1977 Rerun: Rumours - Fleetwood Mac

So it seems that this is the season for break-ups among my friends, and having written on the more recent For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver, I've decided to stick with the theme for one more post, and stray from my original order for the reruns.  Break-up albums have been doing alright lately, either by allowing an artist to reinvent their sound, like ...Little Broken Hearts did for Norah Jones, or bringing album sales on the map, not to mention help an artist shovel in the Grammys, like 21 did for Adele.  Forget lemonade, when life gives you a bad break-up, make some freaking good music.

So that brings me to 1977, the year of my all-time favourite break-up album: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.  Although a 5-piece band, each member of Fleetwood Mac was in the midst of  struggling with personal failed relationship.  John and Christine McVie (the bassist and keyboardist respectively) were in the midst of divorce from 8 years of marriage; Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were in an off period of their "on-again-off-again" relationship; and drummer Mick Fleetwood was reeling from discovering his wife cheating on him.  On top of all this, since the release of their 1975 self-titled album, the band was regularly shooting down dramatic rumours being circulated by the press; everything from deathly illnesses and love-children to a massive member change.  They were falling apart, and few of them could communicate with one another regarding anything other than the music they were working on.  The fact that Rumours was even created in the midst of all that relational stress is nothing but a miracle.

Even more miraculous is how Fleetwood Mac is able to maintain their poppy sound while so miserable.  The album appropriately begins Second Hand News, but instead of being used as a synonym for rumours, it is how the left lover feels after he's been replaced.  Still, there is almost happiness in the midst of frustration - as though he's trying to laugh off what has happened in order to deal with the grief.  The subtle yet clear Dreams plays next, and I can almost smell the tension that must have been in the studio as Stevie sings her own words about begrudgingly letting someone go, aching for her ex to be aware of "what (they) had, and what (they) lost".

Lindsey Buckingham gets the next word on Never Going Back Again, but although the title suggests he won't return to the relationship, this lyrically sparse track seems too relaxed and not angry enough to be a break-up song.  There is something else he won't return to, maybe because of what he learned in his now failed relationship with Nicks, or maybe not.  It's rather vague, but it seems to be more about coming to terms with himself than it does an angry break-up song.  Besides, soon enough we get something much closer to that in Go Your Own Way, also penned by Lindsey.  (For some unknown reason, I am on a first-name basis with these band members).  Don't Stop finds itself wedged between Lindsey's songs, with an incredibly bright take on moving on from a break-up, wanting both parties to just be happier with whatever comes next.

Nearing the end of a relatively happy side A, Rumours takes a turn with Songbird, one of the most beautiful and timeless love songs ever.  What makes it a break-up song more than anything else is the sadness in the tone of the singers voice, and this is something that necessarily is replicated when Songbird is covered by Eva Cassidy, Willie Nelson, or whoever might do it next.

It's always a stretch for me to flip the record over to The Chain, Rumour's most bitter song so far, and yet ironically, it also boasts some of the tightest harmonies between Lindsey, Stevie, and Christine.  The tightness of the entire band is made clear in the sexy You Make Loving Fun.  The bass line is sick, and the harmonies that echo Christine are perfect.  I am beginning to believe that Christine McVie might have been one of the best songwriters of the 70's (along with Stevie, of course).

I Don't Want To Know returns to the bitter playfulness that is in Second Hand News.  Similarly, the singer doesn't want to hold the other back, or "stand between (him) and love", but just wants everyone to get along and "feel fine".  But perhaps appropriately after this attempt at confidence, Oh Daddy is a somewhat pathetic attempt to recognize what mistakes the singer has made.  To be honest, I find this one to be a dud.  Anything with "daddy" as a repeated lyric is doomed.

Rumours, along with some of the relationships it wrestles with, come to a close with Gold Dust Woman, where the fictional woman is told to "pick up the pieces and go home", and the song ends with an extended instrumental outro seeming to noisily hold on and avoid an actual finish.  The only appropriate sound to immediately follow Gold Dust Woman is silence, during which I imagine all the band members quietly pack up their instruments and leave separately.  I'm sure it never actually happened that way, but even though the band hung together for a while longer in this formation, they were never able to make another album match the honesty, beauty, and frustration that this one did.


