I only became aware of the release of R-Kive, the 3-CD Genesis compilation released in the fall of 2014, a few months after it came out. I wrote a lengthy review – actually more of a description simultaneously serving as a summary of the band’s career – of it for the music service KKBox (the first part is online here, though I'm not sure what happened to the second part). As long as that article was, there was a lot more I could have said about R-Kive that I didn’t include there, so this is sort of a supplemental review. First of all, I should note that my earlier article, though written in the knowledge that it would be mainly used to promote the album, is an honest summary of my feelings about the compilation. I really do consider it to be an excellent summary of the band’s career, and I love the idea of including songs from each of the five key members’ solo careers to provide a fuller picture and introduce people to music that they might not have heard before. Also, all things considered, I think the song selection is a good one, and for the most part it’s hard to argue with the choices. I really do recommend the set very highly to any music fan who isn’t familiar with the music of Genesis or is only familiar with a small part of their career.
Of course, like any other fan, I can think of alternative choices that I might have preferred over the songs included. However, I must admit that I like all the songs that were chosen enough that I would have a hard time dropping them, with maybe one or two exceptions. The truth is, if I were to make my own version of R-Kive, I’d be tempted to expand it to four CDs in order to include even more songs I think it’s a shame to leave out while keeping the vast majority of what’s already on there. In particular, I’d be inclined to add more solo tracks, not because I necessarily prefer them to the Genesis tracks (on the contrary, on the whole I prefer the Genesis material throughout the band’s career, even in the 1980s – though that sentiment would no doubt horrify a vocal segment of fans), but because I think that would make the set an even more thorough introduction to the complete world of Genesis. In fact, even four CDs isn’t quite enough to fit all the songs I consider essential listening, especially since many of the Genesis tracks I’d want to add are very long (and just four eight to ten minute tracks take up half a CD). I will talk about my attempt to assemble a 4-disc R-Kive set in a future essay.
First, some additional thoughts on the collection as a whole. I particularly like the chronological sequencing, as it allows listeners to hear how the band (and its individual members) evolved over time. While the previously released Platinum Collection is also a great overview of the group’s career, one reason it is surpassed by this collection, aside from the inclusion of solo tracks in this one, is that the previous set was sequenced backwards, starting with the newer material and going back. While this is more or less how I was exposed to Genesis myself, having first heard the hits in the 1980s and then gone back to the early years, I prefer to listen the band’s evolution in the forward direction, not least because, unlike some other fans, I think the later material is just as good in its way as the early stuff, if not always quite as inventive. In any case as in reality the band’s evolution happened in this direction, going forward in time is the best way to hear it.
The exclusion of the first album – most likely mainly because of licensing issues, not because the band prefers to ignore that part of their career – means we don’t hear the very first part of this evolution, but “The Knife” does make a much better opening track than anything on the debut would have. While some of the same fans referred to above, namely those who only like complex songs in the progressive rock vein, may think that the compilation is too heavily weighted toward the later material – particularly as Invisible Touch and We Can’t Dance are represented by three songs apiece, whereas the early albums, with the exception of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, are only represented by a single song each, this is in fact debatable, especially given the length of the early songs. In fact, “Supper’s Ready” alone takes up more space on the collection than all the songs from either of the above-mentioned albums. In fact, if anything is underrepresented, it is a few of the albums in the middle period, like Wind & Wuthering and Duke (which incidentally indicates that Tony Banks, despite his central role in Genesis – to the point that some, including at one point Steve Hackett, accused him of controlling things – did not make the final decisions on the Genesis songs, as he has often said that these two albums are, along with Foxtrot, his favorites). My biggest objection to the selection of Genesis songs included, and it’s not a big one, probably lies here, though it’s hard to fix it within a three CD format.
The solo songs were apparently chosen by the relevant band members themselves. It’s interesting to note that both Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel avoided picking their very biggest commercial successes and most widely known songs such as “Against All Odds”, “One More Night”, “Sussudio”, “Sledgehammer”, and “In Your Eyes”, while Mike Rutherford’s picks are more obvious (since Banks and Hackett have had less mainstream commercial success – aside from Hackett’s involvement in GTR – their choices can’t really be judged on this basis). I’ll have more to say on the individual song choices later on, but I’ll say that while I might have chosen slightly differently, overall the solo songs accomplish the stated purpose of providing representative examples of each member’s solo work and showing how they fit into the context of the history of the band itself.
So if I had to stick to the three CD format, how would my version of R-Kive differ from the one that was released? All the songs on the first disc are great, so it would be hard to make any changes. I would be a little tempted to substitute “Firth of Fifth” for “The Cinema Show”, as the former is perhaps my favorite Gabriel-era Genesis song, but as the latter is another favorite, it’s hard to imagine actually taking it off. I would consider dropping “I Know What I Like” instead, but I like it too, if not quite as well as the other two songs from Selling England by the Pound, and as the band’s first hit single, it has too much historical significance to leave off (anyway, since it’s much shorter, dropping it wouldn’t create enough room for the much longer “Firth of Fifth”). As far as the other albums are concerned, while there are one or two songs I like as well as the ones that were included (e.g. “The Fountain of Salamacis” versus “The Musical Box”), the ones that were picked are pretty much what I’d have picked. I don’t have especially strong opinions about most tracks on Steve Hackett’s Voyage of the Acolyte (except that I dislike some of the keyboard sounds, which hinders my enjoyment of a few tracks), but “Ace of Wands” is a good choice.
On the second CD, it’s a little easier to think of possible substitutes for what was included, but again the latter are still great, so I’m not sure I’d actually change anything, with maybe one exception. I like most of the tracks on A Trick of the Tail about equally, so while if starting with a blank slate I might well have chosen “Dance on a Volcano”, “Entangled”, “Squonk” or “Mad Man Moon”, I like “Ripples” just as much as any of these, so I probably would just stick with that. Wind and Wuthering has three of my favorite Genesis songs, “One for the Vine”, “Afterglow”, and “Blood on the Rooftops”. If I were forced to rank them, they’d probably be in that order, but it would be a close match. So while I think it’s a shame that they left off “One for the Vine” and “Blood on the Rooftops”, especially the former, if they’d left off “Afterglow” I would have thought it was a shame, too, so probably I’d keep their selection. “Solsbury Hill” is one of my favorite Gabriel songs, so I’d definitely keep that, and while there are songs on And Then There Were Three I like as well or even slightly better than “Follow You Follow Me”, the latter is still good and is historically significant as the band’s first big hit in both the UK and US. The Tony Banks and Steve Hackett songs are reasonable choices (though if I had been making the selection I might have picked a song from Banks’s 1983 album The Fugitive, and there are other Hackett songs I would have considered), “Biko” is a great choice from Gabriel’s third album, and the Genesis songs from Duke, Abacab, and Genesis are all obvious choices, though each of these albums has at least one or two more songs that are excellent candidates. “In the Air Tonight” is an even more obvious choice for Phil Collins, and “Silent Running” is probably still my favorite Mike & the Mechanics song, so there’s no arguing with that selection either. In fact, the only pick I’d be strongly tempted to change is “Easy Lover”. I like the song, but there are better choices. My favorite Collins song other than “In the Air Tonight” is “I Wish It Would Rain Down”, but of course chronologically that would have to go on the third CD, and adding it there would push at least one Invisible Touch track onto this disc, which would mean splitting up the tracks from that album. Also, “I Wish It Would Rain Down” is quite long, so it might not fit. An easier option would be to pick another Collins song from the 1984-85 period. In that case, rather than choose one of the hits (though I like them well enough, particularly “Take Me Home”), I’d choose “Long Long Way to Go”, my favorite song from No Jacket Required and one of his best songs.
On the third CD, there are some things I might change, though again most of it I’d leave as it is. The three selections from Invisible Touch are fairly obvious ones, though I’d at least consider putting on “Domino”, in which case it’d have to replace “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight”, which is the only one that is nearly as long. I’d consider substituting it for “Invisible Touch” (though unlike many people, I like the latter), but it’s so much longer that there wouldn’t be space. However, as I like “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight”, and “Land of Confusion” is the best of the hits from the album, I could also imagine just keeping the original selections. “The Living Years” was somewhat overplayed at the time and I can understand those who feel it is overly sentimental, but it’s still a good song with emotional depth (not to mention being by far the best known Mike & the Mechanics song), so I’d keep it. As mentioned above, I’d have liked to have seen “I Wish It Would Rain Down” on the set, as it is one of Collins’s best songs, but as it is quite long it might be hard to squeeze on. There’s also the question of what it should replace; as noted above, ideally it would replace “Easy Lover”, but that would require a lot of reshuffling. It could replace “Wake Up Time”, but the latter is a decent song and I can sympathize with Collins’s desire to include a track from a more neglected album rather than yet another hit. “Red Day on Blue Street” is an excellent choice from Still, though there are a few other songs I’d have considered from that album, which is overall the best of Tony Banks’s solo albums.
Then there are the selections from We Can’t Dance. Unlike most fans of the older Genesis material, I don’t dislike songs like “I Can’t Dance” or “Hold on My Heart”; on the other hand, there are quite a few songs I like better just on We Can’t Dance, not to mention on earlier albums. I might still keep “I Can’t Dance”, as it was a pretty big hit and has a sort of quirky charm, and I’d certainly retain “No Son of Mine”. But I’d probably replace “Hold on My Heart”. Ideally I’d replace it with something like “Driving the Last Spike” or maybe “Fading Lights”, but these would probably not fit. Of the other singles off the album, my favorite is “Jesus He Knows Me”, so that’d probably be my choice, but I’d also consider one of the relatively short album tracks like “Living Forever” or even the non-album track “On the Shoreline”. As for the rest of the disc, the remaining selections from Mike & the Mechanics, the Ray Wilson-era Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, and Tony Banks’s classical ventures all are good choices, though there are other possibilities, particularly for Gabriel. All in all, if I had to redo R-Kive within the 3-CD format, my version would differ very little from the actual one.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Banned Songs and Censorship in Taiwanese Popular Music History (禁歌與歌曲審查對台灣流行音樂的影響)
Last month was the first time since I started this blog that I've missed a month entirely. Aside from being busy with various things (many of them music related), the main reason was that I was away for over half the month on a trip to Eastern Europe. I acquired a number of CDs of local rock and pop music in the countries I visited and maybe when I've had time to listen to them all I'll write about some of them.
Earlier this year I was asked to write an article about censorship and banned songs in Taiwan popular music. To save time I wrote it in English, in which I can write much faster (and better) than in Chinese, and gave it to them to translate. The Chinese version (edited somewhat for length and other requirements) should be published soon, but here's my original English draft. Since the article would ultimately be published in Chinese, I wrote all the artist, composer, lyricist and song names in Chinese, and quotes that were in Chinese I didn't bother to translate either. I've added romanizations of some individuals' names, but I haven't taken the time to translate other things. Many of these same people and songs are mentioned (with romanizations and translations) in
previous articles of mine, such as the one linked to here as well as this one and this one.
For most of the history of popular music in Taiwan, songwriters and performers have had to contend with censorship. This censorship has taken a number of different forms and has been imposed by a number of different agencies, usually but not always governmental ones, and has led to a number of different results, from forcing the re-writing of songs, restricting the outlets available for them to be broadcast and performed, and outright banning of songs from publication. Government censorship was haphazard and mostly reactive for most of the 20th century, but for the last decade of the martial law era it was done systematically. Even after the end of martial law, songs with provocative content would sometimes encounter censorship of some form.
The first known case of song censorship dates back to the era of Japanese rule in Taiwan. A song called 〈街頭的流浪〉 (守真作詞，周玉當作曲，青春美演唱) was released near the end of 1934. It described unemployed men wandering the streets and included lyrics like 「頭家無趁錢 轉來食家己」. Because the colonial government disapproved of this negative (if realistic) portrayal of social problems, the song was banned a little over a month after it was released. Due to the references to its banning in contemporary newspapers and in accounts of the era, 〈街頭的流浪〉 has been called Taiwan’s first banned song. The song itself, however, was largely forgotten afterwards and was only rediscovered this century when a collector came across a copy of the record, allowing music historians to hear for the first time what this almost legendary song actually sounded like.
In the years after Japan went to war with China, restrictions were gradually imposed on cultural activities in Taiwan by the Japanese authorities. By 1939, composers like 鄧雨賢Deng Yuxian were having to help produce songs such as 郷土部隊の勇士から (鄉土部隊之勇士的來信) (later given Hoklo [福佬語] lyrics by 文夏Wen Xia, who performed it under the title 媽媽我也真勇健) to support the war effort, and by the 1940s, the popular music industry had been shut down entirely. But the end of Japanese rule and the takeover by the Nationalist government did not bring an end to censorship of popular music in Taiwan. Instead, a new censorship regime was imposed on the Taiwanese music industry, one that in various guises would remain in place for almost half a century.
One type of song that was immediately banned by the Nationalist government was those that were considered pro-Japanese. This included cover versions of any songs that were regarded as Japanese wartime propaganda songs, even when they had been given new lyrical content, including songs such as 〈沙鴦之鐘〉、〈蘇州夜曲〉、〈支那之夜〉 and 〈媽媽我也真勇健〉. Songs that had already been banned by the Nationalist government in China for being “promoting socialism” 「宣揚社會主義」, such as 〈漁光曲〉and〈義勇軍進行曲〉, or for being “pornographic”「黃色歌曲」 (though the majority of them at most told of romantic flirting with no truly sexual content), such as 〈天涯歌女〉、〈桃李爭春〉、〈桃花江〉、〈三年〉、〈何日君再來〉and〈魂縈舊夢〉, were also banned in Taiwan.
A particularly interesting case was the popular song 〈何日君再來〉. The music for this song was written by劉雪庵 under the pen name 晏如 and the words were written by someone using the pen name 貝林. It was first recorded in Shanghai by 周璇, whose version was released in 1938, and quickly became very popular (there was even a contemporary Hoklo [福佬語] language cover version in Taiwan). Though the song was originally just a love song with no political content, it was banned by several different governments. When the Japanese occupied Shanghai during the war, they banned the song in part because of a performance by ethnic Japanese singer 李香蘭Li Xianglan in which she sang the song while wearing a white dress against a blue background (a combination reminiscent of the Nationalist flag), leading the Japanese authorities to believe the song was expressing a desire for the Nationalists to return to Shanghai. After the war in Taiwan, the song was banned by the Nationalists as leftist, but supposedly also because its title sounded like 「賀日軍再來」, implying a desire for the Japanese army to return to Taiwan. Back in China, the Communists banned it because it could be interpreted as expressing a desire for the Nationalists to come back. So a completely innocuous love song encountered censorship from three entirely different regimes in China and Taiwan.
One of the best known songs to appear in Taiwan in the immediate post-war period was the Hoklo classic 〈補破網〉, written by lyricist 李臨秋Li LinQiu and composer 王雲峰Wang Yunfeng. This song was first released in 1948, just a year after the February 28 incident in which Taiwanese had rebelled against the corrupt Nationalist administration imposed on the island after the departure of the Japanese, only for the rebellion to be bloodily crushed by troops sent over from China. While the song may not have been directly inspired by the need to mend the tears in the fabric of the society, it captured the feeling of the times very well. However, while the Nationalist authorities seemingly didn’t associate the lyrics of the song with the February 28 incident (otherwise they probably would have banned it outright), they considered the original two verses that李臨秋Li Linqiu had written too negative, so they forced him to write a third verse and give the song a happy ending. In later decades, 李臨秋Li Linqiu said he’d rather people didn’t sing the third verse, as he only wrote it under duress.
