Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesse Anger
This!!
Down on Cyprus Avenue
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford and Fitzroy, Madame George
Marching with the soldier boy behind
He's much older now with hat on drinking wine
And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar
And outside they're making all the stops
The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops
Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops
Happy taken Madame George
That's when you fall
Whoa, that's when you fall
Yeah, that's when you fall
When you fall into a trance
Sitting on a sofa playing games of chance
With your folded arms and history books
You glance into the eyes of Madame George
And you think you found the bag
You're getting weaker and your knees begin to sag
In a corner playing dominoes in drag
The one and only Madame George
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Beautiful poetry, and a very gifted singer. Nonetheless while I listened to the entire song, I had the same thoughts I get when I listen to Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and various others. I keep wondering when he's going to change something up, melody-wise. It sounds like the same start high up, ascend, then go to descending motif. Over and over. The music builds, but there is very little development. I was reminded of War, with Eric Burdon, and "Spill The Wine". Hey, make no mistake, I LOVE it! I have done much the same thing when I was in a band and we were drunk and high and improvising. Sometimes you had magic, but most of the time it was dreck, dispensable, ephemeral, to be enjoyed for what it was.
"Spill The Wine", and "Madame George" were definitely in the magical, keeper category. But let me say, God only knows what amount of tape that is socked away, or that was simply thrown out, from similar forays into mind-altered improvisation.
Rock critics in the 70's in particular, almost unanimously sided with this kind of music. And they joined together to heap shame and vitriol on artists like Yes, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, because those artists were far more into classical, formal composition, which required focus and concentration from the musicians involved. The records put out by those 3 groups in particular, though there were dozens more, were frequently dismissed by rock critics as examples of musical artists taking themselves and their inventiveness far too seriously. Certain words were used to the point of cliche, and utter meaninglessness, and are still used by reviewers today on Amazon and other sites:
- Pompous
- Pretentious
- Egomaniacal
- Egotistical
- Banal
- Bombastic
^ Those are just a few of the cliches and buzzwords used by rock critics to handwave away and conveniently dismiss work by artists that they found to be too challenging, artists who created albums that, like a lot of very valuable things, were "an acquired taste", like good brandy, or a good beer; albums that seemed to have a certain level of conceptual coherence and lyrics that were narrative and told a story, rather than being stream-of-consciousness exercises in navel gazing.
Just my tuppence.