The Ritual of Music

In my last post discussing Roxy Music I wrote about not being able to articulate what i wanted to say.  That made me focus a bit more on what I'm doing writing these appreciations and inspired me to write this post.

Currently I am reading a book: Re-make/Re-model: Becoming Roxy Music by Michael Bracewell which is very academic, it's interesting it's not so much a history of Roxy as an extended essay on the Art ideas that surrounded Roxy Music. If I get to the end of it I'll see if has brought Roxy into better perspective. But negatively this book made me think of Art developing within the environment of a University or Art school as an academic discipline. I so seldom get inspired by contemporary art and I think it's academic roots are one of the main causes, but possibly this reflects the wider cultural environment. I think an apprenticeship, technical institute or entirely amateur model is better and a spiritual environment would be best.

The reason I am averse to the University model for fostering art can be illustrated through an online video I recently watched, as Universities are very left brain centric and art for me is about connectivity intuition which are very right brain:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight

Bolte Taylor speaks about having a stroke which basically shut down her left brain functionality, the logical, task oriented language side of the brain and left her with her right brain which lives in a rich present without worries emotional baggage and a deep sense of connectiveness, she felt vast unable to be contained within her body of which she could no longer recognise it's demarcations as it was all part of one great web of energy. I recommend watching the video it is emotional  funny and intelligent. Bolte came back feeling that we all need to be able to make the choice to step into that right brain consciousness for the sake of peace and our well being.

The reason I'm talking about Bolte is that music is one of those ways where we can still our busy planning intellectual minds and open up to a sense of connection, intuition and beauty, all of the albums I have featured on my blog are ones that when I listen to them gives me this kind of experience. There is a ceremonial/ritualistic aspect to music. Pop music often gives us information about fashion, style, vocabulary and social sets, but it is the religious or spiritual function that I think gives us the most.

The Doors and Yes are two pop rock groups that seem to deliberately and succesfully evoke a sense of ritual, the Doors is rather a dark evocation which in the main I prefer not to subject myself to. For both groups the evocation centres around their singers who serve as conduits like shamans through which that connecting energy flows. Both singers use words for their evocative power rather than through left brain linear development:

The Doors:

And the rain falls gently on the town
And over the heads of all of us
And in the labyrinth of streams
Beneath, the quiet unearthly presence of
gentle hill dwellers, in the gentle hills around
Reptiles abounding
Fossils, caves, cool air heights

Yes:

A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar
And taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour

The Yes lyrics particularly are an assault upon our rational compartmentalising mind if we give it up for the time that the music plays we can enter into a relationship with the music.

I think Ritual is universally important for humanity. The Australian Aborigines through their rituals would enter into the Dreaming a zone where creation, their mythology, the landscape they were in was vividly alive and present, where the universal beginning (Creation) is happening NOW, where our distinctions of past, present and future melt, where meaning lives in and around us, where we are connected with God / the Gods.

In modern Westernised societies we still have the echoes and the driving force behind these rituals, upon reaching adulthood how many among us don't partake in the ritual of binge drinking and becoming totally wasted? In traditional societies this need ritual was chanelled into ecstatic ceremonies that would fulfill our urge for connection and would link us to shared group meanings that would live with us outside the time/space of the ritual and give value to it. Whereas our poor inarticulate version does not, there is little that links our everyday consciousness to these ecstatic states.

Art then is much like a drug, in that it can be used to alter our state of consciousness, personally I think it's better, although Terrence McKenna and Graham Hancock make good cases drugs and there may well be astute use that could be beneficial socially. There are many Shamanistic traditions that use drugs in genuinely spiritual ways, but I think there are many beneficial ways we can make deliberate choices to access right brain /mythological states of consciousness that can be explored without recourse to drugs and emersion in music is one of those. I think as a society we need to become more aware of left brain consciousness, value it, celebrate it and integrate it into our lives, then we will find more peace in ourselves and only then can their be peace around us.

Roxy Music

This is an appreciation rather than a review, as the music I feature here as per the title of my page has worked it's way under my skin and I am not really judging it, how can I when there is love between us? I hope you have heard these albums already, just from the point of view of the history of rock / pop music these albums are significant.

I came to Roxy Music in the 80s I think around the time they released their final album Avalon. So whereas I listened to Close to the Edge within a couple of years of it's release I listened to Roxy music within the context of a music scene upon which they had been highly influential. I can't imagine that Ultravox, Echo and the Bunnymen or any number of New Romantics would have created the music they did but for Roxy Music.