〈補破網〉was far from the only song to encounter censorship for being too dark. 張邱冬松Zhangqiu Dongsong’s 1946 composition 〈收酒矸〉 was also banned for painting too bleak a picture of poverty in Taiwan, much like 〈街頭的流浪〉 had been under the Japanese. 呂泉生Lu Quansheng’s 1949 composition 〈杯底不可飼金魚〉, which was apparently inspired by ethnic tensions in Taiwan in the wake of the February 28 incident, is another well-known song from this era that was banned at some point. It should be pointed out, however, that for the first couple of decades of the post-war period, much of the censorship tended to be somewhat haphazard, as different songs might be banned by different government authorities, and enforcement was not always consistent. A song might be banned from being broadcast or performed, but not from being published, or it might be banned in all contexts. Some songs were seemingly banned for a period of time, with the authority in question later lifting the ban or simply ceasing enforcement of it. If a song appearing on a record was banned, the disc jockey would often simply mark its title with an “X” or a “禁”. Sometimes the title would be crossed out, and occasionally tape would be placed over the grooves on the record itself so that the song couldn’t be played. In extreme cases, the record would be deliberately scratched. Censorship also applied to performances. Famous Hoklo singer 洪一峰Hong Yifeng tells of an occasion when he was performing the song 〈寶島四季謠〉(葉俊麟作詞，洪一峰作曲) on television and he was cut off when he sang the line 「春天時，草山…」 because the mountain north of Taipei originally named 草山 ["Grass Mountain"] had been renamed 陽明山 [Yangming Mountain] by Chiang Kai-shek, and the old name had been banned.
Songs were often banned or censored by local or provincial authorities (as the Nationalists still claimed sovereignty over China, they maintained separate national and provincial administrations in Taiwan under the pretense that Taiwan was merely one of many provinces), but in the early decades more comprehensive censorship was chiefly the responsibility of the Military Garrison Command [警備總司令部], which was the authority responsible for maintaining martial law and suppressing dissent. Beginning in the 1970s, responsibility for censorship of publications, including records, was transferred to the Government Information Office [新聞局]. Both of these authorities occasionally published books listing banned songs or alternatively songs that had been approved for broadcast.
The censorship in this era was primarily reactive, in that the authorities often only banned songs after their popularity brought them to their attention. Some records were sold locally in huge quantities before (and often even after) being banned, such as the sexually suggestive 高雄Kaohsiung area folk song〈鹽埕區長〉 (楊東敏作詞，郭萬枝改編自牛馬調，麗美、郭萬枝演唱), which was a huge hit in south Taiwan following its release in 1964. But even mainstream pop songs were often banned well after their initial release. For example, the song 〈苦酒滿杯〉 (慎芝作詞，姚讚福作曲), a Mandarin adaptation of a Japanese era popular song titled 〈悲戀的酒杯〉, was first released in the early 1960s. In 1967, however, a cover by 謝雷Xie Lei became massively popular, leading the authorities to ban the song for being to dark and melancholy. Interestingly, while later printings of the 謝雷Xie Lei album originally titled《苦酒滿杯》 were retitled 《男人的眼淚》 after one of the other songs on the album, 〈苦酒滿杯〉 was not actually removed from the album; it was just retitled 〈酒與人生〉. The song 〈向日葵〉, which was one of a number of songs banned for references to the sun, since the well-known Chinese Communist song 〈東方紅〉 referred to Mao Zedong as the sun, was also simply re-titled 〈金黃色的花蕊〉. In some cases, the record company would release a new version of the song which was less objectionable. For example, the hugely popular song 〈今天不回家〉 (諸戈[莊奴]作詞，古月[左宏元]作曲，姚蘇蓉演唱) was banned for its “unhealthy” message, so it was later re-released as 〈今天要回家〉. Penalties for performing or broadcasting banned songs varied as well. In one well known instance, popular singer 姚蘇蓉Yao Surong was performing in a club when the audience repeatedly urged her to perform her very popular but banned hit 〈負心的人〉 (慎芝作詞，猪俣公章作曲). She finally acquiesced, and as a result her “singer’s license” was revoked, forcing her to go abroad to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to continue her career. Ironically, as she became very popular overseas, this helped to promote Taiwan’s Mandopop industry in Chinese communities outside Taiwan, helping Taiwan to eventually take over from Hong Kong as the main center of the international Mandopop industry.
Language was also an area where censorship played a role. As television became more popular as a medium for broadcasting popular music, the government also used it to promote Mandarin over Taiwanese languages such as Hoklo, Hakka and the various aboriginal languages. The number of non-Mandarin songs that could be broadcast was severely limited, to the extent that the Hoklo popular music industry had declined dramatically by the end of the 1960s and singers such as 洪一峰Hong Yifeng had to go to Japan to continue their careers. Production of Hakka and aboriginal music was less obviously affected by these policies, as it was mostly outside the mainstream industry to begin with.
The government did actively encourage use of Mandarin among aboriginal groups as part of their general policy of “Sinicizing” the aboriginal population, and both censorship and propaganda had some effect on aboriginal songs of the era. As early as 1952, a large scale performance of aboriginal music and dance called 「改良山地歌舞講習會」 was held at 台北市中山堂. 南王前輩歌手李春花 sang an aboriginal song that was popular in the 台東 area, and by the next year the patriotic song 〈台灣好〉 (台東民謠，羅家倫詞、佩芝改編), based on the same melody, had been published in songbooks. It went on to become one of the best known patriotic, anti-Communist songs in Taiwan. Aboriginal songs were also used to spread propaganda messages among the aboriginals themselves, such as Puyuma songwriter Baliwakes [陸森寶]’s 1958 composition 〈當兵好〉 (several of his other songs, such as 民歌手胡德夫唱紅的 〈美麗的稻穗〉, were much more ambivalent about army service by young aboriginal men), or in later years songs like 〈我們都是一家人〉, which was popularized by the China Youth Corps [救國團].
In local performances, aboriginal performers were sometimes told to perform in Mandarin, presumably because the officials observing were suspicious of anything they couldn’t understand. On the other hand, songs performed in aboriginal languages sometimes escaped censorship because of the language barrier. The popular Amis song 〈送情郎到軍中(阿美三鳳)〉 told of a girl accompanying her boyfriend as he reported for army duty. 研究阿美歌謠的孫俊彥教授指出, when the song mentions the national flag flying over the base, the Amis term used literally translates as “red flag”, a description usually associated with the flag of the People’s Republic of China. Most likely if the authorities had understood Amis, this would have led to the song being censored; after all, red was such a sensitive color in this period that the famous Japanese era Hoklo song 〈四季紅〉(Four Seasons of Red) (李臨秋作詞，鄧雨賢作曲) had to be retitled 〈四季謠〉"Four Seasons Melody". While 〈送情郎到軍中〉 escaped censorship, the first attempt to bring the 「山地日語」["Mountain (Aboriginal) Japanese"] song 〈愛愛乾杯〉, popular in the 台東Taidong region since the early post-war period, to a non-aboriginal audience was immediately banned because the 閩南語 version of the song had been given the title 〈爽歪歪〉. It was only a few years later that the song became very popular due to its use in the 布袋戲budaixi production 《史艷文》 under the titles 〈合要好合要爽〉 and 〈醉彌勒〉, though most listeners were unaware of the song’s aboriginal origins.
In 1973, an explanation of the publication law was promulgated that specified 12 reasons for banning a song. These reasons were as follows: ：「違反國策」、「為匪宣傳」、」「抄襲匪曲」、「詞意頹喪」、「內容荒誕」、「意境晦淫」、「曲調狂盪」、「狠暴仇鬥」、「時代反應錯誤」、「文詞粗鄙」、「幽怨哀傷」、「文理不通意識欠明朗」. The following year, a list of 91 banned songs was published by the GIO [新聞局], including songs such as 〈向日葵〉、〈夢醒不了情〉、〈只要為你活一天〉、〈回頭我也不要你〉、〈愛情如水向東流〉、〈一寸相思淚未盡〉、〈今夜你不要走〉、〈交叉線〉、〈一條日光大道〉、〈熱情的沙漠〉 and 〈月亮代表我的心〉. Many of these songs had only been released recently, but others had first been released several years earlier. In many cases, it is not clear in retrospect why a particular song was banned. 〈熱情的沙漠〉 (李潔心作詞，加瀨邦彥、山上路夫作曲，歐陽菲菲演唱) was almost certainly banned because the repeated “ahs” in the song were considered sexually suggestive. But while 〈一條日光大道〉 (陳平作詞，李泰祥作曲) may have been banned because of the reference to the sun, a reporter writing in 1982 when the version of the song by 齊豫Qi Yu and composer 李泰祥Li Taixiang became a hit (the ban apparently having been lifted) stated that the song had been banned because of the “foreign” term “kapa” in the lyrics (the authorities were often uncomfortable with unknown foreign terms, seemingly out of fear that they could have some forbidden meaning, though the same linguistic chauvinism that led them to promote Mandarin over local Taiwanese languages may also have played a role).
In the same period, the government began a deliberate effort to promote songs that it considered “healthy” or “clean” by designating them as 「淨化歌曲」. These songs included patriotic songs like 〈台灣好〉、〈桃花舞春風〉、〈梅花〉 and 〈中華民國頌〉, as well as those that promoted what the government considered healthy values, such as 〈友情〉. Singers were required to sing a number of these songs in order to receive a singer’s license. At least one third of all songs performed on television variety shows were required to be 「淨化歌曲」. This requirement could be a burden for hosts, as the singer 楊祖珺Yang Zujun (aka t.c. yang) discovered when she hosted the folk song program 《跳躍的音符》 in the late 1970s. If her guests couldn’t sing the required quota of 「淨化歌曲」, she had to do it herself. As someone who was not a supporter of the Nationalists (she later became involved in opposition politics), this eventually was too much to endure, leading her to quit the program.
楊祖珺Yang Zujun had perhaps the most experience with censorship of any of the performers involved in the campus folk song movement. In 1979, the Government Information Office instituted a requirement that all songs be submitted to a censorship committee prior to publication (on record or tape) or broadcasting; in other words, the government began taking a proactive approach to censorship, rather than banning songs retroactively. Every week, the committee would review new releases and determine if they were suitable for publication and broadcast. A song might be deemed acceptable for publication but not broadcasting, or the committee might require that changes be made before the song could be approved. The same year that this system was put in place, 楊祖珺Yang Zujun was recording her first solo album. She hoped to record a number of songs by 李雙澤, one of the founders of the folk song movement. The song 〈美麗島〉 (陳秀喜作詩，梁景峰改寫，李雙澤作曲) was approved for publication but not broadcasting, because the committee felt it had a “pro-Taiwan independence flavor” [有台獨意味] (not long after the song would inspire the name of the dissident magazine 《美麗島》, the founders of which organized the march in Kaohsiung that resulted in the 高雄事件). But the other 李雙澤 songs that楊祖珺 had hoped to include on the album, such as 〈少年中國〉 (蔣勳作詩，李雙澤改寫，李雙澤作曲) and 〈老鼓手〉 (梁景峰作詞，李雙澤作曲) were not even approved for publication, the former because it was deemed to “look forward to unification by the Chinese Communists” [「嚮往中共統一號召」] and the latter most likely due to its ironic references to freedom and democracy. So in the end, 〈美麗島〉 was the only 李雙澤 on the album, and the album itself was taken off the market by the record company within a year of release because 楊祖珺Yang Zujun’s increasing social activism had made her “problematic”.
But even seemingly apolitical songs from this era encountered censorship. The innocuous-sounding 〈抉擇〉 (梁弘志作詞作曲，蔡琴演唱) didn’t get approved until the record company’s third attempt (a later observer said it was because of the line 「尋覓雨傘下哪個背影最像妳…啊這真是個無聊的遊戲」). According to a contemporary newspaper report, the record company had expected the song to win approval easily, and had already printed copies of the record which then had to be withdrawn. The extremely popular 〈橄欖樹〉 (三毛[陳平]作詞，李泰祥[楊祖珺]改寫，李泰祥作詞作曲，齊豫演唱) was banned from being broadcast, apparently because the authorities didn’t approve of lines like 「不要問我從哪裡來，我的家在遠方」, though the record still sold very well and the song became李泰祥’s best known composition.
The requirement to have songs approved by the censorship committee caused all sorts of problems for songwriters, record producers, and record companies. Since it was hard to be sure what the censors might object to, even songwriters who tried to self-censor in an effort to ensure approval would still occasionally have problems. Often initial pressings of a record would have to be withdrawn and re-recorded because of an unexpected failure of a key song to be approved, as in the case of 〈抉擇〉. On the other hand, once a song was approved, any unapproved changes made to it afterwards could land the record company in trouble. One example of this was the 1981 release 〈大兵歌〉 (楊立德作詞，羅大佑作曲，許不了、方正演唱). According to a contemporary newspaper report, after receiving complaints that the song was insulting to the military, the GIO [新聞局] claimed that the released version was different from the approved one, and penalized the record company滾石唱片 – though one has to wonder if they may have been using this as an excuse for retracting an approval that they may have regretted in retrospect, as it seems probable that the approved version, which couldn’t have been very different from the final one, would also have been considered objectionable by conservatives.
羅大佑Luo Dayou, the most significant singer-songwriter of the 1980s, also had many problems with censorship, despite the fact that political repression had relaxed somewhat in comparison with the White Terror of previous decades. He released his first album 《之乎者也》 in 1982, and it was an immediate success, appealing to young intellectuals due to its intelligent and socially conscious lyrics and its rock-oriented arrangements. But the album’s title track was initially rejected by the censors and was only approved for publication after 羅大佑Lu Dayou changed the line 「歌曲審查之 通不通過乎 歌曲通過者，翻版盜印也」, which ironically was the one that was considered most objectionable. The original line appeared in versions of the song released outside of Taiwan, and 羅Luo deliberately included it in the liner notes of the Taiwan release. The new line he wrote, 「眼睛睜一隻 嘴巴呼一呼 耳朵遮一遮 皆大歡喜也」, may well have been a slightly sarcastic comment on the censorship as well. But while the new version was approved for publication on record, it was still banned from being broadcast. This got some DJs into trouble, as after 羅Luo performed the song in a concert at the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall, some of them played it on the radio, mistakenly assuming that any song that was performed there must have been passed censorship (after this the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall instituted a rule that all songs performed there had to have been approved by the censors). Nor was 〈之乎者也〉the only song on 羅Luo’s debut album that had problems with the censors. 〈戀曲1980〉 also had to be altered slightly before release, with the line 「今夜的歡樂 將是明天創痛的回憶」changed to 「今夜的歡樂 將是明天永恆的回憶」(in concert performances 羅Luo sang the original lyric).
