Marianne Faithful – Broken English

LP- 1979

Today is the second time I have listened to Broken English this month. Although I have listened to this album for decades, this time felt like the first time. It was new, fresh and full of energy, emotion and stories that needed to be told. I left the album out as a reminder to return and give it another spin on the turntable. That spin was today, and Marianne Faithful’s Broken English has only improved with age, like a fine wine. Broken English has one song that has become an earworm for me, the Ballad of Lucy Jordan.

“At the age of thirty-seven

She realized she’d never

Ride through Paris in a sports car

With the warm wind in her hair

So she let the phone keep ringing

And she sat there softly singing

Little nursery rhymes she’d memorized

In her daddy’s easy chair.”

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan is a sad song, but it has a message that, hopefully, we can learn from. So many of us live lives of quiet desolation and never feel the wind in our hair, or in my case, what’s left of it. We put things aside and lie to ourselves that we will do them later. Later never comes. I am blessed to have lived with wild abandon (occasionally) and can sit in my easy chair and softly sing songs I had memorized. I can also sit in my rocking chair and tell stories of my exploits as a young man.

Harry Stafford and Marco Butcher – We Are The Perilous Men

Steamed – 2123

On the first listen, I got excited. The first track, Walk Among the Spectres, took me to the land of Tom Waits in the 1990s, but I didn’t stop to live there. Walk Among The Spectres stands independently and doesn’t sound like a copy of Tom Waits. The lyrics stayed away from the variations of love prevalent in music. I’m unsure what most of them mean, but it sounds good. The sound pallet shifts for all the tracks while carrying forward a thread of commonality. There is one other trick up the sleeves of Harry and Marco that made me smile when I heard it. I had just listened to Frampton Comes Alive, which is notable for one device that Frampton used, the talk-box. The Perilous Men use a talk-box on a few songs, which is good. The talk-box is a seldom used addition to any music, but when used with discretion, it can add a new layer of sound to a song. Harry Stafford and Marco Butcher did an excellent job blending the talk box into the music.

I also enjoyed hearing the space in the song used to good effect; by that, I mean moving the sound left and right and dead center. I have listened to other albums brutally mixed, but not here; the production is right on. It was produced and mastered by Marco Butcher at Boombox Studio.

Van Morrison – Hymns To The Silence Disc One

CD – 1991  

Van Morrison – Hymns To The Silence Disc Two

CD – 1991

I like this album (s). I bought it first on cassette and enjoyed it on the road. Hymns To The Silence was on CD today and stationary. It still sounded good.

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs – Hard Travelin’

LP – 1963

Hard Travelin’ is a repacked version of their best-of albums. If you heard one, you heard them all. They are still good, and I enjoyed hearing these songs again.

Chet Atkins, Floyd Crammer & Boots Randolf – Chet, Floyd & Boots

LP – 1971

It’s not my cup of tea, but each to their own. If someone else likes this one, all the power to them.

Arthur Fiedler And The Boston Pops – Play The Beatles

LP – 1969

I wish I could dig this one out of my head. It is not good listening from my perspective.

The New Pornographers – Electric Version

CD – 2003

I was overdue for a listening session with The New Pornographers. Electric Version has aged well, and I was happy to hear them again.

Nash The Slash – Children Of The Night

LP – 1981

I don’t remember how, when or where I came into the orbit of Nash The Slash, but I’m glad I did. He is an acquired taste, but I like it enough to have several of his albums. Stay tuned to this channel to hear more of Nash The Slash next Monday.

Adam Again – Dig

Stream – 1992

I listen to this album over and over, year after year. Gene Eugene was a unique talent. I am going to let Wikipedia tell the story. “Gene Andrusco (April 6, 1961 – March 20, 2000), better known as Gene Eugene, was a Canadian-born actor, record producer, engineer, composer and musician. Andrusco was best known as the leader of the alternative rock band Adam Again, a member of The Swirling Eddies (credited as Prickly Disco), and a founding member of the supergroup Lost Dogs.”

End of quote and back to me. The standout track on this record for me is River On Fire. It mentions an actual river that did catch fire, The Cuyahoga River. I hear the song sung with great pain about two people who were like a babbling brook with crystal clear water, Gene Eugene and Riki Michele. Gradually, they started to have murky times in their marriage. They gathered more and more debris as they moved along to the point where they were like a river on fire, something that should never happen. Oil and water should never be together; they don’t mix. The river reached a point where it caught fire, as incongruous as that may be. Gene Eugene and Riki Michele continued to work and sing together while, sadly, their marriage was falling apart. Gene used the incongruous picture of a river on fire to express his pain. River On Fire is a fantastic track on an already great album.

So there we have what I listened to this past week, September 18 to 25. It’s only three months till Christmas. Have you finished your Christmas shopping? Just dropping a hint, I like music. Vinyl, Cassette, CD. Any format.