    

The Stranger - Billy Joel, 1977

I'll admit that as an 80's baby, I got to know Billy Joel primarily through his compilation of "Greatest Hits", rather than individual albums.  I didn't miss much off of The Stranger, however, because 6 of its 8 songs are considered "greatest hits".  Still, when I had the chance to pick up the brilliant LP secondhand, I didn't think twice.  I've been surprised how listening to a smaller collection of songs from a prolific artist can be a good limitation; I find myself seeing connections between the songs and listening more intently to the less-loved tracks.

(Quick tangent: how hard is it to shorten this man's name?  I simply cannot refer to him either by his first or last name, and certainly not his initials!)

I've had this record for probably 4 years, but for whatever reason, The Stranger has made it on to the regular vinyl rotation, along with Piano Man, this past month.  Today I had my breakfast to Side A, and did some dishes to Side B, and now it's back on as I write some thoughts out.

The Stranger is as much a collection of stories as it is one of songs, because Billy Joel is as much of a storyteller as he is a songwriter. Appropriately the album begins with "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", a story of working class New Yorkers spending their lives making money to move up in class, but having no time or life left to enjoy.

The title track comes next, and ties together the slightly creepy image on the record cover with lyrics like, "they're the faces of the stranger, but we'd love to try them on," and "did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?"  The song is bookended by a slower, melancholy melody, both whistled and played on the piano.  I think we are being invited to imagine the truths and secrets of the characters we meet on the album, who, although they can be familiar, are perpetual strangers, much like most of our interactions with others.

Even if you have never heard Billy Joel's name before, it is certain that you've heard "Just the Way You Are" at approximately 74% of weddings you have attended, being the classic, earnest, and well-written love song that it is.  Phil Woods' sexy saxophone solo also doesn't hurt.  I doubt that Bruno Mars will get half as much play as this does 30 years from now.  Yet, at the moment, its placement on the record following "The Stranger" is causing me to call its sincerity into question.  If anything, I love "Just the Way You Are" that much more.

"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" would have been reason alone to buy this LP.  This is such a great song - probably my favorite Billy Joel song of all.  Three "scenes" are painted for us, beginning and ending in the same place: our Italian restaurant.  The longest section known as the ballad of Brenda and Eddie was originally written as its own track, before being inserted into this epic piece that speaks of young love, old familiarities, and common cycles of love and life.  The whole piece is speckled with soulful sax lines and playful clarinet solos that punctuate a piece of music that is constantly driven by a forceful rhythm section.  "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" works for me on the level of a Symphony, where I am listening for what connects these movements to one another, while at the same time, trying to appreciate them individually.

I can often digest the first side of this record on its own, nearly as an album in and of itself, simply because of the feeling of completion that "Scenes" brings.  Sometimes that's how I feel the album should end - with the storyteller sitting at that familiar table at the Italian Restaurant, waiting to see if he would be joined by his old flame.

But, this is not the end of the album, and the record's Side-B takes turns playing sweeter ballads (ie. "Vienna"), and foot-stomping, rock-and-roll tunes (ie. "Only the Good Die Young").  I can't help but notice that the side begins with a song about not waiting passively for your dreams to come true, but that they (embodied by Vienna) are waiting for you to come find them, and it ends with a MLK inspired gospel tune, repeating that "Everybody Has a Dream".  Side-B is perhaps revealing a more positive aspect of The Stranger.  We might be lying, cheating, sneaking, beasts, but whatever our mask may be, and no matter how well we know someone, there is more to a person than we think.

Billy Joel rounds out the philosophy of "Vienna", with the practical theology of "Only the Good Die Young";  live life now, because nothing is certain about whatever comes next.  In this song he also offers one of the best tunes for doing any kind of chores to, because it's both danceable and sing-along-able. However, seeing as life is short, I don't really want to do the dishes...