I'll focus on 3 albums that seem particularly significant to me their debut album: Roxy Music,  Stranded and their final studio album Avalon.

Their debut album was released in 1972 10 days after David Bowie's Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, T Rex had released Electric Warrior the year before and would release the Slider the following month, Yes had released The Yes Album and Fragile and Close to the Edge was 3 months away, King Crimson had produced 4 albums and Bryan Ferry Roxy's singer and songwriter had auditioned to replace Greg Lake and was turned down (thankfully) but certain connections were made with Crimson's lyricist Pete Sinfield produced Roxy's first album. Fripp of course would have quite a long standing musical relationship with Roxy member Brian Eno.

Roxy Music has a lot of the musical and imaginative intensity of Progressive rock bands, having excellent characteristic players of Andy MacKay on Sax and Oboe, Phil Manzanera on guitar, Paul Thompson on drums, Brian Eno on Synthesisers and treatments on the first two albums and Eddie Jobson on Keyboards and violin on albums 3 to 5 as well as some very good bass playing from a succession of different players. Crimson and Yes and shares a romanticism and joy in synthesising diverse musical styles, but Roxy Music their content and vision centred around glamour and romantic love, religious imagery could be used to adorn that vision whereas for Yes the Spiritual vision was at the centre of their art. Also unlike the Progressive Rock bands Roxy Music are sexy.

The debut album opens with the sounds of a cocktail party before it fires into a futuristic rock n roll stomper Re Make / Re Model fusing 50's rock n roll and sci fi panache into something very cutting edge 70's.

I tried but I could not find a way
Looking back all I did was look away
Next time is the best we all know
But if there is no next time where to go?
She's the sweetest queen I've ever seen
(CPL593H)
See here she comes, see what I mean?
(CPL593H)
I could talk talk talk, talk myself to death
But I believe I would only waste my breath
Ooh show me

There is chaos, intensity and romanticism all merged into a heady new brew. More sincere than what we know Bowie but at least equally mannered, not perhaps as approachable as Marc Bolan. The seduction has begun.

Song titles like Ladytron, Chance Meeting, Sea Breezes & Bitters End give a good indication of the flavour of the album.

I've been thinking now for a long time
How to go my own separate way
It's a shame to think about yesterday
It's a shame, a shame, a shame, a shame

We've been running round in our present state
Hoping help will come from above
But even angels there make the same mistakes
In love, in love, in love, in love

Now that we are lonely
Life seems to get hard
Alone, what a world lonely
Alone, it makes me cry

Thought-train set in motion
Wheels in and around
Express our emotion
Tracks up then it cracks down, down, down, down

There are styles and influences flowing through this album that I don't recognise, how did they come to make such an accomplished album with a fully realised vision first off? There is always a freshness to a first work that introduces something new, perhaps this is why this album captivates me more than For Your Pleasure. Roxy creates a rich imaginative space, where the heart the imagination and the mind are all engaged. I'm no great lover, but I've wished I was, so it is a true delight to be able through the imaginative medium of music to enter a space in my heart where a flame is burning.

After the first two Roxy albums Brian Eno left and went on to be a highly influential pop musician, producer, conceptualist and intellectual. I would like to feature a blog post for his album Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy sometime in the future as it is a fantastic album and worthy to stand both in connection to and in contrast to the work of Roxy Music.

Eno was replaced by Eddie Jobson, a better musician than Eno if a lesser conceptual stylistic presence.

I used to have a large collection of vinyl, I've only got a little of it now and I'm buying some of it again on CD. I just recently got Stranded again, how could I have left it so long? Playing it again I was so captivated, music can be like a drug it enhances our perceptions and opens up our inner vision, or at least those albums that are precious to us do so. Stranded is an album that has more space than any other Roxy album with the possible exception of Avalon. Each side (of the original album) opens with a rocker Street Life and Serenade before entering gorgeously spacious yearningly romantic mood music to die for: Just like You & Song for Europe, The two final tracks Psalm and Sunset to me are heartfelt hymns to the very spirit of Romanticism even if wonderfully wordy.

Finally, I'll just mention their last album Avalon. Roxy Music seems to follow a trajectory from their first album very artful, daring, futuristic rock roll to their last album's pure romantic crooning. This album to me seems to be the place where Bryan Ferry wanted to live and where he took up residence.

