The Waterboys: OUT OF ALL THIS BLUE - New Album due September 2017

Happy birthday to This Is The Sea - released 37 years ago today.

 

So I've done it. Will see them live in Hamburg / Germany on 11/9. I know I'll have a great night. He has an extended band with two drummers and two female singers.

 

You won't regret it!

 

Payo Payo Chin is great, really like that one and also the Girl In the Window Chair - the album is a good listen but I need to listen a few times to get familiar and pick out my favourites but it flows quite well I think.

This bodes well for the gig next month which I'm really looking forward to, I've seen them live a couple of times now, I think the first time was around the time of Universal Hall.

Interesting reading on the Japanese influence from his partner and the story behind that (and the track Yamaben) , the LP has some nice artwork included.

 

Yesterday I saw the concert in Hamburg. It was great, just great. What a band, what a frontman. Mike Scott said he felt especially inspired to play in one of the world capitals of rock'n'roll. Somebody (not me) posted some stills from the show on youtube. Enjoy!

 

32 years ago and released in September in the UK maybe in the States it was November.

 

Bahahahahahahahaha. So glad I went to college. Thanks for correcting that.

 

Mike Scott is so gifted.

Even his hits move me.

 

Another clip from last week's Hamburg Concert. Includes a great moment when Mike Scott decided to change the setlist without telling the band...

 

“Morning Came Too Soon” is pretty epic to my ears.

 

Nearly eight months later, and this thing still holds up. And it keeps revealing new things every time I hear it. I never noticed that the song playing at the beginning of "The Hammerhead Bar" was "Vampire's Head" until today. There's instrumental touches and even some vocal parts that tie the songs together which I'd never even noticed before.

I had been a bit worried that my love of this album had just been because of my anticipation of it... nope, just a fantastic album.

 

I'm with you now. I was a little underwhelmed but have grown to really like it too. Fine songs, even if I am not in love with the synths over guitar mix. Mike Scott is a gem.

 

I'm still enjoying this one, and the concert was not a let down either.

 

Hey @InStepWithTheStars - how's it going? I can't for the life of me figure out why I never joined in the chat in this thread. Probably because I've been in weird, single-minded, single-artist listening jags for the last year (for some reason it's been non-stop Television/Tom Verlaine, Costello and Neil Finn-related music) and working so much that I haven't had time or really been in the mood (??!!??) to listen to as much music as I normally do. I actually PUT OFF really listening to this album on purpose (!!) even though, as you know, The Waterboys are one of my all-time favorite bands. I mean, I listened to it when it first came out and instantly knew it was great, but also instantly knew that it was going to take a bunch of listens to absorb it, which I wasn't in the right headspace for (it's like the Fisherman's Box - amazing, but you're like, well this gonna take five years to process).

I'm so glad there are other people on this forum (and in the world) banging the drum for the greatness of Mike and the Boys. This is an excellent thread that, I imagine, would make anyone slightly curious about digging deeper into the Waterboys rabid fans in no time. Well done.

My ever-shifting lists of favorite WB albums and songs would probably always be different than yours, but I can see that even the lowest ranking albums on your list are still getting 7/10 ratings, which is a really good album. That's how I feel. It's not like ANY album he/they have released is bad, not even slightly. They also all get better with repeated listening - even the already great ones. That's probably why the band is so remarkable to me - all of their music has so many layers and small moments and big moments, so rich and diverse and meaningful in different ways at different times - and those meanings change as you change and time goes on. Not many artists can touch the spirit and psyche, dig down into the undercurrents of your brain and soul, like the Waterboys. It's that magical thing only combinations of words connected to melodies placed over chords brought to life by arrangements and productions can do that's impossible to articulate - but when it hits you, you done stayed hit. Nobody does that quite the way Mike Scott does.