Good thing I love to sing-along to "She's Always a Woman to Me" as well, or I wouldn't know what to do with the dramatic shift in pace.  I remember thinking at a very young age, that it was a stupid song.  Is he worried that she's going to instantaneously become a man?  or a toad?  However, eventually I gave the song another chance, and found it to be one of my favorite Billy Joel songs. In this love song to his wife at the time, He affirms that her woman-hood does not stem from particular "lady-like" or feminine qualities, but the fact that she is indeed, a woman.  An independent one at that, and he loves her.  Well, loved... he divorced that particular wife in 1982.  Don't think about that though.

The album ends with two songs not considered "greatest hits", but although they were never singles, are still great songs in the context of The Stranger, showing how deep the well of Billy Joel's talent for song-writing really is.  "Get it Right the First Time" is a blast - it's nearly as fun as "Only the Good Die Young" to do dishes to.  And "Everybody Has a Dream" shows off Joel's gospel chops, which organs, and choirs, and vocal ad lib (oh my!), before closing the album with a reprise of "The Stranger" motif on whistling lips and piano.  Which of course, just makes me want to start the whole album again, but I'm not sure my housemates feel the same way.  ;)

Peace out,
Danice

Joni Mitchell: Hejira, 1976

I'm back!  And although I haven't been at this blogging thing for very long, I think it's safe to say that this is a rather uncommon entry.  My reasons for writing on Hejira, (an album that will mark both my first blog on something recorded before my own birth, as well as my first blog on an album I haven't already become acquainted with) require a bit of back-story:

You see, Mondays are my sabbath.  I began practicing sabbath on Mondays when I was on staff at church, making it very impossible to rest on a work day, and I guess I've kept it because rest for me means sleeping in, and Sunday morning service doesn't let me do that.  However, this semester I have a class with enough reading to occupy my far more than 7 days a week, and this week in particular I have been asked to finish George Eliot's Middlemarch, a 621 page novel.  Being fiction, I decided I would afford to let it make up a large part of Monday.

All of this to say that I went to my favorite coffee spot with my favorite person to read and caffeinate, but was unable to make it there without stopping at my favorite shop on the Drive: Audiopile.  I flipped through the Joni Mitchel section, looking for Blue and picking up Clouds immediately, when Beth suggested we buy Hejira too ("it's only $5!"). 

As I mentioned earlier, I've never written a blog about an album I haven't previously listened to.  Usually I have to spend a little more time with it, get to know it intimately, take it out on a few dates on my iPod.  Not this time.  I resolved to blog this album as I realized how cohesive it is.  The instruments are nearly limited to soft reverb-ed guitar, a bass, and barely noticeable percussion.  The few times that any shift occurs, it stands out and begs to be asked regarding its intentions.

Also, this is no album of extremes.  You won't find anything as emotionally saturated as Both Sides Now or as cheerful as Chelsea Morning.  This is not the album on which Joni teaches cold English housewives how to feel (thanks Emma Thompson in Love Actually).  Instead it will tell us stories, paint us pictures, and generally allow me to relax (even reading victorian lit) on my sabbath. 

Hejira opens with Coyote, the reason Beth decided to purchase the record, which drives us straight into the action of the sound of road-tripping across America.  Appropriate, since it's the setting for Joni's inspiration for this collection: "Hejira" references an Arabic word meaning journey, and all the songs being written on a solitary drive from Maine to L.A.  It's a theme that we're introduced to as soon as we pick up the cardboard record sleeve picturing an open highway stretching further than the eye can see (set within Joni's too thick torso... that's just weird).

I try to pick up my novel, but instead Beth and I launch into a conversation about the relationship between Joni's lyrics and chord structures.  We decide that comparisons can be made to a recitative section in opera, where the point is really the dialogue and not the melody.  Joni often sounds as if she's half-consciously telling us a story without worry for matching the climax with any kind of "chorus".  And the music seems to wait for her, only moving on when she seems to have finished a thought.  I think this has a lot to do with the interaction between her and one of the most influential bassists of all time, but I'll talk about that soon enough.