羅大佑Luo Dayou’s later albums also had censorship issues. 〈亞細亞的孤兒〉, one of the key tracks on his second album 《未來的主人翁》 (1983), was only gotten past the censors due to the addition of the dedication 「紅色的污泥—致中南半島難民」 in order to make the censors think the song was about Nationalist refugees in Southeast Asia, when in fact it was about Taiwan, a much more sensitive topic. 羅Luo’s third album 《家》(1984) had even more songs that failed to meet the censors’ approval, including 〈吾鄉印象〉 (吳晟作詞)、〈耶穌的另一個名字 〉 and the sarcastic 〈超級市民〉. According to the account in his book 《昨日遺書》, even some of the lyrics that 羅Luo originally wrote for the “Do They Know It’s Christmas” / “We Are the World” style multi-artist sing-along 〈明天會更好〉 (羅大佑、張大春、許乃勝、李壽全、邱復生、張艾嘉、詹宏志作詞，羅大佑作曲) met with disapproval.
羅大佑Luo Dayou’s friend and fellow songwriter 侯德健Hou Dejian also had problems with the censors. In late 1982, a few months after 羅Luo released his debut album, 侯德健Hou Dejian released a solo album titled 《龍的傳人續篇》 which also included several songs that explored social issues in some depth. One of these, 〈未來的主人翁〉 (different from 羅大佑Luo Dayou’s song of the same name) took a critical look at education, and perhaps unsurprisingly was not approved by the censors. Due in part to his frustration with censorship (though the sort of Chinese nationalistic idealism that had led him to write 〈龍的傳人〉 no doubt also played a role), in mid-1983 侯德健Hou Dejian went to China via Hong Kong, making him a traitor in the eyes of the Nationalist government in Taiwan. His song 〈酒干倘賣無〉, which featured prominently in the movie 《打錯車》, was removed from Taiwan releases of 蘇芮Su Rui’s accompanying hit album released in June of 1983 (though it appeared on Hong Kong releases and pirated cassette copies in Taiwan). In the liner notes to 齊豫Qi Yu’s album 《你是我所有的回憶》, released later that year, the lyrics to the title track were credited to the song’s composer 李泰祥Li Taixiang, but years later 齊豫Qi Yu revealed that they had been written by 侯德健Hou Dejian, and 李泰祥Li Taixiang had been credited to avoid censorship.
Throughout the 1980s, songs on albums were marked with the number of the meeting of the censorship committee at which it had been approved (such as「審148」 or 「178次」). By 1988, in 320 meetings the committee had reviewed over twenty thousand songs, about one-sixth of which had not been approved. Over nine hundred songs that were approved for publication on record were not approved for broadcasting. While by the mid-1980s most songs seem to have been approved without much difficulty (in part due to self-censorship by the songwriters and conservative choices of material by producers and record companies), there were always a few that had problems. For instance, the first two lines of 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia’s 1985 hit〈忙與盲〉(袁瓊瓊、張艾嘉作詞，李宗盛作曲) from the album of the same name had to be changed from 「曾有一次晚餐和一張床在什麼時間地點和那個對象」 to 「曾有一次晚餐和一個夢 在什麼時間地點和那些幻想」, though the lyric sheet showed the original version. But some songs in this period remained outside the censorship system altogether. For example, as Mandarin became widely spoken by aboriginal people, “aboriginal Mandarin songs” 「山地國語歌」 like 〈可憐落魄人〉 and 〈三分鐘的愛〉 appeared. 〈可憐落魄人〉 was brought to Taipei by 知本卑南族歌手陳明仁 Puyuma singer Chen Mingren and became hugely popular among non-aboriginal audiences in Taiwan and even in Southeast Asia. Copies of the song on tape and record sold in the hundreds of thousands in 1981 and 1982, mostly through night markets and similar places, far out-selling the mainstream records of the time. But the song was never submitted to the censorship committee, and with lyrics like 「你可以戲弄我 也可以呀利用我」, it certainly would not have been approved. Indeed, this song was specifically criticized in newspapers of the time, as was 〈三分鐘的愛〉, but the authorities seemingly were unable to do anything to stem its popularity. Many popular Hoklo songs of the era like 沈文程Shen Wencheng's〈心事誰人知〉 and 陳小雲Chen Xiaoyun's〈舞女〉 were also sold mainly through night markets and likewise remained mainly outside the system.
Martial law was finally ended in Taiwan in 1987, and most political restrictions were relaxed. The GIO song censorship system was not finally ended until 1990, but songs tended to be approved more easily than had been the case even a few years earlier. But songs on sensitive subjects could still face censorship. The influential 黑名單工作室Blacklist Workshop album《抓狂歌》, released in 1989, included the song 〈民主阿草〉 (王華作詞，王明輝作曲), which commented on the political atmosphere of contemporary Taiwan. Due to the very direct and sometimes sarcastic observations in this and other songs on the album, the mainstream television and radio stations wouldn't play any of the album, though it was not officially banned. One of the last albums to face significant censorship was the 1990 album 《把我自己掏出來》 by punk rocker 趙一豪Zhao Yihao. The songs 〈把我自己掏出來〉、〈改變〉 and〈震動〉 had to be re-recorded as〈把我自己收回來〉、〈這機天〉 and〈創造〉 respectively due to perceived sexual content and similar issues.
With the end of official censorship, artists and songwriters were freer to express themselves more directly about controversial political and social issues. As a contemporary newspaper article noted, albums such as 林強Lim Giong’s 《育樂世界》 and 黃舒駿Huang Shujun’s 《我是誰》, both released in 1994, reflected the increased creative space open to artists. But while the government no longer censored songs, that didn’t mean censorship had ceased to exist. For instance, both of the videos for 黃舒駿Huang Shujun’s 《我是誰》 encountered censorship from television stations, particular the video for 〈見怪不怪〉. 中視編審組The CTV review committee rejected both the video for 〈我是誰〉 and the one for〈見怪不怪〉, though most of their specific objections referred to the latter. Likewise, while 衛視音樂台 accepted the video for 〈我是誰〉 with minor changes, they asked for numerous changes to the video for 〈見怪不怪〉 and even changes to the lyrics, so in the end 黃舒駿Huang Shujun just gave up hope of having it broadcast. In the end, neither 《育樂世界》nor 《我是誰》 sold well compared to the artists’ previous albums, in large part because of the relatively conservative taste of most Taiwanese popular music fans. While many reasons could be cited for this conservativism, one distinct possibility is that this was a lingering legacy of decades of censorship, as most Taiwanese listeners had in a sense been trained to prefer a narrow range of music and lyrical content. While many young music fans of today are completely unaware of Taiwan’s history of censorship, it was without question a major factor in the evolution of popular music in Taiwan, and something that anyone who wants to understand the background of Taiwan’s music scene has to be aware of.
Earlier this year I was asked to write an article about censorship and banned songs in Taiwan popular music. To save time I wrote it in English, in which I can write much faster (and better) than in Chinese, and gave it to them to translate. The Chinese version (edited somewhat for length and other requirements) should be published soon, but here's my original English draft. Since the article would ultimately be published in Chinese, I wrote all the artist, composer, lyricist and song names in Chinese, and quotes that were in Chinese I didn't bother to translate either. I've added romanizations of some individuals' names, but I haven't taken the time to translate other things. Many of these same people and songs are mentioned (with romanizations and translations) in
previous articles of mine, such as the one linked to here as well as this one and this one.
For most of the history of popular music in Taiwan, songwriters and performers have had to contend with censorship. This censorship has taken a number of different forms and has been imposed by a number of different agencies, usually but not always governmental ones, and has led to a number of different results, from forcing the re-writing of songs, restricting the outlets available for them to be broadcast and performed, and outright banning of songs from publication. Government censorship was haphazard and mostly reactive for most of the 20th century, but for the last decade of the martial law era it was done systematically. Even after the end of martial law, songs with provocative content would sometimes encounter censorship of some form.
The first known case of song censorship dates back to the era of Japanese rule in Taiwan. A song called 〈街頭的流浪〉 (守真作詞，周玉當作曲，青春美演唱) was released near the end of 1934. It described unemployed men wandering the streets and included lyrics like 「頭家無趁錢 轉來食家己」. Because the colonial government disapproved of this negative (if realistic) portrayal of social problems, the song was banned a little over a month after it was released. Due to the references to its banning in contemporary newspapers and in accounts of the era, 〈街頭的流浪〉 has been called Taiwan’s first banned song. The song itself, however, was largely forgotten afterwards and was only rediscovered this century when a collector came across a copy of the record, allowing music historians to hear for the first time what this almost legendary song actually sounded like.
In the years after Japan went to war with China, restrictions were gradually imposed on cultural activities in Taiwan by the Japanese authorities. By 1939, composers like 鄧雨賢Deng Yuxian were having to help produce songs such as 郷土部隊の勇士から (鄉土部隊之勇士的來信) (later given Hoklo [福佬語] lyrics by 文夏Wen Xia, who performed it under the title 媽媽我也真勇健) to support the war effort, and by the 1940s, the popular music industry had been shut down entirely. But the end of Japanese rule and the takeover by the Nationalist government did not bring an end to censorship of popular music in Taiwan. Instead, a new censorship regime was imposed on the Taiwanese music industry, one that in various guises would remain in place for almost half a century.
One type of song that was immediately banned by the Nationalist government was those that were considered pro-Japanese. This included cover versions of any songs that were regarded as Japanese wartime propaganda songs, even when they had been given new lyrical content, including songs such as 〈沙鴦之鐘〉、〈蘇州夜曲〉、〈支那之夜〉 and 〈媽媽我也真勇健〉. Songs that had already been banned by the Nationalist government in China for being “promoting socialism” 「宣揚社會主義」, such as 〈漁光曲〉and〈義勇軍進行曲〉, or for being “pornographic”「黃色歌曲」 (though the majority of them at most told of romantic flirting with no truly sexual content), such as 〈天涯歌女〉、〈桃李爭春〉、〈桃花江〉、〈三年〉、〈何日君再來〉and〈魂縈舊夢〉, were also banned in Taiwan.
A particularly interesting case was the popular song 〈何日君再來〉. The music for this song was written by劉雪庵 under the pen name 晏如 and the words were written by someone using the pen name 貝林. It was first recorded in Shanghai by 周璇, whose version was released in 1938, and quickly became very popular (there was even a contemporary Hoklo [福佬語] language cover version in Taiwan). Though the song was originally just a love song with no political content, it was banned by several different governments. When the Japanese occupied Shanghai during the war, they banned the song in part because of a performance by ethnic Japanese singer 李香蘭Li Xianglan in which she sang the song while wearing a white dress against a blue background (a combination reminiscent of the Nationalist flag), leading the Japanese authorities to believe the song was expressing a desire for the Nationalists to return to Shanghai. After the war in Taiwan, the song was banned by the Nationalists as leftist, but supposedly also because its title sounded like 「賀日軍再來」, implying a desire for the Japanese army to return to Taiwan. Back in China, the Communists banned it because it could be interpreted as expressing a desire for the Nationalists to come back. So a completely innocuous love song encountered censorship from three entirely different regimes in China and Taiwan.
One of the best known songs to appear in Taiwan in the immediate post-war period was the Hoklo classic 〈補破網〉, written by lyricist 李臨秋Li LinQiu and composer 王雲峰Wang Yunfeng. This song was first released in 1948, just a year after the February 28 incident in which Taiwanese had rebelled against the corrupt Nationalist administration imposed on the island after the departure of the Japanese, only for the rebellion to be bloodily crushed by troops sent over from China. While the song may not have been directly inspired by the need to mend the tears in the fabric of the society, it captured the feeling of the times very well. However, while the Nationalist authorities seemingly didn’t associate the lyrics of the song with the February 28 incident (otherwise they probably would have banned it outright), they considered the original two verses that李臨秋Li Linqiu had written too negative, so they forced him to write a third verse and give the song a happy ending. In later decades, 李臨秋Li Linqiu said he’d rather people didn’t sing the third verse, as he only wrote it under duress.
〈補破網〉was far from the only song to encounter censorship for being too dark. 張邱冬松Zhangqiu Dongsong’s 1946 composition 〈收酒矸〉 was also banned for painting too bleak a picture of poverty in Taiwan, much like 〈街頭的流浪〉 had been under the Japanese. 呂泉生Lu Quansheng’s 1949 composition 〈杯底不可飼金魚〉, which was apparently inspired by ethnic tensions in Taiwan in the wake of the February 28 incident, is another well-known song from this era that was banned at some point. It should be pointed out, however, that for the first couple of decades of the post-war period, much of the censorship tended to be somewhat haphazard, as different songs might be banned by different government authorities, and enforcement was not always consistent. A song might be banned from being broadcast or performed, but not from being published, or it might be banned in all contexts. Some songs were seemingly banned for a period of time, with the authority in question later lifting the ban or simply ceasing enforcement of it. If a song appearing on a record was banned, the disc jockey would often simply mark its title with an “X” or a “禁”. Sometimes the title would be crossed out, and occasionally tape would be placed over the grooves on the record itself so that the song couldn’t be played. In extreme cases, the record would be deliberately scratched. Censorship also applied to performances. Famous Hoklo singer 洪一峰Hong Yifeng tells of an occasion when he was performing the song 〈寶島四季謠〉(葉俊麟作詞，洪一峰作曲) on television and he was cut off when he sang the line 「春天時，草山…」 because the mountain north of Taipei originally named 草山 ["Grass Mountain"] had been renamed 陽明山 [Yangming Mountain] by Chiang Kai-shek, and the old name had been banned.
Songs were often banned or censored by local or provincial authorities (as the Nationalists still claimed sovereignty over China, they maintained separate national and provincial administrations in Taiwan under the pretense that Taiwan was merely one of many provinces), but in the early decades more comprehensive censorship was chiefly the responsibility of the Military Garrison Command [警備總司令部], which was the authority responsible for maintaining martial law and suppressing dissent. Beginning in the 1970s, responsibility for censorship of publications, including records, was transferred to the Government Information Office [新聞局]. Both of these authorities occasionally published books listing banned songs or alternatively songs that had been approved for broadcast.
The censorship in this era was primarily reactive, in that the authorities often only banned songs after their popularity brought them to their attention. Some records were sold locally in huge quantities before (and often even after) being banned, such as the sexually suggestive 高雄Kaohsiung area folk song〈鹽埕區長〉 (楊東敏作詞，郭萬枝改編自牛馬調，麗美、郭萬枝演唱), which was a huge hit in south Taiwan following its release in 1964. But even mainstream pop songs were often banned well after their initial release. For example, the song 〈苦酒滿杯〉 (慎芝作詞，姚讚福作曲), a Mandarin adaptation of a Japanese era popular song titled 〈悲戀的酒杯〉, was first released in the early 1960s. In 1967, however, a cover by 謝雷Xie Lei became massively popular, leading the authorities to ban the song for being to dark and melancholy. Interestingly, while later printings of the 謝雷Xie Lei album originally titled《苦酒滿杯》 were retitled 《男人的眼淚》 after one of the other songs on the album, 〈苦酒滿杯〉 was not actually removed from the album; it was just retitled 〈酒與人生〉. The song 〈向日葵〉, which was one of a number of songs banned for references to the sun, since the well-known Chinese Communist song 〈東方紅〉 referred to Mao Zedong as the sun, was also simply re-titled 〈金黃色的花蕊〉. In some cases, the record company would release a new version of the song which was less objectionable. For example, the hugely popular song 〈今天不回家〉 (諸戈[莊奴]作詞，古月[左宏元]作曲，姚蘇蓉演唱) was banned for its “unhealthy” message, so it was later re-released as 〈今天要回家〉. Penalties for performing or broadcasting banned songs varied as well. In one well known instance, popular singer 姚蘇蓉Yao Surong was performing in a club when the audience repeatedly urged her to perform her very popular but banned hit 〈負心的人〉 (慎芝作詞，猪俣公章作曲). She finally acquiesced, and as a result her “singer’s license” was revoked, forcing her to go abroad to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to continue her career. Ironically, as she became very popular overseas, this helped to promote Taiwan’s Mandopop industry in Chinese communities outside Taiwan, helping Taiwan to eventually take over from Hong Kong as the main center of the international Mandopop industry.