Always at the end of these write ups I feel the centre I am trying to express has been missed, but I feel that if we try to be too complete it gives the false impression that we have achieved what we set out to do, so it's time to sign off. Thanks for reading to the end.

5 Favourite Split Enz Albums

My friend Dan suggested to me that i do a blog on my 5 favourite Split Enz albums, it's a good idea, I've listened to their music for a long time and it'll be the first New Zealand group featured in this blog. Split Enz weren't really part of any musical movement in NZ, they were pre punk there are hints of prog rock about their debut and classic pop in their later albums. I also don't think you could described them as cool, they are nerdy and a bit odd.

Mental Notes

Their debut album recorded in Australia where like many other places they were loved and hated. The cover art was painted by Phil Judd and is kind of surrealist, a lot of the images coming from caste away photos he collected of other peoples lives, it's kind of gothic and disturbing and completely fits with the music inside. I have seen the original painting of this in our National museum Te Papa and it is almost exactly the size of a fold out LP cover, the main difference being that the image has been reversed for the album and Phil had subsequently painted away his hair.

Walking down a Road - a seemingly straight forward title that begins with a murky fade in maybe treated synthiser some distinctive bass playing and amazing piano trills from their very talented keyboard player Eddie Raynor, Tim Finn starts his great delivery of the lyrics of dislocation, anxiety and imagination. There are fade outs and fade in with what sounds like a mandolin.

I turned to my guide
but just as I feared
he disappeared

there are elements of dark nursery rhyme, vaudville and circus. The band on stage wore thick make up and costumes designed and sewn by their percussionist Noel Crombie they looked weird and many must have thought they were on drugs but like Frank Zappa they show that you don't need drugs to be weird. At this stage their main song writer was Phil Judd the songs either being credited to him or co-written with Tim Finn their main singer. Phil's weirdness might have been helped along by some mental health issues which in more recent times have taken him to rather dark places and not always made him the most likeable person.

Under the Wheel - features Phil on lead vocals and they show what a gifted created artist he was. This is music of shadows. this is another song with a spooky fade in, again strange gothic vibe and this music is truly original. Green and black seem to be colours associated archetypically with New Zealand painting and this album has that ambience that mixes what we get in a few Colin McCahon paintings, Janet Frame and Ronald Hugh Morrieson novels.

After the brooding spirit of the first two songs it's a great relief to have the rather funny perky jaunty tune Amy, which makes you want to break out into a country dance.

I won't go over the rest of the tracks but I'll conclude by saying this album is richly imaginative it takes you to a place no other album does and it also seems to tap into something essential to New Zealand art, it has to be one of our giants, it's quirky, funny, creative, dark and kind of beautiful. A monument.

Funnily enough the band were disappointed with what had emerged from the studio with Mental Notes and they re recorded a lot of songs with their next album which was produced by Phil Manzanera in England where it was there released as Mental Notes in Oz and NZ as the aptly titled Second Thoughts. It's a good album but does not have the intense brooding atmosphere of their debut it was a strange and unnecessary step sideways.

Dizrythmia

Phil Judd has now left the band, he had found touring very hard, he did not respond well to the sometimes hostile reception this group of weirdos received in some parts of the US and Australia and as a musician he had become unreliable. He was replaced by Tim's younger and at this stage still pretty young brother Neil. Neil didn't have a large role on this album but that would change on subsequent albums where he became a key elemnt in the bands later popularity.

This album is more poppy than Mental Notes, but it's still an odd album, Tim Finn was now the main songwriter and it is a good selection of songs, it has more bubble than Mental Notes and more of a Circus atmosphere it kind of takes off where the Beatles song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite left off. 

Bold as Brass - This was a single the lyrics are deliberately full of cliches and it's very humable and dancable. but still has some great percussion bubble and pop.

My Mistake - Tim Finn insecurity in Love Song, lovely changes lovely singing

Parrot Fashion love - more love insecurities, also nice tune.

Sugar and Spice - written by Phil Judd but fits nicely into the rest of the album.

Without a Doubt - a longer track and more brooding, maybe the first beautiful ballad from the band, there is pathos and longing here, shows off Tim's voice, plenty of space in the music, maybe a bit slow for some but I really like it, also some nice changes at

Like a fly in the ointment
Love makes my flesh creep

Crosswords - a bit of a play on words, well produced and again pretty catchy and quirky.

