What Are You Listening To?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

STYLE COUNCIL  "confessions of a pop group" cd/cassette, 1988

a revisit...
their fourth and final album at the time (their fifth was rejected by the label at the time)...
hard to know where to put this as it is experimental with its  soulful, poppy, rap/hip-hop, classical, r+b/funky and easy listening sounds.
although i still love this one some of the tracks rating have been reappraised since the initial beginners guide post.
still the most eclectic, adventurous album of Weller's career, only "22 dreams" some two decades later comes close.
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

favourite on this occasion, the almost eleven minute 'three piece suite' as it evolves from a piano classical piece through to becoming quite jazzy and eventually pays respect to the Beach Boys, great stuff IMO





suite1:  - "in the beginning":

(instrumental)

suite 2: - "the gardener of Eden":


True I was a gardener, once upon a time.
When the world was young and all the earth was mine
Mine to tend to, to plough and to sow.
Before mankind came and rendered all things low.
And beauty was it's first name by this I would call.
And ready the harvest for one and for all.

The orchards and the wheatfields which could of fed the world,
Were divided up like money and sold through human slaves
The rivers fresh, the hillsides that had no need of name,
Now ran red with the life blood and drunk with guilty shame.

The gentle bough was broken and twisted out of shape,
And who knows the consequences when the bough doth break,
The mother soil which reared it's young, now reared her angry head,
And rain fell down like teardrops upon the flower beds.

The blame for this I'm in no doubt, is mine and mine alone,
But so proud was I of my work, I had to share it's growth -
'Tis true I was a gardener in the time before the flood,
Now these greenfingers of mine - are stained by angels blood.

suite 3: -  "mourning the passing of time":

i'm hanging up my surfboard
i'm given back my ring.
i've had enough of choking on salty sea and fish....

i come to the surface and come to my senses
i come to the surface and come to my senses
i come to the surface and come to my senses.