Lupine, Whisper

Face raised to the moon
She bares her teeth and whispers
Please don’t wake the cubs

The Stranger by Billy Joel

You know Billy Joe? Cheesy love songs and faux blue collar novelty songs, amirite? Turns out he’s a bit more than just a piano man, with some cleverly constructed songs. I remembered the hits from this, but the big romantic ballads Just the Way You Are and She’s Always a Woman fall a little flat when you find out that he’s now on his fourth marriage to a series of increasingly younger and more glamorous women.  

I was more impressed with the mini song cycle Scenes From an Italian Restaurant that looks at the ups and downs of a relationship over a lifetime, and Vienna which is a tribute to that city with an appropriately Brechtian European feel. 

I also found out today that George Martin was initially tapped to produce this album which I think would have made it quite a different experience. As it stands, it’s a fine piece but probably just a bit too smooth for me. 

https://album.link/gb/i/158617952

Gold, Calf

Just FYI guys
Worshipping of golden calves
Does not turn out well

New Boots and Panties!! By Ian Dury

Ian Dury was renowned for thriftily buying his clothes secondhand with the hygienic exception of footwear and underpants. Sound advice! 

For some reason this album got shelved with the punk records back in 1977 but it’s more of a mix of funk and pub rock, with a nod to 50’s rock n roll. Chaz Jankel’s keyboards are a perfect foil for Ian Dury’s cheeky lyrics and earthy Essex accent. Session musicians Norman Watt-Roy and Hugh Charles who played on this record were then later recruited into Dury’s backing band The Blockheads.

Highlights for me on this are Sweet Gene Vincent, a tribute to the 50’s rocker, and My Old Man, a tribute to Dury’s dad and the awkward relationship they shared with feelings hidden and unspoken until it was too late. According to the wiki page Dury discovered later that the cover photo (featuring his young son Baxter) was taken around the corner from where his dad had died in a bedsit back in 1968.

https://album.link/gb/i/267608439

The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips

I walked into the office today for the first time in about four or five years and this album was conveniently enough long enough to last for the journey there and back again. It was a beautifully sunny day and gulls were circling over Poole Harbour. As I listened, I kept thinking to myself, how much I was going to enjoy this album even more on the next listen and the one after that. 

I’m going to give this four stars for now, and I may well come back and upgrade that at some point in the future. 

Can’t say fairer than that!

https://album.link/gb/i/1247942375

Mountains

Look beyond as if
Gazing at distant mountains
Enzan no metsuke

Windmill, orange

Sure, windmills kill birds
Just nowhere near as many as
Climate change and cats