I've been listening to the new album (finally) on long walks to clear my head of work and life and I think it's the perfect album for him to have made right now. I really couldn't/wouldn't have asked for more or a different style. What you said about a positive, bubbling, funky album in these dark, depressing times is spot on. I know he always does whatever he feels inspired to do (thank God), but, for me, Mike really read the room correctly on this one. I ever so still respectfully disagree with you about "Modern Blues," which for me still has too many cliche southern boogie rock arrangements and awkward, silly lyrics for me to get past (I know what you mean about Mike's more base, flesh and blood lyrics not being his strong suit - so it's hard for me to wrap my head around the guy who wrote "Open" claiming to be "still a freak." Sure, Mike, you're super freaky, yow), but I still really like the album (7/10!). This new one is much stronger in all departments for me.

Really glad to hear he already has the follow up planned. I hope it'll be time to start another thread very soon! This time I'm all in.

 

It has been a while since I've pestered you about Waterboys stuff, hasn't it? I should remedy that. Did you ever find out if your friend had that promo "Pagan Place" single I asked about last year, and whether or not it truly is an edit?

I often wind up going on single-artist jags too - I don't know if I listened to anything but the Church for the two-month period centered around February, and I spent more money on their CDs than I did on food and rent combined and got 10-15 holy grails in the span of those two months - but I find that whenever I put on some Waterboys, I'm always in the mood to listen to it. Sometimes my tastes vary - I'll want to spin Modern Blues but have no interest in Fisherman's Blues, etc. - but I never find myself wondering what else to listen to. And it always winds up progressing. I'll want to listen to "I've Lived Here Before", then "The Thrill Is Gone", then "The New Life", then "The Hosting Of The Shee", and it spirals from there. There are very few artists that I can do that with at any given time.

I know our lists would certainly be different. We would have Book Of Lightning in a similar place, and I suspect you'd rank Fisherman's Blues higher than me and Modern Blues much lower. My lists in this thread don't include Cloud Of Sound (Mike's weakest album - still a high 6/10 for me) or Sunflowers (a high 8 or low 9) or any of that stuff. I really ought to redo that list. There's still quite a bit of music I have yet to listen to, though; I've slowly picked away at Fisherman's Box, but I would wager there's at least two or three hours of music in there I've never heard once.

And you're absolutely right on that other point: nobody can hit that "this gets better every time" nerve better than Mike Scott. There are a few songs that have hit it harder, but no one person can hit it as hard and as consistently as Mike Scott does. Even songs I used to think were either pointless or outright crap I now either love or at least appreciate. At one point, I actually tried ranking the "ten worst Waterboys songs" - I'm not even sure if I made it to ten, and only two of them could I levy any real criticism at. And I still like my least favorite Waterboys song better than anything on With The Beatles. Is that a sign that I'm a sycophant, or just a sign that Mike Scott is fantastic?

The big reason the new album hits home for me is because it avoids all the pitfalls that happened with Book Of Lightning. This is the best comparison point I have as the songs are based in the same themes. Again, I still enjoy that album, but the arrangements were far too cliché for me, and the music much too simplistic. Compare the twisting, rising lyrical metric of "The Connemara Fox" to the extremely basic one of "The Crash Of Angel Wings". And take how visceral the lyrics are: "Here she comes like rumbling drums, swinging her skirts and talking in spurts" versus "A bolt of love had stopped the clocks from the village lanes with a washing hum to the city blocks". The first one could be any number of love songs; the second one reads like an extremely vivid poem or a passage from an engrossing novel.

