MUS
Active topics
  1. I guess this one is dead (again) before it even got going (again)

    I fear it would be a futile gesture to put effort in...
  2. Hey, I'm home for the summer now, I got time to play! Let's go!
  5. Ok. I'll kick it off this weekend. But you boys better play the game!
  6. yes... Im not home on weekend,but will be able to listen and review during the weekdays
  8. I'll listen, but I don't know when (new job)
  9. Bring on the weekend, I could use some fresh tunes to listen to!
  10. Coming tomorrow...


  11. Ok. Seeing as how the single "The Whole of the Moon" is currently the lead in song to U2's set, let me introduce you youngsters to another album that is most definitely found on side one of the soundtrack of my life, a desert island disc, for sure... a profound album for my coming of age era... and with a week break in the tour, it'll give ya something to do!

    For what it's worth, Bono agrees with me. Irish musician Bono includes the album on his "top ten" list, noting "In rock, the word 'poet' gets thrown around a lot. Not here..."[

    First, a brief preface... In April 1984, The Waterboys released The Big Music, a taster single for forthcoming LP, A Pagan Place. While the song’s rousing urgency pointed to the sound of the album itself, its title provided a handy new signifier for a prominent new strain of epic rock. The Big Music swiftly became an umbrella term in the press for a number of bands with one hand on their heart and the other fisting the sky: U2, Simple Minds, The Alarm, Big Country and The Waterboys. Forged from the ruins of punk, they were now fashioning a more declarative brand of music whose chief weapons were big guitars and soaring vocals.This growing style was haughtily described by The Waterboys’ Mike Scott as “a metaphor for seeing God’s signature in the world.”

    Fast forward to 16 September 1985, just as my The Unforgettable Fire cassette was beginning to drag in my car cassette player and I was hungry to be blown away again with inspiration... there it was on my late night MTV...

    "I pictured a rainbow
    You held it in your hands
    I had flashes
    But you saw the plan
    I wandered out in the world for years
    While you just stayed in your room
    I saw the crescent
    You saw the whole of the moon
    The whole of the moon..."




    (directed by Meiert Avis, btw... Google him!)

    Themes of the album include spirituality ("Spirit", "The Pan Within"), romantic love ("Trumpets"), and English politics ("Old England"), while the album's eponymous single ("This Is The Sea") utilizes the allusion of the flowing river as a life affirming recognition of constant renewal and regeneration. Michael Tucker, in an article entitled "The Body Electric: The Shamanic Spirit in Twentieth Century Music", lists This Is the Sea as an example of shamanistic themes in twentieth-century Western music.[9] Irish musician Bono includes the album on his "top ten" list, noting "In rock, the word 'poet' gets thrown around a lot. Not here..."]

    "Don't Bang the Drum", the lyrics of which encourage environmentalism, was released as a single in Germany, with a song titled "Ways of Men" as the B-side. The first draft of the song's music was written by Wallinger. Scott reworked the arrangement, changing its rhythm and "feel", but Wallinger's melody and chords were preserved.



    (Steve Wickham on fiddle is a long-time member of the Waterboys, but you'll know his work from the violin on "Sunday Bloody Sunday")


    "The Whole of the Moon", one of The Waterboys' best-known songs and their most commercially successful, was first released as a twelve-inch single, and reached number twenty-eight on the United Kingdom singles chart. The single also contained a live recording of "The Girl in the Swing", from The Waterboys, the band's first album, an extended mix of "Spirit", and a song titled "Medicine Jack". The latter two appear on the second disc of the album's re-release. When the single was reissued in 1990, it reached number 3, and was awarded the Ivor Novello Award in 1991.

    The song began as a "scribble on the back of an envelope on a wintry New York street" after Scott's girlfriend asked him if it was difficult to write a song,and was unfinished at the beginning of the recording sessions, eventually being completed in May 1985. The song, like The Waterboys' first single "A Girl Called Johnny" is a tribute to an inspirational figure. In each line, the singer describes his own perspective and immediately contrasts it with that of the song's subject, summarizing the difference with the line "I saw the crescent / You saw the whole of the moon". "You saw Brigadoon", one of these contrasts, refers to a fictional village that exists only one day every century (from the musical of the same name).