Language was also an area where censorship played a role. As television became more popular as a medium for broadcasting popular music, the government also used it to promote Mandarin over Taiwanese languages such as Hoklo, Hakka and the various aboriginal languages. The number of non-Mandarin songs that could be broadcast was severely limited, to the extent that the Hoklo popular music industry had declined dramatically by the end of the 1960s and singers such as 洪一峰Hong Yifeng had to go to Japan to continue their careers. Production of Hakka and aboriginal music was less obviously affected by these policies, as it was mostly outside the mainstream industry to begin with.
The government did actively encourage use of Mandarin among aboriginal groups as part of their general policy of “Sinicizing” the aboriginal population, and both censorship and propaganda had some effect on aboriginal songs of the era. As early as 1952, a large scale performance of aboriginal music and dance called 「改良山地歌舞講習會」 was held at 台北市中山堂. 南王前輩歌手李春花 sang an aboriginal song that was popular in the 台東 area, and by the next year the patriotic song 〈台灣好〉 (台東民謠，羅家倫詞、佩芝改編), based on the same melody, had been published in songbooks. It went on to become one of the best known patriotic, anti-Communist songs in Taiwan. Aboriginal songs were also used to spread propaganda messages among the aboriginals themselves, such as Puyuma songwriter Baliwakes [陸森寶]’s 1958 composition 〈當兵好〉 (several of his other songs, such as 民歌手胡德夫唱紅的 〈美麗的稻穗〉, were much more ambivalent about army service by young aboriginal men), or in later years songs like 〈我們都是一家人〉, which was popularized by the China Youth Corps [救國團].
In local performances, aboriginal performers were sometimes told to perform in Mandarin, presumably because the officials observing were suspicious of anything they couldn’t understand. On the other hand, songs performed in aboriginal languages sometimes escaped censorship because of the language barrier. The popular Amis song 〈送情郎到軍中(阿美三鳳)〉 told of a girl accompanying her boyfriend as he reported for army duty. 研究阿美歌謠的孫俊彥教授指出, when the song mentions the national flag flying over the base, the Amis term used literally translates as “red flag”, a description usually associated with the flag of the People’s Republic of China. Most likely if the authorities had understood Amis, this would have led to the song being censored; after all, red was such a sensitive color in this period that the famous Japanese era Hoklo song 〈四季紅〉(Four Seasons of Red) (李臨秋作詞，鄧雨賢作曲) had to be retitled 〈四季謠〉"Four Seasons Melody". While 〈送情郎到軍中〉 escaped censorship, the first attempt to bring the 「山地日語」["Mountain (Aboriginal) Japanese"] song 〈愛愛乾杯〉, popular in the 台東Taidong region since the early post-war period, to a non-aboriginal audience was immediately banned because the 閩南語 version of the song had been given the title 〈爽歪歪〉. It was only a few years later that the song became very popular due to its use in the 布袋戲budaixi production 《史艷文》 under the titles 〈合要好合要爽〉 and 〈醉彌勒〉, though most listeners were unaware of the song’s aboriginal origins.
In 1973, an explanation of the publication law was promulgated that specified 12 reasons for banning a song. These reasons were as follows: ：「違反國策」、「為匪宣傳」、」「抄襲匪曲」、「詞意頹喪」、「內容荒誕」、「意境晦淫」、「曲調狂盪」、「狠暴仇鬥」、「時代反應錯誤」、「文詞粗鄙」、「幽怨哀傷」、「文理不通意識欠明朗」. The following year, a list of 91 banned songs was published by the GIO [新聞局], including songs such as 〈向日葵〉、〈夢醒不了情〉、〈只要為你活一天〉、〈回頭我也不要你〉、〈愛情如水向東流〉、〈一寸相思淚未盡〉、〈今夜你不要走〉、〈交叉線〉、〈一條日光大道〉、〈熱情的沙漠〉 and 〈月亮代表我的心〉. Many of these songs had only been released recently, but others had first been released several years earlier. In many cases, it is not clear in retrospect why a particular song was banned. 〈熱情的沙漠〉 (李潔心作詞，加瀨邦彥、山上路夫作曲，歐陽菲菲演唱) was almost certainly banned because the repeated “ahs” in the song were considered sexually suggestive. But while 〈一條日光大道〉 (陳平作詞，李泰祥作曲) may have been banned because of the reference to the sun, a reporter writing in 1982 when the version of the song by 齊豫Qi Yu and composer 李泰祥Li Taixiang became a hit (the ban apparently having been lifted) stated that the song had been banned because of the “foreign” term “kapa” in the lyrics (the authorities were often uncomfortable with unknown foreign terms, seemingly out of fear that they could have some forbidden meaning, though the same linguistic chauvinism that led them to promote Mandarin over local Taiwanese languages may also have played a role).
In the same period, the government began a deliberate effort to promote songs that it considered “healthy” or “clean” by designating them as 「淨化歌曲」. These songs included patriotic songs like 〈台灣好〉、〈桃花舞春風〉、〈梅花〉 and 〈中華民國頌〉, as well as those that promoted what the government considered healthy values, such as 〈友情〉. Singers were required to sing a number of these songs in order to receive a singer’s license. At least one third of all songs performed on television variety shows were required to be 「淨化歌曲」. This requirement could be a burden for hosts, as the singer 楊祖珺Yang Zujun (aka t.c. yang) discovered when she hosted the folk song program 《跳躍的音符》 in the late 1970s. If her guests couldn’t sing the required quota of 「淨化歌曲」, she had to do it herself. As someone who was not a supporter of the Nationalists (she later became involved in opposition politics), this eventually was too much to endure, leading her to quit the program.
楊祖珺Yang Zujun had perhaps the most experience with censorship of any of the performers involved in the campus folk song movement. In 1979, the Government Information Office instituted a requirement that all songs be submitted to a censorship committee prior to publication (on record or tape) or broadcasting; in other words, the government began taking a proactive approach to censorship, rather than banning songs retroactively. Every week, the committee would review new releases and determine if they were suitable for publication and broadcast. A song might be deemed acceptable for publication but not broadcasting, or the committee might require that changes be made before the song could be approved. The same year that this system was put in place, 楊祖珺Yang Zujun was recording her first solo album. She hoped to record a number of songs by 李雙澤, one of the founders of the folk song movement. The song 〈美麗島〉 (陳秀喜作詩，梁景峰改寫，李雙澤作曲) was approved for publication but not broadcasting, because the committee felt it had a “pro-Taiwan independence flavor” [有台獨意味] (not long after the song would inspire the name of the dissident magazine 《美麗島》, the founders of which organized the march in Kaohsiung that resulted in the 高雄事件). But the other 李雙澤 songs that楊祖珺 had hoped to include on the album, such as 〈少年中國〉 (蔣勳作詩，李雙澤改寫，李雙澤作曲) and 〈老鼓手〉 (梁景峰作詞，李雙澤作曲) were not even approved for publication, the former because it was deemed to “look forward to unification by the Chinese Communists” [「嚮往中共統一號召」] and the latter most likely due to its ironic references to freedom and democracy. So in the end, 〈美麗島〉 was the only 李雙澤 on the album, and the album itself was taken off the market by the record company within a year of release because 楊祖珺Yang Zujun’s increasing social activism had made her “problematic”.
But even seemingly apolitical songs from this era encountered censorship. The innocuous-sounding 〈抉擇〉 (梁弘志作詞作曲，蔡琴演唱) didn’t get approved until the record company’s third attempt (a later observer said it was because of the line 「尋覓雨傘下哪個背影最像妳…啊這真是個無聊的遊戲」). According to a contemporary newspaper report, the record company had expected the song to win approval easily, and had already printed copies of the record which then had to be withdrawn. The extremely popular 〈橄欖樹〉 (三毛[陳平]作詞，李泰祥[楊祖珺]改寫，李泰祥作詞作曲，齊豫演唱) was banned from being broadcast, apparently because the authorities didn’t approve of lines like 「不要問我從哪裡來，我的家在遠方」, though the record still sold very well and the song became李泰祥’s best known composition.
The requirement to have songs approved by the censorship committee caused all sorts of problems for songwriters, record producers, and record companies. Since it was hard to be sure what the censors might object to, even songwriters who tried to self-censor in an effort to ensure approval would still occasionally have problems. Often initial pressings of a record would have to be withdrawn and re-recorded because of an unexpected failure of a key song to be approved, as in the case of 〈抉擇〉. On the other hand, once a song was approved, any unapproved changes made to it afterwards could land the record company in trouble. One example of this was the 1981 release 〈大兵歌〉 (楊立德作詞，羅大佑作曲，許不了、方正演唱). According to a contemporary newspaper report, after receiving complaints that the song was insulting to the military, the GIO [新聞局] claimed that the released version was different from the approved one, and penalized the record company滾石唱片 – though one has to wonder if they may have been using this as an excuse for retracting an approval that they may have regretted in retrospect, as it seems probable that the approved version, which couldn’t have been very different from the final one, would also have been considered objectionable by conservatives.
羅大佑Luo Dayou, the most significant singer-songwriter of the 1980s, also had many problems with censorship, despite the fact that political repression had relaxed somewhat in comparison with the White Terror of previous decades. He released his first album 《之乎者也》 in 1982, and it was an immediate success, appealing to young intellectuals due to its intelligent and socially conscious lyrics and its rock-oriented arrangements. But the album’s title track was initially rejected by the censors and was only approved for publication after 羅大佑Lu Dayou changed the line 「歌曲審查之 通不通過乎 歌曲通過者，翻版盜印也」, which ironically was the one that was considered most objectionable. The original line appeared in versions of the song released outside of Taiwan, and 羅Luo deliberately included it in the liner notes of the Taiwan release. The new line he wrote, 「眼睛睜一隻 嘴巴呼一呼 耳朵遮一遮 皆大歡喜也」, may well have been a slightly sarcastic comment on the censorship as well. But while the new version was approved for publication on record, it was still banned from being broadcast. This got some DJs into trouble, as after 羅Luo performed the song in a concert at the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall, some of them played it on the radio, mistakenly assuming that any song that was performed there must have been passed censorship (after this the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall instituted a rule that all songs performed there had to have been approved by the censors). Nor was 〈之乎者也〉the only song on 羅Luo’s debut album that had problems with the censors. 〈戀曲1980〉 also had to be altered slightly before release, with the line 「今夜的歡樂 將是明天創痛的回憶」changed to 「今夜的歡樂 將是明天永恆的回憶」(in concert performances 羅Luo sang the original lyric).
羅大佑Luo Dayou’s later albums also had censorship issues. 〈亞細亞的孤兒〉, one of the key tracks on his second album 《未來的主人翁》 (1983), was only gotten past the censors due to the addition of the dedication 「紅色的污泥—致中南半島難民」 in order to make the censors think the song was about Nationalist refugees in Southeast Asia, when in fact it was about Taiwan, a much more sensitive topic. 羅Luo’s third album 《家》(1984) had even more songs that failed to meet the censors’ approval, including 〈吾鄉印象〉 (吳晟作詞)、〈耶穌的另一個名字 〉 and the sarcastic 〈超級市民〉. According to the account in his book 《昨日遺書》, even some of the lyrics that 羅Luo originally wrote for the “Do They Know It’s Christmas” / “We Are the World” style multi-artist sing-along 〈明天會更好〉 (羅大佑、張大春、許乃勝、李壽全、邱復生、張艾嘉、詹宏志作詞，羅大佑作曲) met with disapproval.
羅大佑Luo Dayou’s friend and fellow songwriter 侯德健Hou Dejian also had problems with the censors. In late 1982, a few months after 羅Luo released his debut album, 侯德健Hou Dejian released a solo album titled 《龍的傳人續篇》 which also included several songs that explored social issues in some depth. One of these, 〈未來的主人翁〉 (different from 羅大佑Luo Dayou’s song of the same name) took a critical look at education, and perhaps unsurprisingly was not approved by the censors. Due in part to his frustration with censorship (though the sort of Chinese nationalistic idealism that had led him to write 〈龍的傳人〉 no doubt also played a role), in mid-1983 侯德健Hou Dejian went to China via Hong Kong, making him a traitor in the eyes of the Nationalist government in Taiwan. His song 〈酒干倘賣無〉, which featured prominently in the movie 《打錯車》, was removed from Taiwan releases of 蘇芮Su Rui’s accompanying hit album released in June of 1983 (though it appeared on Hong Kong releases and pirated cassette copies in Taiwan). In the liner notes to 齊豫Qi Yu’s album 《你是我所有的回憶》, released later that year, the lyrics to the title track were credited to the song’s composer 李泰祥Li Taixiang, but years later 齊豫Qi Yu revealed that they had been written by 侯德健Hou Dejian, and 李泰祥Li Taixiang had been credited to avoid censorship.
Throughout the 1980s, songs on albums were marked with the number of the meeting of the censorship committee at which it had been approved (such as「審148」 or 「178次」). By 1988, in 320 meetings the committee had reviewed over twenty thousand songs, about one-sixth of which had not been approved. Over nine hundred songs that were approved for publication on record were not approved for broadcasting. While by the mid-1980s most songs seem to have been approved without much difficulty (in part due to self-censorship by the songwriters and conservative choices of material by producers and record companies), there were always a few that had problems. For instance, the first two lines of 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia’s 1985 hit〈忙與盲〉(袁瓊瓊、張艾嘉作詞，李宗盛作曲) from the album of the same name had to be changed from 「曾有一次晚餐和一張床在什麼時間地點和那個對象」 to 「曾有一次晚餐和一個夢 在什麼時間地點和那些幻想」, though the lyric sheet showed the original version. But some songs in this period remained outside the censorship system altogether. For example, as Mandarin became widely spoken by aboriginal people, “aboriginal Mandarin songs” 「山地國語歌」 like 〈可憐落魄人〉 and 〈三分鐘的愛〉 appeared. 〈可憐落魄人〉 was brought to Taipei by 知本卑南族歌手陳明仁 Puyuma singer Chen Mingren and became hugely popular among non-aboriginal audiences in Taiwan and even in Southeast Asia. Copies of the song on tape and record sold in the hundreds of thousands in 1981 and 1982, mostly through night markets and similar places, far out-selling the mainstream records of the time. But the song was never submitted to the censorship committee, and with lyrics like 「你可以戲弄我 也可以呀利用我」, it certainly would not have been approved. Indeed, this song was specifically criticized in newspapers of the time, as was 〈三分鐘的愛〉, but the authorities seemingly were unable to do anything to stem its popularity. Many popular Hoklo songs of the era like 沈文程Shen Wencheng's〈心事誰人知〉 and 陳小雲Chen Xiaoyun's〈舞女〉 were also sold mainly through night markets and likewise remained mainly outside the system.