Another thing is that these songs sound like their subject matter; the part of your brain that paints the pictures that the song sounds like gets it right. "It's Gonna Rain", for instance - decent song, but does it sound like it's gonna rain? I can only picture a fiery desert when I hear it. But I can see Mike and Megumi dancing on the ocean's surface when I hear "Didn't We Walk On Water". The funky groove behind "If I Was Your Boyfriend" drives the lyrics along and makes you believe them. Meanwhile, I don't believe for once second that love will shoot me down; I think love will probably sit in the shade and scowl at me and hate itself for not having the guts to actually shoot me down. Could just be me - I like funk grooves more than whatever's going on in "She Tried To Hold Me". Maybe they just make the song more visceral to me. But whatever it is,

Trey Pollard's string arrangements also capture a fantastic essence that drive these songs forward. They don't feel tacked on, a love song needs to have a string section in order to convince females it's true. These feel like the song was born with these melodies in its bones. A huge part of the reason why I love the album is the way that they mesh so well with Mike's personality and songcraft, and add so many new layers to the song that you can't imagine the song without them. And they add depth to the lyrics; while I'm picking on Book Of Lightning for lyrical simplicity, I really should be picking on "When you walk in the room, love walks in with you/And I'm so in love with you". But the music, especially those strings, serves the lyrics so well that I don't care. He could be singing the alphabet for all I care, and it would still be one of my favorite songs on the album.

I'm very excited for the new album. He's already "released" one song, sort of, and posted a picture of a doodle (on an Etch-A-Sketch, no less) of the visual representation of a track called "Where The Action Is". Supposedly, starts loud and ends loud, with a quiet bit in the middle. We'll see. At one point, he stated that he was almost finished with the new album, but changed his mind; he had originally wanted to make a "left-field record, with a number of strange instrumentals", but changed his mind, and chose to make it "all songs". Should be interesting to see if those strange instrumentals turn up on a bonus disc, and if Mike will leave instructions - or maybe cryptic hints - as to how to assemble the album he'd originally been working on.

Thanks for the compliments on this thread, although I had originally intended for it to be a left-field thread, with a number of strange instrumentals dedicated to the new album; I just got so tired of waiting for the album to come out and so desperate to talk about the band that I started rattling off everything I knew, making lists and reviews, and when newcomers popped in, I gave them several textbooks to read through and probably scared them off the band for good! But it's good to go back and read through. I think my excitement for the album as the date approached shines through, and then go find that completely disjointed post on September 8th... it blew my mind to the point that I couldn't even put together a coherent "THIS ALBUM IS AMAZING" thought. I spilled about 40 half-thoughts into a post while listening to the album for a second time. I still love re-reading that post, thinking about waking up that morning, excited but with no idea of what I was going to get into... admittedly, the album doesn't have the same impact for me now as it did when I first played it, but the fact that I still consider it perfect from beginning to end (only the run from "Window Chair" to "Hiphopstrumental" drags when I listen to it now) still says a lot.

So yeah. Thanks for stopping by (I had felt a disturbance in the Force, but I wasn't sure why; I suspect your absence from this thread may have been the culprit), glad the album's finally sinking its hold into you, sorry for taking two days to cobble together this response (normally my novels only take a few hours, right?). I'll probably start up a new thread once Mike officially announces the album. It will be interesting to see if the song "Out Of All This Blue" surfaces here, "Almost Blue" style ("All this blue/out of all these things we used to do/there's a girl here and she's out of all this blue/Out of..."). "Ladbroke Grove Symphony" is a bit strange musically, but so was "If The Answer Is Yeah" when I first heard it. The lyrics are definitely worth it. I'm excited for any and all new stuff.

Oh, before I forget, I'll defend "Still A Freak" quick - only a freak could write a song and release it as a single, with the intention of becoming at least a minor hit, in 2015 (which, need I remind you, was the year of "Turn Down For What"), beginning with the line "Her communique arrived with its expression of her feeling". Even solely among the crowd he was aiming at, what percentage of them would know what the word "communique" means? There ain't that many intellectuals left, ya freak!

 

Haha. And here I was waiting for a LONG response!

I forgot if I asked my friend, but I just asked him now and if he's heard any word on the new planned album. Will keep you filled in as I hear news.