Charlie - Neil has had rather harsh words about Tim's vocal performance on this tune. But I find it spooky this tale of Love and death. Some great piano touches from Eddie Raynor. Maybe a classic.

Nice to Know - very cool bass line, pretty good song well delivered.

Jamboree - A good finale starts slow takes it's time and slowly builds ties in well to their earlier work.

So a very accomplished album maybe not as important as Mental Notes, but it moves on from there to a deliver a very credible album lead by Tim Finn who shows he has enough talent to carry the bands songwriting, he does have help from other members.

True Colours

Between this and Dizrythmia was a set of session tapes now released as the Rootin Tootin Luton Tapes and the album Frenzy each of which have their merit but one was never meant to be an album and the other suffered somewhat from poor production and focus. Not so with True Colours this is their Pop opus where Neil Finn emerges as a major force threatening to eclipse his older brother Tim.

That's an amazing thing another major songwriter emerging from the band.

So this time the sound was paired down with a strong pop focus and with a strong producer with David Tickle. It opens with the frenetic Shark Attack which was a really energetic live song, I saw the band when they toured this album and they were smoking hot, great energy, great songs and really committed performances. This song tries to draw on the zeitgeist of the time created by the movie Jaws.

I got You - Neil's huge single, this one was just everywhere in Oz and NZ hitting number 1 and i suspect staying there for a while it's a great 60's style pop tune so catchy so well delivered, perfectly performed and produced. we still hear it on the radio to this day. If you like good pop tunes you have to like this track.

What's the Matter with You - Another 60's style gem from Neil but with Tim singing. very cool keyboard solo.

There are two instrumentals by Eddie Raynor on this album which are very nice filler Double Happy and the Choral Sea.

There is a romantic ballad from Tim with I hope I never which apparently was written after an attempt to ring Phil Judd and his refusal to speak with Tim. A nice change in tempo and mood.

What else can I say all the songs are good, they're nice pop by a band inspired by the Beatles and the Kinks, just a really well focused pop album, this album held out Pink Floyd's the Wall from the number one spot in both Australia and New Zealand where it was a giant album that everybody loved and bought. this made us feel very good about ourselves and it is still a joy to listen to.


Time and Tide

This to me is the last great Enz album, they had had their pop success they followed that up with an album called Waiata which i think stuck a bit to close to the mould they had created with True Colours, it still has good songs but it just doesn't feel quite as fresh the second time around.

Time and Tide however they stretched themselves and wrote songs that were personal and introspective, Noel Crombie took over the drums and he does nice things with them. There is a bit more of the proggy feel to this album but it is no look back but rather a look inside. These songs seem to mean tsomething to the writers and for that they touch me more deeply.

I love Dirty Creature a song about internal demons, but also with a very cool groove and some great changes and nice textures from Eddie Raynors synth and guitar hook from Neil. excellent singing from Tim.

A really cohesive album that fuses the personal with great collaboration everyone is pulling in the same direction, only a great band could create so many excellent albums.

The Beginning of the Enz

When i was thinking about which 5 albums to feature I easily came up with the 4 above but couldn't think what would be the fifth until I remembered this album.

The material on this album was recorded in New Zealand prior to Mental Notes, it even has some of the same songs, but they atmosphere here is joyful and just doesn't brood or disturb like Mental Notes but yet it so fresh and for a collection of singles it all works nicely together. great fun.

There you have it my homage to a great New Zealand band.

electropop

When we listen to music we to go to a place, different music takes us through different landscapes, different emotional topography, dwellings and ornaments. We invest ourselves in these imaginative places and when we listen to the music again across the space of decades we discover ourselves again although through a sea change.

I recently watched this documentary synth Brittania on the rise of electro pop in the 80's

http://youtu.be/69Wjc6QYuKI

This doco took me on a trip, showed me cityscapes and political currents that the music grew in that it reflected informed and responded to.

There is alienation in this music as there was in Brittania and much of the Western world in the late 70's 80's and beyond. Much of this music is also described as new romantic set against the political landscape of the rise of the extreme right with Margaret Thatcher.