Martial law was finally ended in Taiwan in 1987, and most political restrictions were relaxed. The GIO song censorship system was not finally ended until 1990, but songs tended to be approved more easily than had been the case even a few years earlier. But songs on sensitive subjects could still face censorship. The influential 黑名單工作室Blacklist Workshop album《抓狂歌》, released in 1989, included the song 〈民主阿草〉 (王華作詞，王明輝作曲), which commented on the political atmosphere of contemporary Taiwan. Due to the very direct and sometimes sarcastic observations in this and other songs on the album, the mainstream television and radio stations wouldn't play any of the album, though it was not officially banned. One of the last albums to face significant censorship was the 1990 album 《把我自己掏出來》 by punk rocker 趙一豪Zhao Yihao. The songs 〈把我自己掏出來〉、〈改變〉 and〈震動〉 had to be re-recorded as〈把我自己收回來〉、〈這機天〉 and〈創造〉 respectively due to perceived sexual content and similar issues.
With the end of official censorship, artists and songwriters were freer to express themselves more directly about controversial political and social issues. As a contemporary newspaper article noted, albums such as 林強Lim Giong’s 《育樂世界》 and 黃舒駿Huang Shujun’s 《我是誰》, both released in 1994, reflected the increased creative space open to artists. But while the government no longer censored songs, that didn’t mean censorship had ceased to exist. For instance, both of the videos for 黃舒駿Huang Shujun’s 《我是誰》 encountered censorship from television stations, particular the video for 〈見怪不怪〉. 中視編審組The CTV review committee rejected both the video for 〈我是誰〉 and the one for〈見怪不怪〉, though most of their specific objections referred to the latter. Likewise, while 衛視音樂台 accepted the video for 〈我是誰〉 with minor changes, they asked for numerous changes to the video for 〈見怪不怪〉 and even changes to the lyrics, so in the end 黃舒駿Huang Shujun just gave up hope of having it broadcast. In the end, neither 《育樂世界》nor 《我是誰》 sold well compared to the artists’ previous albums, in large part because of the relatively conservative taste of most Taiwanese popular music fans. While many reasons could be cited for this conservativism, one distinct possibility is that this was a lingering legacy of decades of censorship, as most Taiwanese listeners had in a sense been trained to prefer a narrow range of music and lyrical content. While many young music fans of today are completely unaware of Taiwan’s history of censorship, it was without question a major factor in the evolution of popular music in Taiwan, and something that anyone who wants to understand the background of Taiwan’s music scene has to be aware of.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Album Review – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles
Album Title: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Artist: The Beatles
Release Date: June 1, 1967
Side One
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (McCartney)
With a Little Help from My Friends (McCartney/Lennon)
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Lennon)
Getting Better (McCartney)
Fixing a Hole (McCartney)
She's Leaving Home (McCartney)
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (Lennon)
Side Two
Within You Without You (Harrison)
When I'm Sixty-Four (McCartney)
Lovely Rita (McCartney)
Good Morning Good Morning (Lennon)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (McCartney)
A Day in the Life (Lennon/McCartney)
Note on Song Authorship: Credit is given according to the primary writer of the song (even though Lennon and McCartney songs are officially credited to both).
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band might well be the most famous album in the history of popular music. It not only has topped numerous lists of the greatest albums of all time, it is also commonly cited in the popular press as the most significant album by the Beatles, who by any objective measure were the biggest popular music group of the twentieth century. It has been cited as the album that brought pop music acceptance as serious art, and as the inspiration for numerous concept albums that followed it in subsequent years. However, in some music circles there has been something of a backlash against the praise heaped on the album. Many have declared it to be overrated, and it has been accused of being an example of style over substance. Others, including John Lennon himself, have pointed out that the album really isn’t much of concept album, as only a few songs have any connection to the idea that the album is being performed by a fictional band called Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
There is some truth to the criticisms. I would at least have to agree with those who say that Sgt. Pepper isn’t even the greatest Beatles album; song for song, Revolver is clearly superior, Abbey Road has even more immaculate production and songs that are at least as good, while The Beatles (aka The White Album) has greater variety. The concept doesn’t hold together for the whole album, either. However, the album is still very good. While the songs may not be as consistently excellent as those on Revolver, that album, in my opinion at least, has probably the most classic songs of any album by any band. The songs on Sgt. Pepper are also great or at least good, even by the high standards of the Beatles, and a few of them are true classics, particularly “A Day in the Life” but also “With a Little Help from My Friends”, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the title track, and there is almost as much variety as on Revolver. The arrangements and instrumentation are endlessly inventive and as varied as the songs. While most of the songs may have nothing specifically to do with the concept, just the two opening tracks and the reprise are enough to create the illusion of the entire album being part of it.
Sgt. Pepper was dominated by Paul McCartney, who became the default leader of the group for most of its remaining career. The concept was his idea, and he wrote the bulk of the songs, though Lennon’s contributions included some of the best ones. McCartney even came up with the basic idea for the famous album cover, which became one of the most imitated of all time. Producer George Martin and Geoff Emerick also played very important roles. Ringo, on the other hand, later complained that he felt like a session player on this album, as he had little to do much of the time. This is understandable, as the album was not much of a group album, instead using tons of outside musicians to supplement the group. In a lot of ways it was akin to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, which was largely put together by Brian Wilson and studio musicians with little involvement from the other Beach Boys (Pet Sounds was also a major inspiration for Paul when working on Sgt. Pepper, which in turn caused Brian Wilson to despair at equaling the Beatles). At least in the Beatles’ case, they did play on most of the songs and all but Ringo wrote songs for the album.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band may not have been the greatest album of all time, but it arguably was the most influential. Whether it was the cover, the use of a concept to tie the songs together (however loosely), seguing the songs directly together, the gatefold sleeve, the use of an orchestra on “A Day in the Life”, or printing the lyrics on the sleeve, the album had a huge impact on subsequent popular music. The Beatles may not have been the first to do these things, but they did them most successfully and most prominently, and by doing so changed popular music. So while this might not be the Beatles album I’d want with me on a desert island if I could only pick one, it is an essential part of any substantial music collection.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Song by Song
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: The opening track, while short, is a key to the success of the whole album. It gets things off to an energetic start and neatly introduces the second track, establishing the concept behind the album. The band’s performance is excellent, and McCartney, the song’s writer, delivers an excellent vocal. Jimi Hendrix did a cover of this song live just days after the album came out.
With a Little Help from My Friends (usually played together with the opening track): This is one of the best songs on the album, and one of the best songs Ringo Starr ever sang lead vocals on. The interplay between Ringo (as the fictional Billy Shears) and the backing vocals is brilliant. This song was famously covered by Joe Cocker, with his version being said by some to be a rare instance of a Beatles cover outdoing the original. I wouldn’t go that far, as the original is hard to beat, but Cocker’s version is great too. Interestingly, Paul and John seem to have actually written the song together, which wasn’t all that common at this point in their career as most songs tended to be mostly by one of the two, though the other usually helped a little. Paul was quoted as saying it was co-written by the two of them and John once quoted as saying that while the basic idea and structure were Paul’s, they’d written it together from there, though in another quote he said it was Paul’s with “a little help” from him.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: This song was mostly Lennon’s work, though McCartney wrote some of the lyrics and also played the organ introduction. It’s a dreamy song with imagery apparently inspired by a combination of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and LSD, though John’s assertion that the initials were pure coincidence is most likely true. Regardless, it is another highlight of the album, with musical backing that perfectly fits the psychedelic lyrics. This is yet another song with at least one very prominent cover (though of course all these songs have been covered, usually multiple times), in this case by Elton John.
Getting Better: Another very solid track, mostly written by Paul, though John wrote the cynical “it can’t no worse” line and the creepy lines about beating his girlfriend. While this song may not quite equal the first three, it’s still quite good.
Fixing a Hole: This is one of McCartney’s most psychedelic songs (by some accounts Beatles roadie Mal Evans helped with the lyrics). It’s not played or talked about quite as often as some of the other songs on the album, but it’s one of my favorites.
She's Leaving Home: This might be considered this album’s equivalent to “Eleanor Rigby” from Revolver, as both were written mainly by Paul, both used string backing, and both told stories about social issues. It isn’t as good as “Eleanor Rigby”, which is one of the best songs ever written, but it’s still very good, and another interesting change of pace.
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite: Lennon famously wrote this song using a very old circus poster, from which he took many of the words verbatim. Aside from having a good melody, the best feature of this song was the fairground atmosphere created by the backing track. While this was John’s idea, since he was famously vague about how to achieve what he wanted (unlike Paul, who usually had very specific ideas and did a lot of the arranging himself), the musical backing is largely the work of George Martin and Geoff Emerick, who deserve a lot of credit on this one.
Within You Without You: This is George Harrison’s writing contribution to the album. Performed entirely with Indian instruments without the participation of the other Beatles, it tends to divide listeners and critics between those who think it’s one of the best songs on the album and those who think it’s the worst. I side more with the former than the latter. While there are a few songs on the album I like better, this is also a great song, with excellent lyrics (Stephen Stills liked them so much he had them carved on a stone monument in his yard) and a very interesting sound that gives the album even more variety. Lennon also considered it one of George’s best.
When I'm Sixty-Four: This is one of Paul’s old-fashioned music hall/vaudeville tunes, one that apparently dates back to his teens, at least as far as the melody is concerned. While it’s not the greatest song on the album, it’s a fun tune and a dramatic change of pace from “Within You Without You”.
Lovely Rita: This is another upbeat tune by McCartney. Again, it’s fun and catchy, though not quite the equal of his very best tunes in this vein, such as “Got to Get You Into My Life” or “Lady Madonna”.
Good Morning Good Morning: This song is John’s, and like “Lovely Rita” is a very good song without reaching the status of a classic. The transition into the reprise of the title track was also very well done (by Martin).
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise): The brief reprise of the title track is even more energetic than the opening version, and shows the band performing together at their best.
A Day in the Life: This is the brilliant coda to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, commonly (and deservedly) cited as the best track on the album and one of the group’s best songs ever. A long free-wheeling combination of many elements, it encapsulated the band’s inventiveness and variety in a single track. John wrote the bulk of the song, and rightfully gets credit for some brilliant writing. But Paul’s contribution shouldn’t be overlooked. Not only did he write the short but clever middle section, by John’s own account the “I’d love to turn you on” bit is his, and by most accounts it was his idea to use an orchestra – which he ended up conducting – to bridge the gap between John’s opening part and his middle bit, and to have it “go crazy” (though Lennon apparently was the one to say it should go from nothing to “something absolutely like the end of the world”). The long drawn out final chord is also a brilliant touch, though it’s less clear whose idea that was. All in all, the track is a work of genius, with all elements of the group, particularly Paul and John but also George Martin and others of the band’s friends and assistants, working together to produce a spectacular ending to the album, one that no doubt contributed a lot to its reputation since its release.
Artist: The Beatles
Release Date: June 1, 1967
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (McCartney)
With a Little Help from My Friends (McCartney/Lennon)
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Lennon)
Getting Better (McCartney)
Fixing a Hole (McCartney)
She's Leaving Home (McCartney)
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (Lennon)
Side Two
Within You Without You (Harrison)
When I'm Sixty-Four (McCartney)
Lovely Rita (McCartney)
Good Morning Good Morning (Lennon)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (McCartney)
A Day in the Life (Lennon/McCartney)
Note on Song Authorship: Credit is given according to the primary writer of the song (even though Lennon and McCartney songs are officially credited to both).
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band might well be the most famous album in the history of popular music. It not only has topped numerous lists of the greatest albums of all time, it is also commonly cited in the popular press as the most significant album by the Beatles, who by any objective measure were the biggest popular music group of the twentieth century. It has been cited as the album that brought pop music acceptance as serious art, and as the inspiration for numerous concept albums that followed it in subsequent years. However, in some music circles there has been something of a backlash against the praise heaped on the album. Many have declared it to be overrated, and it has been accused of being an example of style over substance. Others, including John Lennon himself, have pointed out that the album really isn’t much of concept album, as only a few songs have any connection to the idea that the album is being performed by a fictional band called Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
There is some truth to the criticisms. I would at least have to agree with those who say that Sgt. Pepper isn’t even the greatest Beatles album; song for song, Revolver is clearly superior, Abbey Road has even more immaculate production and songs that are at least as good, while The Beatles (aka The White Album) has greater variety. The concept doesn’t hold together for the whole album, either. However, the album is still very good. While the songs may not be as consistently excellent as those on Revolver, that album, in my opinion at least, has probably the most classic songs of any album by any band. The songs on Sgt. Pepper are also great or at least good, even by the high standards of the Beatles, and a few of them are true classics, particularly “A Day in the Life” but also “With a Little Help from My Friends”, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the title track, and there is almost as much variety as on Revolver. The arrangements and instrumentation are endlessly inventive and as varied as the songs. While most of the songs may have nothing specifically to do with the concept, just the two opening tracks and the reprise are enough to create the illusion of the entire album being part of it.
Sgt. Pepper was dominated by Paul McCartney, who became the default leader of the group for most of its remaining career. The concept was his idea, and he wrote the bulk of the songs, though Lennon’s contributions included some of the best ones. McCartney even came up with the basic idea for the famous album cover, which became one of the most imitated of all time. Producer George Martin and Geoff Emerick also played very important roles. Ringo, on the other hand, later complained that he felt like a session player on this album, as he had little to do much of the time. This is understandable, as the album was not much of a group album, instead using tons of outside musicians to supplement the group. In a lot of ways it was akin to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, which was largely put together by Brian Wilson and studio musicians with little involvement from the other Beach Boys (Pet Sounds was also a major inspiration for Paul when working on Sgt. Pepper, which in turn caused Brian Wilson to despair at equaling the Beatles). At least in the Beatles’ case, they did play on most of the songs and all but Ringo wrote songs for the album.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band may not have been the greatest album of all time, but it arguably was the most influential. Whether it was the cover, the use of a concept to tie the songs together (however loosely), seguing the songs directly together, the gatefold sleeve, the use of an orchestra on “A Day in the Life”, or printing the lyrics on the sleeve, the album had a huge impact on subsequent popular music. The Beatles may not have been the first to do these things, but they did them most successfully and most prominently, and by doing so changed popular music. So while this might not be the Beatles album I’d want with me on a desert island if I could only pick one, it is an essential part of any substantial music collection.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Song by Song
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: The opening track, while short, is a key to the success of the whole album. It gets things off to an energetic start and neatly introduces the second track, establishing the concept behind the album. The band’s performance is excellent, and McCartney, the song’s writer, delivers an excellent vocal. Jimi Hendrix did a cover of this song live just days after the album came out.
With a Little Help from My Friends (usually played together with the opening track): This is one of the best songs on the album, and one of the best songs Ringo Starr ever sang lead vocals on. The interplay between Ringo (as the fictional Billy Shears) and the backing vocals is brilliant. This song was famously covered by Joe Cocker, with his version being said by some to be a rare instance of a Beatles cover outdoing the original. I wouldn’t go that far, as the original is hard to beat, but Cocker’s version is great too. Interestingly, Paul and John seem to have actually written the song together, which wasn’t all that common at this point in their career as most songs tended to be mostly by one of the two, though the other usually helped a little. Paul was quoted as saying it was co-written by the two of them and John once quoted as saying that while the basic idea and structure were Paul’s, they’d written it together from there, though in another quote he said it was Paul’s with “a little help” from him.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: This song was mostly Lennon’s work, though McCartney wrote some of the lyrics and also played the organ introduction. It’s a dreamy song with imagery apparently inspired by a combination of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and LSD, though John’s assertion that the initials were pure coincidence is most likely true. Regardless, it is another highlight of the album, with musical backing that perfectly fits the psychedelic lyrics. This is yet another song with at least one very prominent cover (though of course all these songs have been covered, usually multiple times), in this case by Elton John.