I'm still waiting for my deep Church dive, but am looking forward to it based on your suggestion. As you can imagine, if I hadn't even given the new WB a big listen, starting out on a whole new journey with a new band wasn't in the cards last year. I'll get there. I'd LOVE a new band to have to start collecting every damn thing they ever recorded, including (unlike you) every live, B**t, demo, voice message on someone's phone, etc. Always takes years and years to collect even 50% of the stuff - especially for someone like the WB, or, God forbid, Dylan or Van Morrison. The only difference is that, apart from giving a new album by an old favortite, at least a few spins when I first get it, I'll usually wait until I'm in that artists' "phase" before diving in real deep. I always get there eventually, though. The thing is, that I normally not only JUST listen to the new one, but I begin cycling in old ones and getting a contextual feel for the new one within the body of work - then get lost/sucked into the older albums and, boom, 6 months fly by. Sigh...

I have a softer spot for "BoL" than you do, which, as you know, has has much to do with the time of your life when you first heard it. It seems like you started collecting WB all at one time and I'm not sure what was the first of their albums you bought in "real time" when it was released. Mine was FB (based on the cover) in 1988 and so it has extra special (this is MINE) vibes about it. Then I went backwards and forwards from there. I, like many, lost track after "RtR" - and then, while listening to FB years later and remembering that it remains on of my favorite all time albums, went back and collected everything up to "Rock/Weary" which had just been released. I'd heard "Dream Harder" and didn't know what to make of it, although I do now. "BoL" came around just when I was diving back into probably my BIGGEST WB phase, so I was gifting it with a LOT of goodwill and knowing it contained reworked FB outtakes, it got even more credit. Still, an 8/10 album is great in anyone's "book": as it were, so it's splitting hairs.

Did you ever get a CD of "SoC?" We should talk (hint hint). Fisherman's Box, for me, is still being absorbed, but I can see, at least, 3-4 albums as good as, if not better than, half his official albums. It's the most remarkable three years of sessions I've ever heard (though that's not a big group to compare to). Mike was possessed. As you say, it's SHOCKING to see what was left off FB, but I wouldn't have had that original album any other way. The best way, for me, to deal with it is to break it down myself into smaller albums (not just chronologically, but that works, too) and just create your own 4-5 brand new Waterboys albums from made from material written and recorded at the very height of their powers from the very end of "This Is The Sea" through "RtR." You just can't beat it. You should set aside a few months and break it down and take your time. It's a borderline miracle that he was that on fire. How he got it down to one album is astounding - and he mostly got it right. I would also say it IS a love song album in a very different way than BoL and the new one. Mike sings a lot of love/relationship songs, but his language has evolved in the way he speaks about it. They used to be much more connected to the other, spiritual side, even in just the musical, vibe side. The melodies, chords and arrangements do SO much to add to and shade the lyrics.

I could probably pick my least favorite WB songs (official studio), but as you've said, the "Jimi Hendricks" tune KILLS on "Karma" and so it's NOT a bad song, so it seem pointless with even the "bad" not being horrible. I guess there's no point for an artist with no albums under 7/10 that aren't rough comps made from goof-offs in him home computer. Even managing a 6/10 for CoS is a miracle.

I haven't seen/heard this "hint" fro the newer album. Where is that?

You did a great job on this thread because you (and those who joined you) gave a primer for everyone to catch up and contextualize the new album before it was released so everyone was ready to dive in when it DID finally come out. That's the best way to approach it, as far as I'm concerned. I even almost listened to their first s/t album again.

I get what you mean about the new songs SOUNDING like their subject matter, but I was also listening with my "musician/songwriter" ears and hearing how these same songs COULD have been recorded in almost any previous style and could have worked. There's a "funky" vibe to the lyrics that are built into the DNA of the whole approach, but, for the most part, many of these songs (wods, melodies, chords) could have been on about 85% of his other albums in different treatments. At root, he's still Mike Scott. He seems to be purposefully NOT going deep into the spiritual stuff, but that's just not THIS album (and, as I mentioned) ALL his albums deal with love and relationships often in many ways. He even draws connections between the two often. There's no one quite like him.

