth. The ‘author’ of a book named ‘A Century Of Fakers’ from the future looks back on us all with scorn even though ultimately his book, too, will go unread: ‘He was an anarchist, he tried his best – but it was never good enough’ is Stuart Murdoch’s response.

“A Child Is Coming” (Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship ‘Blows Against The Empire’ 1971)

This is the part of the concept album when the group of hippies looking for peace away from their totalitarian Earth regime are dreaming of a happier future – in the rest of the story (on side two) they’ll steal a spaceship deigned to colonise other planets in the name of colonialism and spread peace and love throughout the galaxy. Here, though, the families are celebrating the birth of a new child and dreaming of a better future where when ‘Uncle Samuel comes around asking for the young one’s name and the print of his hand for the files in their numbers game’ they’ll hide the child and let him/her roam free forever. The song is sung by expectant parents to be Paul Kantner and Grace Slick with friend David Crosby and their improvised three-part harmonies on the second half of this song are superb, worry and fear clouding over their joy at a child due to be born. This is my third favourite album of all time for a reason – few records speak with such joy, hope and danger as this one and ‘A Child Is Coming’ is one of ‘Blows’ key songs.

“A Child’s Claim To Fame” (Buffalo Springfield ‘Again’ 1967)

Neil Young’s only gone and quit Buffalo Springfield again! It’s for the second time this time, Neil putting the group in danger on the eve of the prestigious Monterey Pop Festival performance which would have brought the band much kudos and sales (the band play anyway, with David Crosby – then with The Byrds - filling in for the missing guitarist, but the band are under-rehearsed and don’t do all that well). Other Springfield guitarist Stephen Stills is nonchalant (Neil had only just joined up again after quitting on the eve of an important TV show) but lead singer Richie Furay is furious, attacking Neil outright in this, one of his earliest compositions. ‘There goes another day and I wonder why you and I keep telling lies’ runs the opening of the song and it gets meaner after that, Richie telling Neil that even his beautiful ‘lullabies’ on re-joining the group will make up for what could have been. ‘Truth is a shame – too much pain’ ends the song sadly. Ironically Neil was back in the group for a third time when the Springfield got to recording it for their superb second album adding some great guitar licks that simply re-inforce why Furay was so bitter at his defection. Neil will reply with his own ‘I Am A Child’ on the next album (‘Last Time Around’), acknowledging ‘I am a child, I’ll last a while, you can’t conceive of the pleasure in my smile...’ And so the Springfield soap opera rolled on to an awkward end...

“A Day In The Life” (The Beatles, ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band’ 1967)

It’s probably easier to define what this song isn’t about than what it is, seeing as its generally acknowledged as the deepest and most complex song the fab four ever made. So here you are: love, kittens and Spice Girl zig-a-zig-ahs. Everything else is in this track somewhere, from the opening muted sigh of Lennon’s ‘I read the news today, oh boy’ representing the unhappy present, a tale of a film about a pointless unwinnable war the present (probably Lennon’s own ‘How I Won The War) and the possible glorious future built on comprehension, understanding and drugs, brought on by Lennon’s coy ‘I’d love to turn you on’, a phrase so hip in June 1967 that even the BBC doesn’t recognise the words as a drug reference. Along the way we get McCartney’s ‘contrast’, a jovial little piece about catching the bus to school originally destined for the Beatles’ ‘Liverpool childhood’ album (which was abandoned when ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Penny lane’ were used as a single instead) which sounds like the mundane ordinary life we all have to go through as our minds are widened by the true mystical goings on in the world around us. The whole song is wrapped up with two uses of one of the most thrilling crescendos in rock music, conductor McCartney asking his orchestra to improvise their way from the lowest note on their instruments to the highest by the end of a 40 bar gap, before the second time round the sound is swiped by a resounding crash of five pianos all playing the same memorable chord. This isn’t a day set to music, it’s a whole life with all of its ups and downs, frustrations and pleasures, restrictions and freedoms rolled into one.