Getting Better: Another very solid track, mostly written by Paul, though John wrote the cynical “it can’t no worse” line and the creepy lines about beating his girlfriend. While this song may not quite equal the first three, it’s still quite good.
Fixing a Hole: This is one of McCartney’s most psychedelic songs (by some accounts Beatles roadie Mal Evans helped with the lyrics). It’s not played or talked about quite as often as some of the other songs on the album, but it’s one of my favorites.
She's Leaving Home: This might be considered this album’s equivalent to “Eleanor Rigby” from Revolver, as both were written mainly by Paul, both used string backing, and both told stories about social issues. It isn’t as good as “Eleanor Rigby”, which is one of the best songs ever written, but it’s still very good, and another interesting change of pace.
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite: Lennon famously wrote this song using a very old circus poster, from which he took many of the words verbatim. Aside from having a good melody, the best feature of this song was the fairground atmosphere created by the backing track. While this was John’s idea, since he was famously vague about how to achieve what he wanted (unlike Paul, who usually had very specific ideas and did a lot of the arranging himself), the musical backing is largely the work of George Martin and Geoff Emerick, who deserve a lot of credit on this one.
Within You Without You: This is George Harrison’s writing contribution to the album. Performed entirely with Indian instruments without the participation of the other Beatles, it tends to divide listeners and critics between those who think it’s one of the best songs on the album and those who think it’s the worst. I side more with the former than the latter. While there are a few songs on the album I like better, this is also a great song, with excellent lyrics (Stephen Stills liked them so much he had them carved on a stone monument in his yard) and a very interesting sound that gives the album even more variety. Lennon also considered it one of George’s best.
When I'm Sixty-Four: This is one of Paul’s old-fashioned music hall/vaudeville tunes, one that apparently dates back to his teens, at least as far as the melody is concerned. While it’s not the greatest song on the album, it’s a fun tune and a dramatic change of pace from “Within You Without You”.
Lovely Rita: This is another upbeat tune by McCartney. Again, it’s fun and catchy, though not quite the equal of his very best tunes in this vein, such as “Got to Get You Into My Life” or “Lady Madonna”.
Good Morning Good Morning: This song is John’s, and like “Lovely Rita” is a very good song without reaching the status of a classic. The transition into the reprise of the title track was also very well done (by Martin).
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise): The brief reprise of the title track is even more energetic than the opening version, and shows the band performing together at their best.
A Day in the Life: This is the brilliant coda to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, commonly (and deservedly) cited as the best track on the album and one of the group’s best songs ever. A long free-wheeling combination of many elements, it encapsulated the band’s inventiveness and variety in a single track. John wrote the bulk of the song, and rightfully gets credit for some brilliant writing. But Paul’s contribution shouldn’t be overlooked. Not only did he write the short but clever middle section, by John’s own account the “I’d love to turn you on” bit is his, and by most accounts it was his idea to use an orchestra – which he ended up conducting – to bridge the gap between John’s opening part and his middle bit, and to have it “go crazy” (though Lennon apparently was the one to say it should go from nothing to “something absolutely like the end of the world”). The long drawn out final chord is also a brilliant touch, though it’s less clear whose idea that was. All in all, the track is a work of genius, with all elements of the group, particularly Paul and John but also George Martin and others of the band’s friends and assistants, working together to produce a spectacular ending to the album, one that no doubt contributed a lot to its reputation since its release.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Album Review – Bad Love by Randy Newman
For the first time in over a year, here's an album review that wasn't written for KKBox, but purely for this blog.
Album Title: Bad Love
Artist: Randy Newman
Release Date: June 1, 1999
My Country
Shame
I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)
Every Time It Rains
The Great Nations of Europe
The One You Love
The World Isn't Fair
Big Hat, No Cattle
Better Off Dead
I Miss You
Going Home
I Want Everyone to Like Me
All songs written by Randy Newman
When Randy Newman released the album Bad Love in 1999, it had been over a decade since his last solo studio album, though he had done a considerable amount of soundtrack work and released the soundtrack to his musical Faust in the intervening period. Most of his previous few albums, though they all contained some good and even great songs, had been somewhat inconsistent for a writer of Newman’s caliber. But Bad Love, though it might not be quite the equal of Newman’s early albums like Sail Away, comes very close to those classics in quality. The lyrics are as ironically clever and well-written as those on Newman’s best albums, and they are coupled with great melodies (unlike quite a few of his more recent songs, where he speaks as much as or more than he sings). There is a lot of stylistic variety in the music and the production by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake brings out the best in the songs and in Newman’s voice, which is quite effective despite his vocal limitations. Close to half the songs on the album are truly brilliant and deserve to be regarded as classics, and the rest are all at least good. Unfortunately, in spite of Newman’s relative prominence and positive reviews from critics, this album sold very little at the time, even compared with some of Newman’s own previous releases, which have never been huge sellers. It is one of the most underrated albums that I know of.
Bad Love Song by Song
My Country: The album opens with a song that represents everything I like about Newman’s best songs. In fact, it has a lot in common with “Sail Away”, probably my favorite Newman song of all. For one thing, both have a great melody, particularly the choruses, and someone who didn’t listen very closely might think they are meant to be uplifting, even patriotic songs. But a closer listen reveals the biting irony that Newman so often displays. What’s more, his use of irony is particularly keen in these two songs, in that it is subtle and yet not so subtle that it isn’t obvious in one close reading of the lyrics. In this instance, Newman takes the perspective of a man who talks of nights he and his family spent together, not having deep discussions or sharing anything of real importance, but watching television together. It has some really great lines that are both humorous and insightful about the shallowness of the character and his family relationships, as well as the things they watch (“We’ve got comedy, tragedy/Everything from A to B”). There’s even a line in the chorus that I misheard as perhaps more ironic than even Newman himself intended – according to the lyrics, he sings “This is my country/These are my people/I know them like the back of my own hand”, but to me “hand” sounded like “head”. This was probably not intentional on Newman’s part (though you never know), but of course even the intended lyric is ironic in that the character doesn’t really know his family all that well. In any case, not being a big fan of television and the propensity of modern people – including all too often myself – to spend all their time glued to a screen (now including portable ones on phones and other devices), I particularly appreciated this track.
Shame: This is another one of the standout tracks on the album, and one that seems to be a favorite of Newman himself. The interplay between Newman in his role as the song’s protagonist and the R&B backing vocalists singing “Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame” is particularly clever and amusing. The music is excellent, both in terms of composition and arrangement and the lyrics are well-written. The song is perhaps less easy listening in some ways than the others on the album, simply because, like in many of his best songs, Newman inhabits the character he is playing so fully, and (again like in many of his best songs), that character is a bit creepy. Here he is an old self-centered rich man in love with, or rather obsessed with, an attractive younger woman, who his song is directed at. While in most of the song he alternates between pleading and petulant complaining, at one point he hints strongly at a violent undercurrent to his personality, leaving the listener to hope the target of his affections has the sense to stay away from him. In a sense, this makes the song even more impressive as a piece of art, which is no doubt why Newman himself likes it. But it might be a bit of jolt for listeners who aren’t used to this type of writing in popular music, and it means this song is unlikely to be covered by many other artists, despite its many merits.
I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It) (amazingly and unfortunately, the album version doesn't seem to be on YouTube anywhere, so the link is to one of Newman's many live performances of the song): This is yet another excellent track, in all its aspects – music, arrangement and lyrics. One of the most rocking songs Newman has done, it mocks over-the-hill rockers who persist in continuing their careers despite noticeable drop-offs in the quality of their work. It has some great lines, such as “I have nothing left to say/But I’m gonna say it anyway” and “Each record that I’m making/Is like a record I’ve made/Just not as good”, and the electric guitars (reminiscent of Brian May of Queen) are used to great effect. Of course this isn’t to say that all old rockers should necessarily take the track to heart, as many of them, including Newman himself, continue to make worthwhile albums. But the type of character Newman portrays here definitely exists, and the problem of knowing when to quit is something people in all sorts of fields from art to sports have to face. All in all, it’s another great song.
Every Time It Rains: This song is one of the most straight-forward on the album, which is why Newman himself considers it a lesser work (though he also notes that it’s the kind of song others are more likely to cover). It may not quite equal the previous three, simply because it lacks the brilliantly ironic lyrics they have, but it’s still a very good song with a beautiful melody and an evocative atmosphere. Perhaps just because of the word “rain”, it sort of reminds me of Newman’s early classic “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today". Apparently Newman wrote it with Michael Jackson in mind, and while Jackson never recorded it, Joe Cocker covered it.
The Great Nations of Europe: This is yet another brilliant track, on par with the first three. The music is a dramatic march, perfectly fitting the lyrics, which in just a few minutes thoroughly eviscerate the Europeans of the Age of Exploration for their wholesale destruction of both wildlife and native peoples in the lands they explored. It features yet more great lines like “There were natives there called Guanches/Guanches by the score/Bullets, disease, the Portuguese and they weren’t there anymore”. Newman concludes the song by suggesting that we may someday by wiped out by a disease from Africa (presumably something like AIDS or Ebola) in the same way the Europeans of the sixteenth century wiped out the native peoples of the Americas. While the metaphor seems a bit of stretch, not so much because the Europeans were not as destructive as a virulent plague (in some ways they were more so, since as Newman points out they destroyed wildlife as well as their fellow humans), but because there is a lot of difference in the pattern of the destruction they cause, but it is still a fairly clever one. While it may not quite equal the rest of the song, it’s a more satisfying conclusion than that in Sting’s similar (and also quite well-written) “Children’s Crusade”, where a brilliant pair of verses about the slaughter that World War I wreaked among England’s youth is somewhat let down by an analogy with the epidemic of drug use among contemporary English youth, which despite its seriousness could not begin to compare with the destructiveness of the war. But even without their conclusions, both songs provide useful history lessons in the most compact and entertaining fashion possible.
The One You Love: This song, an R&B-style track that takes a cynical look at love, is slightly less memorable than the ones before it, but it’s still a solid effort that would be a standout track on an album by a lesser artist.
The World Isn’t Fair (another song where the only versions on YouTube are live performances): This is yet another great song, perhaps the last of the tracks on the album that reaches the level of a true classic, with the possible exception of the closing track. In the first half of the song, Newman provides a capsule biography of Karl Marx, and in the second half he imagines telling Marx about what was done with his plan (“If you’d seen how they worked it/You’d be glad you were dead”) and showing him around Newman’s own world, in which, as Newman brilliantly concludes, “…the rich just richer/And the poor you don’t ever have to see/It would depress us, Karl/Because we care/That the world still isn’t fair”. On this track Newman once more neatly tackles a big issue in just a few minutes of song. If this song has a minor flaw it is that the melody, while good, is not quite the equal those of the first few tracks, and Newman speaks rather than sings some of his lines. This isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, as it’s really just another style of performance with just as much artistic merit as singing. But since I am generally a big fan of melody I would probably rank songs like “My Country” or “The Great Nations of Europe” slightly higher than this one – but only slightly.
Big Hat, No Cattle: This is a cowboy song about a man whose entire life is built on lies. It’s a minor effort compared to what went before, but still good, and it adds even more musical variety to the album.
Better Off Dead: This song is somewhat like “The One You Love”, as it is also a cynical look at love. It’s another good song with a solid arrangement, if not as great as some of what went before.
I Miss You: This is an unusually personal song for Newman, directed at his ex-wife. While some of Newman’s typical cynicism makes an appearance (“I’d sell my soul and your souls for a song”), it is still heartfelt. Lyrically it’s rather simple, but it’s nevertheless effective.
Going Home: This is a short, simple little song that was apparently inspired by World War I. It actually dates back to the late 1970s, and appeared in demo form on the Newman box set Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman. While not as memorable as some of the other tracks, it’s a nice, old-fashioned sounding little tune.
I Want Everyone to Like Me: This upbeat track is another fairly personal song for Newman, as the character he plays seems to closely resemble Newman himself. Simply put, he’s in show business because he wants everyone to like him. While he’s occasionally egotistical (“I’d like to learn the respect of my peers…I’d like to find out where they are, by the way”), in reality deep down, he’s “a little insecure”. This is yet another track on which a very good melody is paired with clever, well-written (and meaningful) lyrics, so it makes an appropriate closer for an album of highly varied, very well-written songs that once again illustrate that Newman deserves his reputation as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
Album Title: Bad Love
Artist: Randy Newman
Release Date: June 1, 1999
Shame
I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)
Every Time It Rains
The Great Nations of Europe
The One You Love
The World Isn't Fair
Big Hat, No Cattle
Better Off Dead
I Miss You
Going Home
I Want Everyone to Like Me
All songs written by Randy Newman
When Randy Newman released the album Bad Love in 1999, it had been over a decade since his last solo studio album, though he had done a considerable amount of soundtrack work and released the soundtrack to his musical Faust in the intervening period. Most of his previous few albums, though they all contained some good and even great songs, had been somewhat inconsistent for a writer of Newman’s caliber. But Bad Love, though it might not be quite the equal of Newman’s early albums like Sail Away, comes very close to those classics in quality. The lyrics are as ironically clever and well-written as those on Newman’s best albums, and they are coupled with great melodies (unlike quite a few of his more recent songs, where he speaks as much as or more than he sings). There is a lot of stylistic variety in the music and the production by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake brings out the best in the songs and in Newman’s voice, which is quite effective despite his vocal limitations. Close to half the songs on the album are truly brilliant and deserve to be regarded as classics, and the rest are all at least good. Unfortunately, in spite of Newman’s relative prominence and positive reviews from critics, this album sold very little at the time, even compared with some of Newman’s own previous releases, which have never been huge sellers. It is one of the most underrated albums that I know of.
Bad Love Song by Song
My Country: The album opens with a song that represents everything I like about Newman’s best songs. In fact, it has a lot in common with “Sail Away”, probably my favorite Newman song of all. For one thing, both have a great melody, particularly the choruses, and someone who didn’t listen very closely might think they are meant to be uplifting, even patriotic songs. But a closer listen reveals the biting irony that Newman so often displays. What’s more, his use of irony is particularly keen in these two songs, in that it is subtle and yet not so subtle that it isn’t obvious in one close reading of the lyrics. In this instance, Newman takes the perspective of a man who talks of nights he and his family spent together, not having deep discussions or sharing anything of real importance, but watching television together. It has some really great lines that are both humorous and insightful about the shallowness of the character and his family relationships, as well as the things they watch (“We’ve got comedy, tragedy/Everything from A to B”). There’s even a line in the chorus that I misheard as perhaps more ironic than even Newman himself intended – according to the lyrics, he sings “This is my country/These are my people/I know them like the back of my own hand”, but to me “hand” sounded like “head”. This was probably not intentional on Newman’s part (though you never know), but of course even the intended lyric is ironic in that the character doesn’t really know his family all that well. In any case, not being a big fan of television and the propensity of modern people – including all too often myself – to spend all their time glued to a screen (now including portable ones on phones and other devices), I particularly appreciated this track.