I get your "Freak" defense, but it doesn't feel to me that THAT is what he's saying. It really sounds like he's talking about "Freak" in the 60's/70's parlance, which just doesn't feel like his image as an artist nor through his work. Maybe there's layers of irony I'm resisting. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mike is still evolving and exploring, as always, and a full-on,more plain-speaking love song alum is welcome and this one is beautifully executed. I don't mind the lyrics at all, although, at least, one mystical "LSGR" or "Open" would always be welcome - especially because he's so good at dropping in a line or two even in a love song that is able to lean the whole song in that direction with perfect economy.

How's the website going? I haven't checked it out in a while because I'm so busy and haven't been in a WB crazy place. You should really drop another link in this thread (or even start a new one) to show people what you've been up to. An all-purpose WB thread may be in order, actually (with links to all the threads you and I started - though my first one is no longer open for comments).

Our eagerness to bring people's attention to this amazingly undervalued and unnoticed band (which is as good as any band in history) is a good and noble thing and people can check it out or not depending on their interest. Even getting a few more people to give Mike/WB a listen for the first time (apart from "Whole of the Moon") or to really give a chance to everything after "RtR" is really giving them a whole world of music to discover, revel in and enjoy.

 

In the midst of writing the first part, let me apologize in advance.

I'm fresh out of college, working the twelve-hour night shift as a warehouse fetch monkey... I can't afford to be an answering machine message collector! And plus, due to my hatred of computers, I'm so attached to physical media, I'd need to buy the damn answering machine!

I came off as a little harsh toward Book Of Lightning in that post. I was using that as a reference point. I do really dig the album; I don't know if I can say I love it to pieces, like all his other albums, but I do really like the album. "Sustain", "You In The Sky", and "The Man With The Wind At His Heels" are can't-live-withouts, and 7/10 is by no means a criticism. Like you said, about... uh, this very album, Mike Scott treading water is better than most people in a speedboat.

(I thought I could keep my story about discovering the band short, but I'm on the seventh paragraph right now and I'm not even close to being done. As I've said numerous times, I cannot shut up about this band!)

My dad introduced me to the band in the summer of 2014, right before I went to college. He played me a few songs by the Church (who never "clicked" with me until the fall of '16) and "Church Not Made With Hands", "The Whole Of The Moon", "Don't Bang The Drum", "A Girl Called Johnny", and "Be My Enemy" (possibly in that order, probably not). They didn't make much impression. I liked the piano in "Church" and "Johnny", I liked the Dylanishness of "Enemy", and that was it. A few months later, I was in college and was avoiding doing my homework when I thought about the band again. "Who was that band that did the song about playing drums like a monkey?" I spent about twenty minutes trying to remember, and right when I was about to call and ask, I remembered the title "Be My Enemy". So I listened to that, and it sorta blew my mind. Then I put on "Church Not Made With Hands" and played it through... and then played it through again... and then again, each time turning the volume up louder and louder... and within a few hours, I was convinced that it had dethroned the Mats' "Unsatisfied" as my all-time favorite song. And when I woke up the next day and played it again (probably the twentieth or thirtieth time), I confirmed that indeed it had. ("Unsatisfied" still sits in second place, though - haven't found anything close to either of those two yet!)

I had a work-study job babysitting pianos at the school (technically, I was a supervisor for the "keyboard lab", but nobody ever came in, so I just listened to music for three hours a day). The day I discovered (or rediscovered) the band, I had listened to the whole album of This Is The Sea and it melted my brain pretty efficiently; either the next day or the day after, I downloaded the full album video from YouTube and put it on my iPod. I got out of work at 3, so at 2:18, I would start playing that video, and when it ended, it was time to go home. I played that album every single day, bar weekends, for about three or four months straight, and I never got even a little bit tired of it.