“A Doorway?” (Human League, ‘Romantic?’ 1989)

One of the best tracks from my favourite Human League album, this song’s tale of doomed romance and lost hopes comes crashing through the fadeout of optimistic opener ‘Kiss The Future’ as if it can’t wait to tell the ‘truth’ behind the pop songs. The female singers in the band declare that they respect Phil Oakey’s singer’s ‘territory’ and won’t pry, but does he really need to be that distant? A ‘doorway’ between their two souls is all they ask – not a rummage through his feelings or for him to declare himself bare, simply a connection. The song ends as unresolved as it started, its awkward angles sounding all the more awkward for being caught between two of the band’s catchiest pop songs and we never find out who wins the battle of minds – hence the fact that a question mark is added to the title.

“A Dream That Can Last” (Neil Young, ‘Sleeps With Angels’ 1993)

The slow, reflective ballad at the end of a hazy, crazy album, this song is unique in Neil’s canon. The narrator ‘feels’ like he’s died and gone to heaven (like many of the troubled characters on the album, Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain among them) but its not how he imagined it: the streets are paved with gold but ‘the cupboards are bare’ and no one knows why they are there. The ‘angels’ aren’t welcoming the narrator with open arms, they huddle around street corners whispering whether he can stay and far from a blaring white light of redemption and clarity in this afterlife ‘the lights are turned down low’. The unsettling feel of the song is completed by a tack piano – an instrument never used by Neil again outside this album – which sounds ghostly, there-but-not-there, with aural shadows turning in the light as we try to make sense of this peculiar world. Is death better than life? Will the dreams of our Earthly realities continue into the next world? Nobody seems to know.

“A Face In The Crowd” (The Kinks, ‘A Soap Opera’ 1974)

This song is the highlight of a Kinks rock opera whereby the ‘starmaker’ tried to live the life of ‘Norman’ (a ‘normal’ person) and yet his story gradually unravels across the record until the point where the starmaker reveals to us that he was really ‘Norman’ all along, turning to illusion and imagination because of the horrors of his mundane life. This song is the turning point, a heartbreaking ballad where the Starmaker/Norman admits that, in essence, he’s ‘like everybody else’ and simply a part of the crowd. ‘I know I’ll get used to it’ he sighs, ‘I’ve got to start facing up to what I really am’, taking a final bow as he joins the crowd. The most poignant performance of this song comes in the ‘Soap Opera’ TV special (broadcast on ITV in 1974) where Ray (as The Starmaker) literally walks off stage and takes his place in the crowd, cheering on his brother as Dave Davies roars into the finale ‘You Can’t Stop The Music’

“A Great Day For Freedom” (Pink Floyd, ‘The Division Bell’ 1994)

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 inspired quite a few AAA songs, with the metaphor about ‘walls’ between us an obvious link to defrosting relationships at the end of the cold war. The first verse is hopeful, the second pessimistic, as old tensions gradually creep back in again and a more metaphorical wall is built between them all. There’s a particularly memorable line where the red blood of both sides is cleaned in the river that runs between the two lands, turning to a muddy grey ‘of history’, with neither side winners or losers. For Pink Floyd, of course, walls held special importance and throughout the song you could read the lyrics as an ‘update’ of what happened to ‘Pink’ after the events of rock opera ‘The Wall’. Indeed, by the last verse David Gilmour may well be singing about his estranged partner Roger Waters, hearing ‘music play’ outside his own ‘wall’ and looking wistfully across. However the thaw between the two Floyds was still quite strong at this stage and the song ends on something of a mixed message, as ‘everything but the bitter residue slips away’.
And that’s that for this issue. Thankyou for taking the time to join us in our trails through this week’s news, views and music – we hope to see you for some more of the same next week!

Monday, 28 January 2013

The Last 10 AAA Songs Listed Alphabetically (News, Views and Music Issue 180 Top 10)

Sunday, 20 January 2013

News, Views and Music Issue 179 (Intro)

Nils Lofgren and Grin "1+1" (1972)

The First 10 AAA Songs If Listed Alphabetically (News, Views and Music Issue 179 Top 10)

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