Shame: This is another one of the standout tracks on the album, and one that seems to be a favorite of Newman himself. The interplay between Newman in his role as the song’s protagonist and the R&B backing vocalists singing “Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame” is particularly clever and amusing. The music is excellent, both in terms of composition and arrangement and the lyrics are well-written. The song is perhaps less easy listening in some ways than the others on the album, simply because, like in many of his best songs, Newman inhabits the character he is playing so fully, and (again like in many of his best songs), that character is a bit creepy. Here he is an old self-centered rich man in love with, or rather obsessed with, an attractive younger woman, who his song is directed at. While in most of the song he alternates between pleading and petulant complaining, at one point he hints strongly at a violent undercurrent to his personality, leaving the listener to hope the target of his affections has the sense to stay away from him. In a sense, this makes the song even more impressive as a piece of art, which is no doubt why Newman himself likes it. But it might be a bit of jolt for listeners who aren’t used to this type of writing in popular music, and it means this song is unlikely to be covered by many other artists, despite its many merits.
I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It) (amazingly and unfortunately, the album version doesn't seem to be on YouTube anywhere, so the link is to one of Newman's many live performances of the song): This is yet another excellent track, in all its aspects – music, arrangement and lyrics. One of the most rocking songs Newman has done, it mocks over-the-hill rockers who persist in continuing their careers despite noticeable drop-offs in the quality of their work. It has some great lines, such as “I have nothing left to say/But I’m gonna say it anyway” and “Each record that I’m making/Is like a record I’ve made/Just not as good”, and the electric guitars (reminiscent of Brian May of Queen) are used to great effect. Of course this isn’t to say that all old rockers should necessarily take the track to heart, as many of them, including Newman himself, continue to make worthwhile albums. But the type of character Newman portrays here definitely exists, and the problem of knowing when to quit is something people in all sorts of fields from art to sports have to face. All in all, it’s another great song.
Every Time It Rains: This song is one of the most straight-forward on the album, which is why Newman himself considers it a lesser work (though he also notes that it’s the kind of song others are more likely to cover). It may not quite equal the previous three, simply because it lacks the brilliantly ironic lyrics they have, but it’s still a very good song with a beautiful melody and an evocative atmosphere. Perhaps just because of the word “rain”, it sort of reminds me of Newman’s early classic “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today". Apparently Newman wrote it with Michael Jackson in mind, and while Jackson never recorded it, Joe Cocker covered it.
The Great Nations of Europe: This is yet another brilliant track, on par with the first three. The music is a dramatic march, perfectly fitting the lyrics, which in just a few minutes thoroughly eviscerate the Europeans of the Age of Exploration for their wholesale destruction of both wildlife and native peoples in the lands they explored. It features yet more great lines like “There were natives there called Guanches/Guanches by the score/Bullets, disease, the Portuguese and they weren’t there anymore”. Newman concludes the song by suggesting that we may someday by wiped out by a disease from Africa (presumably something like AIDS or Ebola) in the same way the Europeans of the sixteenth century wiped out the native peoples of the Americas. While the metaphor seems a bit of stretch, not so much because the Europeans were not as destructive as a virulent plague (in some ways they were more so, since as Newman points out they destroyed wildlife as well as their fellow humans), but because there is a lot of difference in the pattern of the destruction they cause, but it is still a fairly clever one. While it may not quite equal the rest of the song, it’s a more satisfying conclusion than that in Sting’s similar (and also quite well-written) “Children’s Crusade”, where a brilliant pair of verses about the slaughter that World War I wreaked among England’s youth is somewhat let down by an analogy with the epidemic of drug use among contemporary English youth, which despite its seriousness could not begin to compare with the destructiveness of the war. But even without their conclusions, both songs provide useful history lessons in the most compact and entertaining fashion possible.
The One You Love: This song, an R&B-style track that takes a cynical look at love, is slightly less memorable than the ones before it, but it’s still a solid effort that would be a standout track on an album by a lesser artist.
The World Isn’t Fair (another song where the only versions on YouTube are live performances): This is yet another great song, perhaps the last of the tracks on the album that reaches the level of a true classic, with the possible exception of the closing track. In the first half of the song, Newman provides a capsule biography of Karl Marx, and in the second half he imagines telling Marx about what was done with his plan (“If you’d seen how they worked it/You’d be glad you were dead”) and showing him around Newman’s own world, in which, as Newman brilliantly concludes, “…the rich just richer/And the poor you don’t ever have to see/It would depress us, Karl/Because we care/That the world still isn’t fair”. On this track Newman once more neatly tackles a big issue in just a few minutes of song. If this song has a minor flaw it is that the melody, while good, is not quite the equal those of the first few tracks, and Newman speaks rather than sings some of his lines. This isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, as it’s really just another style of performance with just as much artistic merit as singing. But since I am generally a big fan of melody I would probably rank songs like “My Country” or “The Great Nations of Europe” slightly higher than this one – but only slightly.
Big Hat, No Cattle: This is a cowboy song about a man whose entire life is built on lies. It’s a minor effort compared to what went before, but still good, and it adds even more musical variety to the album.
Better Off Dead: This song is somewhat like “The One You Love”, as it is also a cynical look at love. It’s another good song with a solid arrangement, if not as great as some of what went before.
I Miss You: This is an unusually personal song for Newman, directed at his ex-wife. While some of Newman’s typical cynicism makes an appearance (“I’d sell my soul and your souls for a song”), it is still heartfelt. Lyrically it’s rather simple, but it’s nevertheless effective.
Going Home: This is a short, simple little song that was apparently inspired by World War I. It actually dates back to the late 1970s, and appeared in demo form on the Newman box set Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman. While not as memorable as some of the other tracks, it’s a nice, old-fashioned sounding little tune.
I Want Everyone to Like Me: This upbeat track is another fairly personal song for Newman, as the character he plays seems to closely resemble Newman himself. Simply put, he’s in show business because he wants everyone to like him. While he’s occasionally egotistical (“I’d like to learn the respect of my peers…I’d like to find out where they are, by the way”), in reality deep down, he’s “a little insecure”. This is yet another track on which a very good melody is paired with clever, well-written (and meaningful) lyrics, so it makes an appropriate closer for an album of highly varied, very well-written songs that once again illustrate that Newman deserves his reputation as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Band On The Run: A Beatles Album from 1974
Having recently written an article on John Lennon for KKBox (it hasn't appeared on their website yet, but probably will in the next few weeks) and with the McCartney tribute album The Art of McCartney having just been released (I haven't got it yet, but I will pick it up when I see a reasonably-priced copy here, and I'll probably be writing about it for KKBox as well), it seems like a good time for the next in my what-if-the-Beatles-hadn't-broken-up series of imaginary Beatles albums of the 1970s, following What Is Life (1970), Working Class Heroes (1971), Imagine (1972), and Live and Let Die (1973). For the second time, I violated my rule against using an album title from an actual solo release, because the title seemed too suitable to resist. This one, which has some excellent songs, particularly from Paul and Ringo, could have been released either at the end of 1973 or in early 1974. As with previous albums, I'm posting my original track listing and liner notes.
Band On The Run
Helen Wheels (McCartney/McCartney) 3:44 (1973/10/26)
Mind Games (Lennon) 4:13 (1973/11/02)
Photograph (Harrison/Starkey) 3:57 (1973/11/02)
Don't Let Me Wait Too Long (Harrison) 2:58 (1973/05/30)
Band On The Run (McCartney/McCartney) 5:10 (1973/12/05)
One Day (At A Time) (Lennon) 3:17 (1973/11/02)
Jet (McCartney/McCartney) 4:07 (1973/12/05)
Devil Woman (Starkey/Poncia) 3:50 (1973/11/02)
Sue You Sue Me Blues (Harrison) 4:48 (1973/05/30)
Out Of The Blue (Lennon) 3:23 (1973/11/02)
Six O'Clock (McCartney) 4:08 (1973/11/02)
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five (McCartney/McCartney) 5:27 (1973/12/05)
Total Time - 48:27
Helen Wheels
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/10/26 (single release [UK])
Single (Also appeared on Band On The Run [US only])
Mind Games
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games
Photograph
Written by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) and George Harrison; Performed by Ringo Starr
12 String Acoustic Guitar and Harmony Vocal: George Harrison
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo
Don't Let Me Wait Too Long
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1972/10-1973/01; Released 1973/05/30
From Living In The Material World
Band On The Run
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run
One Day (At A Time)
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07-08; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games
Jet
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run
Devil Woman
Written by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) and Vini Poncia; Performed by Ringo Starr
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo
Sue You Sue Me Blues
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1972/10-1973/01; Released 1973/05/30
From Living In The Material World
Out Of The Blue
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07-08; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games
Six O'Clock
Written by Paul McCartney; Performed by Ringo Starr
Piano and Synthesizer: Paul McCartney
Backing Vocals: Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run
Band On The Run is made up entirely of songs released in 1973, which was the biggest year for solo Beatle releases, with the possible exception of 1970. Paul's best solo release of the 1970s, Band On The Run, is the source of four tracks (if we count "Helen Wheels", which was a single only release in the UK), including the opening, closing and title tracks. The album from which they are taken, Paul's third release with Wings, garnered the most positive critical response that any of his solo efforts had yet received. "Helen Wheels" is a solid rocker and in my opinion makes a great opening track. "Band On The Run" and "Jet" were of course no-brainers when it came to making selections, being two of Paul's best hits of the seventies and the biggest reasons for the critical plaudits the album received, while "Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five" makes a melodic closer. Yet more tracks from Band On The Run appear on the next "Beatles" album.
John's contributions come from Mind Games, his fourth solo album. This album is generally regarded as being a much better release than the overly political Some Time In New York City, though not quite as good as Imagine. Ironically, given their reputations, John doesn't rock as much as Paul on this album, but both "Out Of The Blue" and "One Day (At A Time)" are good introspective tunes in the mold of tracks like "Jealous Guy", as is "Mind Games" itself, though the latter has somewhat more elaborate production.
George's tracks, like those on the previous "Beatles" album Live And Let Die, come from his second solo album Living In The Material World. While neither of the two tracks appearing here is the equal of "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)", the big hit from LITMW, "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" is a excellent piece of melodic rock, and "Sue You Sue Me Blues" shows George's tongue-in-cheek humor (despite his serious reputation, many of George's songs provide evidence that he in fact had the best sense of humor of the four), in this case poking fun at the Beatles' legal squabbles.
Last but not least (on this album, if not on others) is Ringo. Like his two contributions to Live And Let Die, all three tracks here come from his 1973 solo album Ringo, which was far and away his best. "Devil Woman" is a track which Ringo co-wrote with Vini Poncia, and "Six O'Clock" was Paul's contribution to the album, which, as mentioned in the notes for Live And Let Die, was the only solo Beatles release to feature all four ex-Beatles. Both of these songs are solid if not spectacular, but what really makes Ringo's contribution important to this album is "Photograph", which not only was a number one hit, but also the best song of Ringo's solo career (the only possible competition coming from "It Don't Come Easy") and in my opinion one of the best songs Ringo ever sang lead vocals for, second only to "With A Little Help From My Friends". George of course played a major role in recording the track, and while it's officially co-written by Ringo, from the sound of it I suspect that George did most of the writing (on the other hand, Ringo apparently has said he wrote most of it and George just helped him finish it). As an aside, other tracks from Ringo which were candidates for inclusion were the other number one hit, "You're Sixteen", featuring Paul on kazoo (which I excluded since it was a cover); the excellent Randy Newman song "Have You Seen My Baby", featuring Marc Bolan on guitar (left off for the same reason as "You're Sixteen") and "Oh My My", another Ringo collaboration with Vini Poncia (I decided I preferred "Devil Woman"). One other track from Ringo did make it onto the next "Beatles" album.
Thanks in particular to "Band On The Run", "Photograph" and "Jet", this is in my opinion one of the best 1970s "Beatles" albums yet, at least as far as good melodic pop songs go. And when you notice that not only all the tracks on this album but many of those on Live And Let Die and a few on the next album as well were released in 1973, you can see why I say it was possibly the best year for solo Beatle releases. As will be seen, their productivity began to decline fairly quickly from this high point, but between them they still managed to produce a lot of good material, though it was spread out over more time.
Band On The Run
Helen Wheels (McCartney/McCartney) 3:44 (1973/10/26)
Mind Games (Lennon) 4:13 (1973/11/02)
Photograph (Harrison/Starkey) 3:57 (1973/11/02)
Don't Let Me Wait Too Long (Harrison) 2:58 (1973/05/30)
Band On The Run (McCartney/McCartney) 5:10 (1973/12/05)
One Day (At A Time) (Lennon) 3:17 (1973/11/02)
Jet (McCartney/McCartney) 4:07 (1973/12/05)
Devil Woman (Starkey/Poncia) 3:50 (1973/11/02)
Sue You Sue Me Blues (Harrison) 4:48 (1973/05/30)
Out Of The Blue (Lennon) 3:23 (1973/11/02)
Six O'Clock (McCartney) 4:08 (1973/11/02)
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five (McCartney/McCartney) 5:27 (1973/12/05)
Total Time - 48:27
Helen Wheels
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/10/26 (single release [UK])
Single (Also appeared on Band On The Run [US only])
Mind Games
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games
Photograph
Written by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) and George Harrison; Performed by Ringo Starr
12 String Acoustic Guitar and Harmony Vocal: George Harrison
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo
Don't Let Me Wait Too Long
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1972/10-1973/01; Released 1973/05/30
From Living In The Material World
Band On The Run
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run
One Day (At A Time)
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07-08; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games
Jet
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run
Devil Woman
Written by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) and Vini Poncia; Performed by Ringo Starr
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo
Sue You Sue Me Blues
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1972/10-1973/01; Released 1973/05/30
From Living In The Material World
Out Of The Blue
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1973/07-08; Released 1973/11/02
From Mind Games
Six O'Clock
Written by Paul McCartney; Performed by Ringo Starr
Piano and Synthesizer: Paul McCartney
Backing Vocals: Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1973/03; Released 1973/11/02
From Ringo
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings
Recorded 1973/09; Released 1973/12/05
From Band On The Run
Band On The Run is made up entirely of songs released in 1973, which was the biggest year for solo Beatle releases, with the possible exception of 1970. Paul's best solo release of the 1970s, Band On The Run, is the source of four tracks (if we count "Helen Wheels", which was a single only release in the UK), including the opening, closing and title tracks. The album from which they are taken, Paul's third release with Wings, garnered the most positive critical response that any of his solo efforts had yet received. "Helen Wheels" is a solid rocker and in my opinion makes a great opening track. "Band On The Run" and "Jet" were of course no-brainers when it came to making selections, being two of Paul's best hits of the seventies and the biggest reasons for the critical plaudits the album received, while "Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five" makes a melodic closer. Yet more tracks from Band On The Run appear on the next "Beatles" album.
John's contributions come from Mind Games, his fourth solo album. This album is generally regarded as being a much better release than the overly political Some Time In New York City, though not quite as good as Imagine. Ironically, given their reputations, John doesn't rock as much as Paul on this album, but both "Out Of The Blue" and "One Day (At A Time)" are good introspective tunes in the mold of tracks like "Jealous Guy", as is "Mind Games" itself, though the latter has somewhat more elaborate production.