But, like the closed-minded idiots Mike is always gleefully destroying in his character-study tracks, I shied away from Fisherman's Blues, as at that point, "I'm not really interested in folk music... well, except for Dylan, anyway". That Christmas I got the first three albums on CD, and I listened to them and I enjoyed them, but at that point I wasn't particularly interested in the band. I think around that time I was either obsessed with the Who or just beginning to become obsessed with the Rolling Stones (who would consume the entire first half of 2015 for me). Due to a scheduling conflict, I didn't have that work-study job anymore, so Mike went forgotten for some time. But that April or May, I started listening again, and decided to give Fisherman's Blues a chance. I pulled it up on YouTube and I enjoyed the title track, but spent the whole time thinking "I don't know about this..."

... And then "We Will Not Be Lovers" came on and split my brain clean in half like a swing from an axe. I was either hooked or dead from having my brain sliced open - to this day, I'm still not sure which. I must have played that album forty times over that one weekend. But, that wasn't enough to convince me: "Okay, so this is just the Big Music sound with a fiddle... Room To Roam is where the folk really began, so I won't bother with that." I tried the first three songs, but they didn't move me; most likely, I wanted to listen to "Lovers" one or two or three or seventeen or eighty-three more times. A trip to the record store yielded Fisherman's Blues and, as it was only five bucks, Room To Roam as well. I had a brief moment of clarity or un-stupidness: "Well, I resisted Fisherman's Blues and it's become one of my favorite albums of all time, so why not?" And, sure enough, I ended up falling in love with this one too. That summer, I got Modern Blues, and it stayed that way for a long time (as the Rolling Stones took over again): the first five and the latest. I found an old version of my collection checklist which omitted a ton of albums; apparently, I thought the only albums in between those two were Dream Harder and Rock In The Weary Land. I thought Universal Hall was a live album (understandably) and that Book Of Lightning was his autobiography (embarrassing!).

But then for Christmas of 2015, I got Fisherman's Box, and while I never dove headfirst into it (and still haven't listened to everything as of now!), it really rekindled my love of the band. I listened to Dream Harder and Weary Land that January; the former did nothing, but the latter once again blew my mind. "How can one man keep making albums that shatter my illusions about music like this!?" Around this time, I learned more about the albums; Universal Hall was a studio album, and Book Of Lightning was not a book; he made two solo albums that didn't show up on the discography list, he did an album full of Yeats interpretations (which, previously, I would have dismissed, but A, I kept being surprised by how good his albums were, and B, "The Stolen Child" was a stroke of genius). This was around the time I started that "Waterboys on CD" thread, which is obscenely embarrassing for me to read now, as a lot of that closed-mindedness that I had back then shows through; I'm going by memory here, but everything that happens from this point on should also show up in that thread.

Anyway. I tracked down Weary Land and the Book Of Lightning with the DVD. A trip to the record stores yielded a used Dream Harder and, later, An Appointment With Mr. Yeats. The US version of Still Burning popped up on Discogs, so I grabbed it. At this point, I had all the Waterboys albums except Universal Hall, but I'd listened to all of them, and I had half of his solo albums, but had listened to nothing (besides "She Is So Beautiful", which I liked). I dove deeper and discovered things like Cloud Of Sound and Sunflowers and Karma To Burn and his book and stuff like that. Around this time (the end of that thread), I started to look at singles and B-sides, but it was too much to deal with all at once, so I stopped. I kept listening to the music, got the deluxe This Is The Sea and started to fall in love with "Beverly Penn", but once again, it sort of faded into the background as other stuff took priority (IIRC, Animals and Bowie dominated that summer).

