Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Tom Waits
Blue Valentine
(Elektra, 1978)
One for all you lovers out there…
Opening with his blood-warm, wailing take on Leonard Bernstein’s Somewhere, Blue Valentine is generally acknowledged to be the easier of Waits’ gutterside Asylum years recordings. In a good way. Released as our jazz cool barfly was on the cusp of launching parallel careers in acting and film composition, it’s an album of tuneful arrangements (strings, horn, piano and guitar added to his canon) and strong narratives, populated by his by-now familiar parade of grubby hoodlums, broken-hearted hookers and old soaks with sourmash voices and bad luck stories. And yet it’s Waits at his most romantic too. The ill-fated tryst in Red Shoes By The Drugstore (“And it’s Christmas Eve / In a sad café / When the moon gets this way”) is positively uplifting by his standards. Over on Kentucky Avenue our protagonist promises “I’ll steal a hacksaw from my dad / And we’ll cut the braces off your legs / And we’ll bury them in the cornfield.” And if that’s too much corn for you (I well up just thinking about it…) then move along to the album’s closing title track, its masterpiece, with Tom accompanying himself on guitar, tortured by regret and his “blind and broken heart” - the most poignant valentine since Charlie Brown’s.
Jenny Bulley
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 13/02/2009
Further Listening
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs (Island, 1985)
Ricky Lee Jones – Ricky Lee Jones (Warner Bros, 1979)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Boatman’s Call (Mute, 1997)
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Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
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Comments
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Beautiful record, not just on Valentines day but anytime I'm feeling a little maudlin and remembering ones that got away!
You're right the arrangements are some of the most easy-listening, toe-tapping he's ever done but the lyrics and the raw emotion in Toms voice keeps this from anywhere near corny. Special mention for 'Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis' for the clever and rally bitter-sweet lyrical twist at the end. Thanks Mojo.... I'm off to cry over old photographs.
Posted by Krist at 12:06 PM GMT 13/02/2009 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Beautiful record, not just on Valentines day but anytime I'm feeling a little maudlin and remembering ones that got away!
You're right the arrangements are some of the most easy-listening, toe-tapping he's ever done but the lyrics and the raw emotion in Toms voice keeps this from anywhere near corny. Special mention for 'Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis' for the clever and rally bitter-sweet lyrical twist at the end. Thanks Mojo.... I'm off to cry over old photographs.
Posted by Krist at 12:20 PM GMT 13/02/2009 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Beautiful record, not just on Valentines day but anytime I'm feeling a little maudlin and remembering ones that got away!
You're right the arrangements are some of the most easy-listening, toe-tapping he's ever done but the lyrics and the raw emotion in Toms voice keeps this from anywhere near corny. Special mention for 'Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis' for the clever and rally bitter-sweet lyrical twist at the end. Thanks Mojo.... I'm off to cry over old photographs.
Posted by Krist at 12:21 PM GMT 13/02/2009 Report Abuse
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The title track is one of the most heart breaking love songs ever written. This is true film noir music, where the central character remains alone or broken by the one woman he could never capture....
Robert Ryan or Robert Mitchum would have been proud.
Let's hear it for the losers.....
Posted by Rob J at 8:49 PM GMT 20/02/2009 Report Abuse
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