Amelia settles into the more continuous tone of the record, which is slowly reflective, and connects her themes of womanhood and journeying with one of the most famous female adventurers: Amelia Earhart.  Her life and death inspires Joni to imagine possible destinations and tragedies, both worth the risk of journey: "till you get there yourself you never really know, where some have found their paradise, others just come to harm..." and draws in the inevitable and linked themes of escape and anonymity. 

Furry Sings the Blues is apparently a reference to a ultra-popular country blues guitarist, Furry Lewis, of whom I know nothing about.  But if you're talking about the blues, why not feature harmonica?  And if you're going to feature harmonica, why not get Neil Young to make an album cameo?  I don't know what he's playing, because it certainly doesn't sound like cross harp.  It's almost as if an entirely different song is playing in the background - probably only Young was confident enough to play something so mis-matched.  I think it works, and certainly shows off what a crisp harp soloist he is.  Hooray for a collaboration between Canada's two best folkers.  Is that a word?  oh well...

Finally the album's title track, Hejira, the only song I recognize much.  I almost want to copy out her entire first verse, but instead I'll tell you to check it out yourself.  Which reminds me.  Mitchell is a freaking poet.  I mean, I suppose it's fairly common to say this of a folk singer-songwriter, but really, the same thing that causes me to say things like, "where the heck is the melody?" give me the feeling like it's story time, and I'm cuddled up in a blanket hanging on every word.  Here we also get the one other highly notable instrumental change.  With a reference to Benny Goodman, subtle clarinet lines emerge.  (Yeah, a clarinet can be subtle.  It was news to me too!)

It was also during Hejira that I finally picked up the sleeve wondering who the heck was playing those bass lines.  No, "bass line" doesn't even describe them.  "Counter-melodies on the electric bass" is a much better description, although I didn't seem to notice this beauty except for during Coyote.  Soon enough it all makes sense.  Jaco Pastorius, who changed bass playing for the world, apparently collaborated with Mitchell a few times, and this is one of them.  Each song he's featured on pops out of the texture of the record like one of those high-def scenes of a flower blossoming on Planet Earth.  He shows off the range of the bass, even throwing his famous harmonics into the mix without any virtuoso show-offy-ness.  I can't understand why he's not used on every track of Hejira.  Maybe Mitchell believes in too much of a good thing?  Seriously though, where Joni lacks melody, I find myself more likely to sing a long to Jaco in this song and later on Black Crow.

Song for Sharon, I'm sorry to say, has me thinking about George Eliot's Middlemarch.  As Joni reflects on a dichotomy between marriage and independence, I reflect on what a different sort of question that is in the 1830's setting of the characters of my book.  I even pick it up and read a little further, though it's rather obvious that I am far more interested in listening and writing this by now.

Black Crow might be my favorite track on the album.  The song has a destination like the bird of subject, and plans to arrive by grooving out.  It retains a certain amount of the blues that shows up everywhere else on Hejira, but like some of my more conscientious lecturers who will let us take stretch breaks, Mitchell recognizes that in order to keep from falling asleep we need to move along with the vehicle.  I can't help it, here is my favorite bit:

In search of love and music my whole life has been, Illumination, corruption, and diving, diving, diving, diving, diving down to pick up on every shiny thing...

And yes, I did count the number of divings.

Blue Room Motel dwells on a lover who is waiting for her back home.  Why?  I'm done with her feeling sorry for herself.  She can reflect all she wants on life, but to be pining away for some guy who isn't even apart of this grand journey?  Really?  Nearing the end of the album, I suppose we're nearing LA with Joni, but I am bored by these whiney blues.  Thank the Lord that she ends with another collaboration with Jaco instead of this tripe.

Refuge of the Road doesn't arrive anywhere, but leaves us in the journey; the hejira.  Continually displacing us in the progression and resolving back into the comfortable and familiar, just like the highway clearly is refuge to her.  Now I'm going to have to download this album so I can experience it on the open road as it was conceived and probably meant to be heard, though Joni's voice cuts through cleaner on vinyl than anywhere.  Well, probably it's even better live.  But that's just conjecture.

Back to Middlemarch for me.  Please forgive my gaps between albums - I doubt this semester will be very blog friendly.