But I came crawling back. I got his book in the winter, I think, and while I didn't read it, it made me go back and listen to the albums. Around March, I finally caved and bought Universal Hall and Bring 'Em All In, but rounding out the discography did not make me feel accomplished - it made me want more! More! More! I'm sure you remember that pretty well - I tried so damn hard to write my English essay but I couldn't stop looking for new songs and pestering you about which ones I was missing from my list. In the end I ended up turning in an 8-page essay, when the base requirement was 12; luckily, I ended up passing anyway (barely). For most years, spring turning into summer seemed to be the period where my obsession blossomed, and it faded mid-way through the summer, but - as evidenced by this thread - it only intensified. I got Cloud Of Sound that summer. I picked away at the singles, at the stuff I was missing (like Secret Life and Karma To Burn). Mike started releasing singles from the new album.

All of this money was coming out of my college food fund; the entire time that my obsession deepened, I was searching desperately for a job, and the only one I could find was an unpaid internship doing live sound with a family friend (who, incidentally, helped Mike get his gear home after a session around the time of Still Burning). I must have applied to 40 different places, and all of them shot me down. As the summer ended, I handed in an application to be a janitor for Dunkin' Donuts - a Dunkin' Donuts whose manager had told me "You've got a guaranteed job here!" The application was rejected. And then, miraculously, one I had no hope for went through. I wasn't exactly eager to begin, as it was a ton of running around in a poorly-ventilated sweat-box, but I had a job. Now I no longer had to worry about my latest acquisition: the day I started, a well-loved but still-in-good-shape copy of Sunflowers entered my possession, in exchange for the last hundred dollars in my food budget.

I got used to the job, I grew to love the job, and I ended up making so much money that by the end of the year I had enough cash saved up to buy Lion Of Love, the two "We Are Jonah" singles, and the insanely-rare "Love Anyway" cassette when they all popped up for sale. That was my Christmas present to myself, my reward for all the work. They weren't going to be getting any cheaper, and at this point, about half of my income was expendable.

That sealed it for the most part. I made myself cut back. After that, it would take no effort to rationalize buying the twenty or thirty things I was still missing, which would have totaled a few hundred dollars. I basically quit the Waterboys cold turkey, though only temporarily. For Christmas, I got the new album on LP and "The Return Of Pan", which I surprisingly hadn't picked up earlier due to my love of the track "Karma". At some point I got the CD single for "If The Answer Is Yeah", though that may have been around the time I got the job, I can't remember. Old habits die hard, though, and my obsession shifted - I sure has hell didn't stop spending money. In fact, I'd wager that I actually spent more on my Church collection than I did on my Christmas present in February and March! But anyway...

Once again, I'd gone into Waterboys hibernation. But I've been listening to some of my favorite songs over the last month. I just listened to Fisherman's Blues last week, and Out Of All This Blue this week. My hair is a mess and I'm still blinking the sun out of my eyes, but record stores of the world beware: I am awake. And nothing will stop me. Nothing.

I did get Cloud Of Sound, as mentioned before (signed but unnumbered), but, mother of all tragedies, the last few songs are starting to skip. I can get a clean rip of "Seek The Light" and "Vampire's Head" if I try a few times, but "Savage Earth Heart" skips no matter what. I think I have a clean rip on my hard drive, but I don't know. Your "hint hint" leads me to believe your wife cleaned the house again, but I don't want to get my hopes up, so I'm going to pretend I didn't read that unless you confirm it. I told myself I didn't like folk music (well, except for Dylan, anyway) so I can convince myself of this. I've changed, but not by much.

I'll agree that Fisherman's Blues is indeed a love song album, but it seems to be more about being in love with life and with the world than with a person. Book Of Lightning, and to a lesser extent the new one, seem to be more about being in love with a person than with life or the world. Admittedly, it was a lot easier to be in love with life and the world in Ireland in the '80s than in the Internet age where hatred is a sport and snark is the implement it's played with. It will be curious if we see another Universal Hall - I think another spiritual quest would be required to bring that vibe back. But who knows? Modern Blues wasn't terribly compressed - anything could happen!