J G Ballard's work was mentioned by a lot of the artists on the documentary I linked to. Ballard was a science fiction writer, who delved in modern symbolism and very near futures, he seemed to psychoanalyse modern life through its urban symbolism; Car crashes, Diaphragms, Bill Boards, Underpass, Mirror Glass buildings, drained swimming pools, abandoned factories etc. There is some beauty in his novels & some surrealism, they exist within an amoral space and have little heart but are possibly an intense mirror on modern mind. I still feel some attraction to his novels the Crystal World and the unlimited Dream Company, but this is mixed with wariness. I believe we are what we eat and what the mind dwells upon it moves towards and do I want to move towards bleak industrial landscapes?

My relationship to this music started with the album Systems of Romance by Ultravox. This was the third and last Ultravox album by the John Foxx led version of the band. Ultravox would later become much more popular when Midge Ure fronted the band and they produced the hit single and album Vienna.  But the work of John Foxx both within and without Ultravox is for me the most captivating work to emerge from the Synthpop genre.

Mr Foxx's work is influenced by J G Ballard's writing their are underpasses and I think crashing cars but it seems more romantic and beautiful, after all two of my favourite works of his are called The Garden and the Golden Section, Foxx appreciates Ballard but he maps his own territory.

Here are some lyrics from the opening track of Systems of Romance

No reply
I'm trying hard to somehow frame a reply
Pictures, I've got pictures, and I run them in my head
When I can't sleep at night
Looking out at the white world and the Moon
I feel a soft exchange taking place
Merging with the people on the trains
Whirling my face in conversation

Slow motion
Slow motion

There is surrealism here, sleeplessness but also the moon, there seems to be a hint of alchemy which lurks in much of surrealism.

Soon after I listened to this album I remember distant friends, even more distant now, speaking of taking drugs and understanding what the song "just for a moment" meant,  this seemed to have resonance for me, drugs are a whole other discussion that i can't deal seriously with here, but what that says to me in retrospect is that this music or art serves as a lens for seeing things differently, music is a way of altering our consciousness and going within:

Talking in the window as the light fades
I heard my voice break just for a moment
Talking by the window as the light fades
I felt the floor change into an ocean

We'll never leave here, never
Let's stay in here forever
And when the streets are quiet
We'll walk out in the silence

I am very happy for the floor to change into an ocean. Foxx has done a set of 3 ambient albums "Cathedral Oceans" possibly referencing Debussy's gorgeous piano piece "La cathédrale engloutie"

Later in Foxx's album the Garden he had a song Europe after the Rain named after a Max Ernst painting:

In Europe after the rain
When the nights are warm and the summer sways
The stained glass echoing
The blossomed balconies and voices blow
On a shining wind

This music pierces me, it takes me to a seductive place from which I never want to leave, Tennyson's Temple of Art or Lotus Eaters.

Urban landscapes can be ugly and degrading, but if we live there we can either learn to cast a glamour over them and love them or dream of distant places that can feed our hunger for beauty and I feel both of these elements crystalise in John Foxx's work and lurk through the electro-pop genre as a whole.

Yes - Close to the Edge

Of these 3 favourite albums I find Close to the Edge the hardest to write about. Yet it inspires me just as the other two, although Yes still have many fans, it seems there was an attempt to wipe Yes' place away from Rock history. This album is regarded as a Prog Rock Classic, but people think of prog rock in terms of technical expertise and cleverness but for me this album is a deeply romantic work of art, it is highly intuitive and it moves me with its beauty. The eclectic ideas that have been poured into it fuse together into a seamless whole and I am so thankful that this truly unique work was created.

I first listened to this aged 11 years old, lying on the floor of the lounge, following the lyrics written out in Roger Dean's beautiful script, looking at the inner cover, this was perhaps my first experience of visionary art and it transformed me.

There are only 3 pieces on this album. It opens with the title track which originally filled the entire first side of the album. It has an amazing fade in of nature sounds, birds, water rippling and beautiful bubbling synthesiser which builds slowly and as it peaks Chris Squires distinctive crunchy bass comes in and the band are making an exciting controlled chaos which yet has themes introduced that churns over and is completely captivating till it breaks like sunlight through trees into an accapella wordless harmony then back again into instrumental intensity, after a little while the music seems to clarify and slow down until there is a break and Steve Howe plays the gorgeous main theme on guitar it is 4 minutes in before Jon Anderson starts singing lyrics which start

A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace,
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace,
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar,
Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour.