George's tracks, like those on the previous "Beatles" album Live And Let Die, come from his second solo album Living In The Material World. While neither of the two tracks appearing here is the equal of "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)", the big hit from LITMW, "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" is a excellent piece of melodic rock, and "Sue You Sue Me Blues" shows George's tongue-in-cheek humor (despite his serious reputation, many of George's songs provide evidence that he in fact had the best sense of humor of the four), in this case poking fun at the Beatles' legal squabbles.
Last but not least (on this album, if not on others) is Ringo. Like his two contributions to Live And Let Die, all three tracks here come from his 1973 solo album Ringo, which was far and away his best. "Devil Woman" is a track which Ringo co-wrote with Vini Poncia, and "Six O'Clock" was Paul's contribution to the album, which, as mentioned in the notes for Live And Let Die, was the only solo Beatles release to feature all four ex-Beatles. Both of these songs are solid if not spectacular, but what really makes Ringo's contribution important to this album is "Photograph", which not only was a number one hit, but also the best song of Ringo's solo career (the only possible competition coming from "It Don't Come Easy") and in my opinion one of the best songs Ringo ever sang lead vocals for, second only to "With A Little Help From My Friends". George of course played a major role in recording the track, and while it's officially co-written by Ringo, from the sound of it I suspect that George did most of the writing (on the other hand, Ringo apparently has said he wrote most of it and George just helped him finish it). As an aside, other tracks from Ringo which were candidates for inclusion were the other number one hit, "You're Sixteen", featuring Paul on kazoo (which I excluded since it was a cover); the excellent Randy Newman song "Have You Seen My Baby", featuring Marc Bolan on guitar (left off for the same reason as "You're Sixteen") and "Oh My My", another Ringo collaboration with Vini Poncia (I decided I preferred "Devil Woman"). One other track from Ringo did make it onto the next "Beatles" album.
Thanks in particular to "Band On The Run", "Photograph" and "Jet", this is in my opinion one of the best 1970s "Beatles" albums yet, at least as far as good melodic pop songs go. And when you notice that not only all the tracks on this album but many of those on Live And Let Die and a few on the next album as well were released in 1973, you can see why I say it was possibly the best year for solo Beatle releases. As will be seen, their productivity began to decline fairly quickly from this high point, but between them they still managed to produce a lot of good material, though it was spread out over more time.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
My KKBox Articles
Over the past year or so, I have been posting articles and reviews that I've written for the online music service KKBox here, partly because they were not viewable by the general public, only by subscribers to the service. But it seems that is no longer the case, as I recently discovered that the KKBox Malaysia website has a webpage for my articles. They seem to all be there, though I haven't look at them to see how they may have been changed by the editor. I can say that most of the titles for the early articles weren't mine, as with the exception of the first couple of articles, I didn't bother to think of interesting titles, and not surprisingly the editor seems to have make up for this deficiency. But the original editor left around the end of last year, and the current one apparently has just been using the rather straightforward titles I put on the documents, as a quick look through the articles should indicate. One of these days I'll get around to reading the articles on the site myself to see if anything other than titles were changed, though in any case what I've republished here has been what I sent them, prior to any editorial changes.
One downside to the articles now being publicly available is that I have less reason to post them here. This is a downside because one reason I've been doing so frequently of late is because I haven't had time to write much new content specifically for this blog, though there are plenty of things I would like to write about. In other words, by republishing my year-old KKBox articles, I could ensure that I had at least one new post a month without actually having to take the time to write anything. To be honest, I may still end up find a way to use my work for KKBox to fill space here. I may still decide to post some of the articles here, particularly ones that I am relatively pleased with myself (in some cases I may also want to provide links to more of the songs or artists referenced in the articles, as for many articles they seem to have edited down the playlists I originally provided), or I may simply post a brief introduction and a link to the article on the KKBox site. One reason is that I've still got a number of projects to work on, including my Taiwanese aboriginal and popular music history research. I've also recently been asked to edit a lengthy English translation for a box set on a type of Taiwanese Hakka traditional music, and to translate some additional material for it, which will take up much of my free time for the next month or so. But I will try to at least sometimes make more interesting use of this space with some music related content that isn't already available elsewhere. One possibility is more posts written as a sort of ricochet off articles I've done for KKBox: a previous example is my list of my top 15 Rolling Stones songs, which was inspired largely by my article on the Stones' 50th anniversary (see below). Of course I also hope to add some more album reviews and artist retrospectives that are independent of the ones I've done for KKBox. I'll probably also post the one or two imaginary 1970s Beatles albums that I haven't posted here yet, and maybe a few of the compilation albums I've put together over the years.
In any case, here is an overview of the articles I did for KKBox that I haven't yet posted here:
My article on the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones.
My career retrospective on Paul McCartney and review of his album New (for a different look at McCartney, there's also my old post on him, and those on John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr)
My articles on the recently deceased luminaries Lou Reed and Pete Seeger (I have previously published brief looks at both Reed and Seeger here as well).
My article on Roger Taylor of Queen and his new release, which due to length was split into part 1 and part 2 (for comparison see my post here about him and those on his bandmates Freddie Mercury, Brian May and John Deacon).
My article on Peter Gabriel and his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was also split into part 1 and part 2 (once again, I have previously published a separate post on him and others on his former bandmates in Genesis, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips).
My article on Nirvana and their induction into the Hall of Fame along with Gabriel.
My article on the recently reissued classic album by Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
My article on the ABBA Gold reissue was also basically a career retrospective.
There are also reviews of albums by Elbow, Tori Amos, the Manic Street Preachers, the Civil Wars, Aviici, and Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones's cover of an Everly Brothers oldies albums. There's good music on each of these albums, though if I buy any of them it's most likely to be the Elbow one and perhaps the Tori Amos and Manic Street Preachers one (though I'd probably be more inclined to look for a Manic Street Preachers compilation with the best of their earlier songs -- I've already got a Tori Amos compilation).
The other articles on the KKBox site have already been posted here, though for those who've missed them some highlights are the articles on Paul Simon and Randy Newman (my earlier overview of him is here), and my reviews of Jamie Cullum's Momentum and the soundtrack for the documentary West of Memphis.
One downside to the articles now being publicly available is that I have less reason to post them here. This is a downside because one reason I've been doing so frequently of late is because I haven't had time to write much new content specifically for this blog, though there are plenty of things I would like to write about. In other words, by republishing my year-old KKBox articles, I could ensure that I had at least one new post a month without actually having to take the time to write anything. To be honest, I may still end up find a way to use my work for KKBox to fill space here. I may still decide to post some of the articles here, particularly ones that I am relatively pleased with myself (in some cases I may also want to provide links to more of the songs or artists referenced in the articles, as for many articles they seem to have edited down the playlists I originally provided), or I may simply post a brief introduction and a link to the article on the KKBox site. One reason is that I've still got a number of projects to work on, including my Taiwanese aboriginal and popular music history research. I've also recently been asked to edit a lengthy English translation for a box set on a type of Taiwanese Hakka traditional music, and to translate some additional material for it, which will take up much of my free time for the next month or so. But I will try to at least sometimes make more interesting use of this space with some music related content that isn't already available elsewhere. One possibility is more posts written as a sort of ricochet off articles I've done for KKBox: a previous example is my list of my top 15 Rolling Stones songs, which was inspired largely by my article on the Stones' 50th anniversary (see below). Of course I also hope to add some more album reviews and artist retrospectives that are independent of the ones I've done for KKBox. I'll probably also post the one or two imaginary 1970s Beatles albums that I haven't posted here yet, and maybe a few of the compilation albums I've put together over the years.
In any case, here is an overview of the articles I did for KKBox that I haven't yet posted here:
My article on the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones.
My career retrospective on Paul McCartney and review of his album New (for a different look at McCartney, there's also my old post on him, and those on John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr)
My articles on the recently deceased luminaries Lou Reed and Pete Seeger (I have previously published brief looks at both Reed and Seeger here as well).
My article on Roger Taylor of Queen and his new release, which due to length was split into part 1 and part 2 (for comparison see my post here about him and those on his bandmates Freddie Mercury, Brian May and John Deacon).
My article on Peter Gabriel and his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was also split into part 1 and part 2 (once again, I have previously published a separate post on him and others on his former bandmates in Genesis, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips).
My article on Nirvana and their induction into the Hall of Fame along with Gabriel.
My article on the recently reissued classic album by Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
My article on the ABBA Gold reissue was also basically a career retrospective.
There are also reviews of albums by Elbow, Tori Amos, the Manic Street Preachers, the Civil Wars, Aviici, and Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones's cover of an Everly Brothers oldies albums. There's good music on each of these albums, though if I buy any of them it's most likely to be the Elbow one and perhaps the Tori Amos and Manic Street Preachers one (though I'd probably be more inclined to look for a Manic Street Preachers compilation with the best of their earlier songs -- I've already got a Tori Amos compilation).
The other articles on the KKBox site have already been posted here, though for those who've missed them some highlights are the articles on Paul Simon and Randy Newman (my earlier overview of him is here), and my reviews of Jamie Cullum's Momentum and the soundtrack for the documentary West of Memphis.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Passenger – All the Little Lights
This is another review I did for the online music service KKBox last year. While I liked the Jamie Cullum album slightly better, this one was pretty good too (though Rosenberg's voice is something of an acquired taste). As noted in the review, one of the best things about it is the lyrics, though a lot of the tunes are quite good as well.
All the Little Lights is the fourth solo album by British singer-songwriter Mike Rosenberg, who goes by the stage name Passenger. Rosenberg, who cites Bob Dylan, Neil Young and particularly Paul Simon as influences, originally formed Passenger as a band in 2003, and the group released one album which was critically well-received. After the band broke up in 2009, Rosenberg went to Australia and continued performing as Passenger, traveling around in both Australia and the UK and busking wherever he went. He released three albums, including one limited edition release. All the Little Lights was recorded in Australia and was released in 2012. Helped by the exposure Passenger has gained touring with his friend Ed Sheeran, the album has become an international success over the past year, hitting the top 10 in numerous countries around the world.
The album opens with “Things That Stop You Dreaming”, which features a prominent string backing along with Rosenberg’s guitar. Rosenberg has stated that All the Little Lights is a departure from the simple, guitar-only arrangements of some of his previous albums, and this song is a good example of the more elaborate arrangements this album features. The clever rhyming in the lyrics also grabs the listener’s attention, showing another of Rosenberg’s strengths, namely his well-written lyrics. The second track is “Let Her Go”, a heartfelt ballad that has become an international hit, topping the charts in numerous countries and reaching No. 2 in his native UK. While these and the subsequent tracks can all be classified as folk rock, Passenger helps keep things interesting by alternating more upbeat songs like the banjo-based “Staring at the Stars” with ballads like “All the Little Lights”. Among the standout tracks are the upbeat “The Wrong Direction”, which features more great lyrics with clever wordplay and a well-placed horn solo, and “Circles”, a melodic ballad which makes very effective use of strings. The second half of the album opens with “Keep on Walking”, a distinctive track with a prominent piano and a country rock sound reminiscent of singers like Jackson Browne and Bob Seger, plus another good set of lyrics about a wandering life, no doubt inspired by Rosenberg’s years as a busking musician. One of the best songs on this half of the album is “Life’s for the Living”, which starts out slow but uses horns and other instrumentation to build into a powerful track with a serious message about making the most of life. The catchy “Holes” is the most recent single off the album, and is another strong track. The album closes with “I Hate”, a song that was recorded live at a performance in London. It’s a very funny rant about things Rosenberg hates, and while it is quite different from the rest of the album, it makes a great closer.
In its most basic form, Passenger’s music is folk music, with Rosenberg’s voice and guitar at the center of the sound, but the variety of instrumentation and arrangements on All the Little Lights ensure that the album doesn’t become monotonous musically. Rosenberg’s voice, which has drawn comparisons to Cat Stevens, James Blunt and Ben Howard, is very distinctive as well. It may not immediately appeal to everyone, but most listeners react positively to it, with some people considering it one of his greatest strengths. His most obvious strong point, however, is his lyrics, which are thoughtful and often witty. He also seems to genuinely care about bringing his music to people, which shows in his heartfelt performances. Despite his recent success, he still likes to go out busking, so keep an eye out for him on a street corner near you.
All the Little Lights is the fourth solo album by British singer-songwriter Mike Rosenberg, who goes by the stage name Passenger. Rosenberg, who cites Bob Dylan, Neil Young and particularly Paul Simon as influences, originally formed Passenger as a band in 2003, and the group released one album which was critically well-received. After the band broke up in 2009, Rosenberg went to Australia and continued performing as Passenger, traveling around in both Australia and the UK and busking wherever he went. He released three albums, including one limited edition release. All the Little Lights was recorded in Australia and was released in 2012. Helped by the exposure Passenger has gained touring with his friend Ed Sheeran, the album has become an international success over the past year, hitting the top 10 in numerous countries around the world.
The album opens with “Things That Stop You Dreaming”, which features a prominent string backing along with Rosenberg’s guitar. Rosenberg has stated that All the Little Lights is a departure from the simple, guitar-only arrangements of some of his previous albums, and this song is a good example of the more elaborate arrangements this album features. The clever rhyming in the lyrics also grabs the listener’s attention, showing another of Rosenberg’s strengths, namely his well-written lyrics. The second track is “Let Her Go”, a heartfelt ballad that has become an international hit, topping the charts in numerous countries and reaching No. 2 in his native UK. While these and the subsequent tracks can all be classified as folk rock, Passenger helps keep things interesting by alternating more upbeat songs like the banjo-based “Staring at the Stars” with ballads like “All the Little Lights”. Among the standout tracks are the upbeat “The Wrong Direction”, which features more great lyrics with clever wordplay and a well-placed horn solo, and “Circles”, a melodic ballad which makes very effective use of strings. The second half of the album opens with “Keep on Walking”, a distinctive track with a prominent piano and a country rock sound reminiscent of singers like Jackson Browne and Bob Seger, plus another good set of lyrics about a wandering life, no doubt inspired by Rosenberg’s years as a busking musician. One of the best songs on this half of the album is “Life’s for the Living”, which starts out slow but uses horns and other instrumentation to build into a powerful track with a serious message about making the most of life. The catchy “Holes” is the most recent single off the album, and is another strong track. The album closes with “I Hate”, a song that was recorded live at a performance in London. It’s a very funny rant about things Rosenberg hates, and while it is quite different from the rest of the album, it makes a great closer.
In its most basic form, Passenger’s music is folk music, with Rosenberg’s voice and guitar at the center of the sound, but the variety of instrumentation and arrangements on All the Little Lights ensure that the album doesn’t become monotonous musically. Rosenberg’s voice, which has drawn comparisons to Cat Stevens, James Blunt and Ben Howard, is very distinctive as well. It may not immediately appeal to everyone, but most listeners react positively to it, with some people considering it one of his greatest strengths. His most obvious strong point, however, is his lyrics, which are thoughtful and often witty. He also seems to genuinely care about bringing his music to people, which shows in his heartfelt performances. Despite his recent success, he still likes to go out busking, so keep an eye out for him on a street corner near you.
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