    The subject of the song has inspired some speculation. Musician Nikki Sudden, with whom Scott had collaborated before forming The Waterboys, said that Scott told Max Edie, the backup singer for "The Whole of the Moon", that the song was written about Sudden. Allmusic instead suggests that its subject is actually a number of people who inspired Scott, including Christian writer C. S. Lewis and the musician Prince. Scott himself says that he "couldn't have written" the song without having read Mark Helprin's novel Winter's Tale, but goes on to state that the song is not about Helprin. The official Waterboys website's Frequently Asked Questions clarifies that Scott has said that the song's subject is "a composite of many people", including C. S. Lewis, but explicitly states that it is not about Prince.

    "Spirit", a song praising the resilience of the human spirit, originally appeared on a short, one-and-a-half minute version. A full four-minute version of the song was released on the 2004 remastered disc.



    The lyrics of "The Pan Within" are partly derived from meditation techniques ("Close your eyes / Breathe slow / And we'll begin"). It was the first of two Waterboys songs about the Ancient Greek god Pan, which have been played as a medley at Waterboys concerts. "The Pan Within" is the first Waterboys song to feature Wickham's fiddle playing.



    An alternative version of "Medicine Bow" was released as a single in Germany, with an instrumental version of "Don't Bang the Drum" for the 7-inch. The 12-inch contained another mix of "Medicine Bow" and "Ways of Men". Scott writes that he invented the name, and was unaware of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The album's re-release contains a "full length" version of the song that contains an instrumental "piano storm – from first sonic droplets of rain to final crashing thunder and lightning" performed by Adrian Johnston.

    "Old England" is a criticism of Thatcherism, blaming Margaret Thatcher's economic policies for what Scott perceived to be an increase in desperation amongst the young and poor in the England of that time, and a rise in drug addiction, specifically to heroin. The refrain, "Old England is dying" is a quote from James Joyce, and the lines "You're asking what makes me sigh now / What it is makes me shudder so" are from W.B. Yeats' poem, "Mad as the Mist and Snow". The Clash, one of the bands that had inspired Scott during his punk music phase, released "This Is England", a song with a similar theme, as a single the same year. Scott and The Waterboys would move to Ireland the following year.

    "Trumpets", a love song, was the first song written for the album, in the spring of 1984, and the first song from the album to be performed live. It quotes from "I'm Only Sleeping", a recording by The Beatles. Regarding the lack of trumpets in the song, trumpeter Lorimer stated, 'My impressions are that Mike found them noble, bright, pure, these sort of words. So, 'My love feels like trumpets'... I understand it at that level. It's such an ancient instrument, a marshal instrument. Amongst swords and spears and shields being clattered about, someone sounds the trumpet and everyone hears that. It's the clarion call, the clarity of it finds its way through."



    The title track, the last song on the original release, has a slower tempo than most of the other arrangements. Scott notes that he wrote over twenty verses for the song, some of which wound up included on the "alter ego" of "This Is the Sea", "That Was the River", which was released in 1994 on The Secret Life of the Waterboys. Waterboys chronicler Ian Abrahams wrote that the album and song were about Scott painting, "...a mystical, spiritual route that can be attained simply through letting-go of the mundane and trusting to the sanctity of the inner self." Abrahams further described the song as, "...an instruction to throw away the old and embrace the new, catch the train, see the previous existence as something old and gone. It's as though there is a split personality, the war raging inside the head, the mental anguish and the internal argument. This song gets right back into the thrust of "Don't Bang the Drum" and comes full circle, rejecting the soulless existence painted in the LP's opening moments and treating it as a journey, comparable with the traveling of the river into the sea. It's really the sentiment of somebody making a huge adjustment in their life and that really elucidates the theme of the album and points to a crossroads in Mike Scott's creative thinking."

    .


    So... there you have it. You know I'm always going to give an extensive history. Maybe more than you wanna know. If you just scrolled through the babble, I don't blame you. If you've mad it this far, here's the full album... do yourself a favor, and listen through once. But do it when you have a free hour. And do it with your favorite beverage. And, as I'll always suggest... to obtain maximum joy, play this very aloud, very late, very alone and with the lights turned very low. I'd love to hear where the adventure took you!



    This Is the Sea is, incidentally, the last album with contributions from Karl Wallinger, who left the group to form his own band, World Party.

    (and thanks Wikipedia for the extensive history!
  12. Ah, excellent. I knew nothing of the Waterboys til I heard The Whole of the Moon when it became the pre-show music. I'll give this a listen tomorrow or Tuesday and have some thoughts written up!