Reading those without music might bewilder you a little, and maybe Yes does bewilder many listeners, but both the music and the words are abstract and impressionistic, they are not telling a linear story and it is the images and the sound of them that drives them. By being abstract it also means that are not sucked dry by repeated listening. The images are romantic and come from, or lead to, the land of hearts desire, they are speaking from the soul and in the context of the music they fit perfectly.

I will not follow the whole track through in a linear way, but it has many parts with very different moods, the stillness of Rick's keyboard section, sections with clear melodic lines and angular sections. The River theme recurs in Yes, here Jon said it was inspired largely by Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha, where the title character comes to live by a river and listens to the music of its waters and finds peace through it.

Yes on this album had five members and as with the Beatles each of them was vitally important to the music they created, seldom in rock music have the bass guitar and drums been so important. Steve Howe's guitar playing is just so supple, Rick Wakeman although known as a very flamboyant keyboard player is also one who knows the importance of melody and then there is Jon Anderson the diminutive singer with the alto voice, who because of his spiritual interest and abstract lyrics is sometimes described as a waif, but he was the leader of the band and Bill Bruford (their drummer) described him as an iron hand in a velvet glove and was affectionately known within the band as Napoleon. I really think it was Jon's daring that sailed the Yes ship into unknown seas guided by a star that only he could see.

The second track is "And You and I" and I think the title track is my favourite but I'm never sure as this track is probably their most beautiful work ever, I suppose it's a love song, it certainly feels like Love, the lyric "Emotion revealed as the Ocean Maid" has stuck in my soul as a beautiful expression of the natural world being alive and loving.

Lastly "Siberian Khatru" this is more angular and oblique, but as in the album as a whole there are no wrong steps everything feels inevitable and artistically satisfying.

There are some works of art that just had to be, that map out a whole new territory and this is one of them. 

Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE

There is a lot of back story to this release, it was started in 1966, as a Beach Boys album follow up to the amazing Pet Sounds album,  a lot of work was done on it and it was abandoned in 1967. It's primary architect Brian Wilson then went into artistic and personal decline suffering from depression, mental illness, he went very low, but staggeringly he came back, started touring, recording and eventually completed SMiLE first for live concert and then recorded it in 2004 38 years after it was started, and recently they released the original Beach Boys session tapes.

This album is unique, it is a pop masterwork of breath taking intensity and musical richness. To me it doesn't stand as part of any genre in pop music, it has no near relatives, it is the work of an incredibly gifted artist (and his collaborators).

Brian initially described it as a "teenage symphony to God" and Humour was an important part of it. This album was to be constructed from musical snippets, like a tapestry strung together, a friend of Brian's described it "if Pet Sounds was his Blue period, then SMiLE was his cubist period". Brian wanted a creative lyricist to match his musical vision and uncannily found the perfect partner with Van Dyke Parks. They wanted the work to have a visionary/mythological character exploring the American dream which in the late 60's was beginning to unravel.

This recording groups the songs/sections into three suites.

Suite One

Our Prayer - Probably the most beautiful A cappella piece Brian ever wrote, it serves as a prayer and invocation a declaration of high artistry, this moves into

Gee - a short cover snippet announcing that there is going to be fun and silliness too, which moves into...

Heroes and Villains - This is one of the Wilson/Parks classics, ostensibly a song, but it has so many sections, variations, changes, pauses, exclamations, there are dense musical textures, single instruments or spoken voice, and even so they all flow effortlessly into one another. Van Dyke's lyrics are abstract, I don't think you should get hung up on trying to work out exactly what they mean, because I think he is trying to convey images and multiple meanings but this song is basically a western. By having the lyrics abstract they retain a musicality and can be revisited over and over again without them becoming flat or prosaic. For me Brian's aged voice, in 1966 he had the most gorgeous falsetto, adds the right ambience of age and time to convey the sense of the huge North American continent, it's battering adds a richness, pathos and maturity to the work which would have been lacking if it came out in 1966.

Then we get the timpani drums making a bridge to the next song snippet "Roll Plymouth Rock" and here we get the idea of a travelogue across USA from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii. Also worth saying here although it was obvious from the start that this is an album that makes unapologetic use of the recording studio, cuts, fades, effects, they are all part of the tapestry...

Then into "Barnyard" humour is the predominant element here with band members all making animal noises and the song a delightful twisting dance in the barnyard amongst the animals...

This goes into "Old Master Painter/You are My Sunshine" a famous cover, it lurches downward and has an unsettling sadness in it but ends with a comic trumpet, which still has something of the tears of a clown about it.

Then into the final track of the first suite "Cabin Essence" this is another major song and features the steam locomotive making its way across the vast plains, a lonely cabin and fields of corn and wheat uncovered over and over by the crow cries.

This first section has sketched out the vast spaces of the USA with a touch of nostalgia.

Suite Two

This section focuses on childhood, the growth of the individual from innocence to decadence or maturity. And opens with the aptly titled "Wonderful" this song has a fairy tale quality to it, an enchanted music box, it is another major song but it has a very small feeling about it and is full of tenderness and delicacy.

"Song for the children" and "Child is the Father of the Man" are closely connected works, there is a muted trumpet that forms a strong image in the next song...

Surfs Up, the final song in this suite and this is another great song, one of Brian's very best, the lyrics make up a gorgeous tapestry, the development of art and culture and the possibility of its collapse. This is the only song where I really miss Brian's 1966 voice, he handles it admirably with a little help from Jeffrey Foskett, luckily there there is a version with Brian and Carl singing and it can be appreciated as a stand alone song.

Suite Three

This features the elements songs for Earth, Wind, Fire and Water but it seems to me the most disparate of the suites, it is a real joy, but features no major songs as i am not counting Good Vibrations which to me doesn't seem to be part of the suite but rather a coda to the album.

I"m in Great Shape - a charming introduction that dissolves into "Workshop" which has a short romantic snippet and then sounds of building, sawing, hammering, power tools and into

Vegetables - this to me is his greatest humour song a real delightful appreciation of eating vegetables, including the sounds of celery being bitten with nice load crunching sounds. The song ends with a fabulous A Capella section and then into. This song represents the element of earth (I think)

"On a Holiday" complete with pirates playing up also includes some great tuned percussion and we get to Hawaii where their queen "Lilluola Kalani sings for us.

Wind Chimes - Which starts as a beautiful restful piece and represents the element of air. i love this song, it explodes into large vocal and instrumental patterns, then contracts, it leads us on a merry dance until...

"Mrs O'Leary's Cow", who was supposed to have started the great fire of Chicago, this is obviously the Fire element and it starts with a comic kids version with toots and whistles before it lurches into a pretty scary piece of music that won Brian his only Grammy award for best instrumental, the strings make sirens and the drumming is relentless after this we need some...

Water, this element is represented by "in Blue Hawaii" this song fabulously cools us off and really ends our journey at the outer edge of the US territory then we have a partial reprise of Our Prayer which began the album.

Then a coda which states what we need are "Good Vibrations", this song is a great variation on the song we all know so well, it reverts to earlier version of lyrics which are more zany and more interior "she's already working on my brain" and fit better with the tenor of the album that it is closing. There are also a few extra sections that you don't hear on the original single, a fitting celebration a great song to end a great album.

Have I conveyed how much I love this album? I hope so.

The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Mono)

My big three pop/rock albums are Sgt Pepper, Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and Yes -Close to the Edge. I will write a blog on each album, so first Sgt Pepper.

My older brother had a stereo copy of this on lp and I must have been 11 or twelve when I listened to this, the Beatles had already broken up, but I entered the place this album created and saw it for the wonderland it truly is.

I love the Beatles, there is something alchemical about them, they took many influences from their time and transformed them into something new, something that the whole world fell in love with. They changed our lives, touched our hearts and took us on a breath taking journey of change. Each of the members of the band sing and each seems to add an essential element of an incredible whole. For me Sgt Pepper is the high point, everything was working together, it is positive, colourful and richly imaginative. I only want to play this album if I can sit down and give it my full attention and when i do it richly repays me.

Since getting the remastered Mono Beatles box set I only listen to the mono version of this album. The stereo version has that weird channel separation, with different instruments coming from different speakers. The mono one has it all fused together which sounds much better. The Beatles also oversaw the mix of the Mono version, they left the stereo for George Martin and one track "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is much better on the mono mix. It is criminal that you can't buy the mono version as a stand alone CD.

The album opens with the orchestra tuning up audience sounds and into the title track announcing that they ARE Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and that you have entered a bold psychedelic alternate universe that is this one transformed infused with charm character and good will. This song works as a framing device for the album, as Paul McCartney said, by being this other band they were freed to write songs that weren't their own.  It's a joyful rocker it ends with more crowd noise and the announcement of Billy Shears ...

With a Little Help From My Friends is sung by Ringo, and it is so obviously designed for him and became one of his great signature tunes. How did John and Paul do this? Write a song that so fittingly played by Ringo? By this stage they had all spent a lot of time together and were extremely close and it shows. This song is loveable, slightly downcast,  and has those mysterious killer lines "what do you see when you turn out the light...I can't tell you but i know it's mine"

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds already we're starting to appreciate something about this album, the first three songs are completely different from one another and yet there is an absolute inevitability about them, This album is chock full of colourful characters and story telling which is perfectly reflected in its iconic montage cover. Lucy starts with one of the most beautifully simple keyboard figures played and composed by Paul on a Lowrey organ that sounds like a harpishord. This is the psychedelic song par excellence and while the stereo version seemed like an almost excellent song, the mono version is THE THING. The Beatles added some phasing (a popular psychedelic recording treatment) to the chorus vocals and it just makes all the difference, the stereo version is recorded to dry for such a psychedelic song. John wrote most of the song, it's chock full of images he was inspired by a picture by his son Julian, Alice in Wonderland and surely the LCD he was taking at the time. And when he sings "picture yourself in a boat on a river..." I do, this is music to take you gently to the centre of your mind. Just fantastic!

Getting Better, a Paul song, slightly throw away but joyful, some bad stuff has happened but hey look up be optimistic its getting better.

Fixing a Hole, this is great, Paul's wandering bass, inspired by the bass lines from the Beach Boys Pet sounds, infact sonically that album had a big impact on Sgt Pepper in seeking the Beatles to extend their sonic pallet. I love this song I like the title I like him painting his room in a colourful way. Thoroughly charming.

She's Leaving home, another Paul song and one of his story songs, this album is full of these little pocket novels. This song deals with the generation gap in such a gentle way, with somewhat sentimental strings. And yes it steals my heart.

And then THE CIRCUS! Fantastic lyrics from a 19th century circus poster and John said to George Martin, I want to smell the sawdust and you can. By this time in the album my appreciation and gratitude is enormous and so ends side one of the original LP.

Within You and Without You sits in the centre of the album at the start of side two and give the album philosophy and weight, it combines calmness, seriousness & Indian and European instrumentation. "We were talking about the Love we all could share...Try to realise its all within yourself...and the people who gain the world and lose their soul" This song is the first great song by George, then to lighten the tone there is a little laughing and the music hall song

When I'm Sixty-Four, again a song spanning the generation gap. Fabulously arranged. Another song to make you Smile and another story song

And yet another Lovely Rita, people often got annoyed at these parking wardens who give them tickets, but Paul says why not love them, the lines "took her home I nearly made it, sitting on a sofa with a sister or two" are just brilliant, Paul could be a really excellent lyricist sometimes... the song ends with a strange piano vamp and ...

a cock crow "Good Morning" full of influences from John's television, this song has amazing time signatures governed by speech rhythms, I'm not sure if John was trying hard to be innovative it just seemed to come naturally to him... the song ends with a whole lot of animal noises which merge perfectly into the guitar ..

Sgt Pepper Reprise, this time sung by John and announcing that we're coming to the end. Just so clever a perfect framing device for a perfectly constructed album and onto the last song

A Day in the Life, what a way to end the album, I can't do this song justice it is a 5 minute epic with spine tingling melancholy, orchestral orgasm, a morning sequence by Paul ... and...and... what can i say? That final chord and drinking up the last bit of sound

... and the final inner groove snippet.

There you have it, every time I hear this album I'm moved. It is a cultural watershed and an artistic triumph, the Beatles at their best.

Introduction

I will use this blog to write about music that has got under my skin, that has had a profound and lasting impact upon me. I was around 9 years old when music first made an impact upon me and since that time, I have always felt a strong need to listen to music, its a compulsion, the best times for me are in the evening, I will turn out the light, put some music on and just listen. I like beauty in my music, i like light, I like music to take me to a good place, for me music should open the door of consciousness a little wider and give me that sense of innate recognition, of coming home. Music and art for me is increasingly about vision, it is life affirming, it is joy. Inspiration and imagination are spiritual qualities that help us to see.