I haven't found much on Fisherman's Box that I haven't liked, and some of it I've loved. Case in point: for reasons I don't understand, I decided to avoid the song "Higherbound" and listen to it "when the time was right". It was a big song, one that probably should have made the album, what with all the different versions, but there was just so much in the box that I wanted to take it in piece by piece. One day, probably around the time I was cutting down on my listening for the sake of my wallet, I put all my Waterboys songs on shuffle and a pleasant little driving folk tune came up. I assumed it was from the box and just sat back and listened: "Well, I'm easy to love, but I'm harder to hold/Down through this old world, my story's told/I'm a-weavin' and a-windin' down every road and every town/I'm tumbling through the years, higherbound... here I come!" And I said, "Aha! The time must be right!". And now it's one of my favorite songs. But I have to wonder, would it have made that impression if I had just listened to all of the songs at once? Probably - it's a great song - but now I have this connection with it. And I definitely wouldn't have had that connection if I'd played all the tracks in order. (That said, I did start with the final version; would it have been different if I'd started with the demos?)

I think I've listened to most of the "big" tracks: "Higher In Time", "Higherbound", the one that have multiple versions. It's the little tunes like "Too Hot For Cleanhead" and "The Secret Place Of The Most High" which I haven't gotten to yet. I doubt I'll dislike any of them. I'm sure I'll love a bunch of them. I think, but I'm not sure, I listened to the first two discs in full, though probably not all at once; it's just something that's going to come with time. I think I've done a decent job so far. When that mood strikes me, for new music that's still familiar, I'll throw the box on shuffle and see what tunes strike me. (I know I haven't listened to "Soon As I Get Home"; that one is going to be a shuffle discovery for sure.)

It was an interesting exercise to rank the songs (for as short as it lasted), as it made me realize exactly how much I love this band. Even the weakest songs I can't complain about! "Cuddle Up" is sappy, but I like the nod to "I Got The Blues". "Careful With That Mellotron, Eugene" is bouncy and cloying, but not nearly as much as half of Sir Paul's tracks in the Beatles' later years. "Medicine Jack" is a decent "traditional" blues song, I just can't stand the drums. If I could understand what was going on in "The Passing Of The Shee" underneath all the compression and distortion, I'm sure I'd really dig it. Are any of those criticisms? I think at best they're minor complaints you can dismiss easily with a wave of your hand.

I had a basement flat off Portobello Road
In my cowboy hat, down the grove I strode
In my buckled boots and my blue striped pants
I knew how to groove, I didn't know how to dance

I wore a teenage rockabilly coat from Johnson's
My head full of lyrics, wonder, love and magic, stuff and nonsense.

These new ones? I guess I can see that. I can't see "Didn't We Walk On Water" being done in a "Fisherman's Blues" style, but at their core, they are Mike Scott songs, and they can be done any way. "Long Strange Golden Road" started out as an attic piano demo, didn't it?

He's stated repeatedly that he was using "freak" not in the traditional sense, but more as "Find somebody else like me, I dare you". It never bothered me - the man was poised to become an icon of stadium rock and instead he ran away to Ireland and learned country and gospel music without losing any credibility. That's freaky! He went solo and it didn't suck, he came back and it still didn't suck, and he's been putting out quality work ever since - that's freaky! How many artists are still making albums this good thirty-five years into their career?

Yeah, this new one is missing that "head" song, the really visceral one that makes you think. It's all very... physical. Even Book Of Lightning had "Sustain"; the closest one here, I guess, is "New York Street Symphony", but that one makes you think for different reasons.

I tried to move the website over to a new address, In Step With The Stars, but Google Sites hates me: as it happened every time I made a new site a few years ago, that new account got suspended within days. I'm terrified to log back into the one I started or even check it for fear that the same thing will happen. Luckily, everything on that site was copied out of Word documents, so I didn't lose any of the actual information.

An all-purpose Waterboys thread really is in order. The biggest problem for me is my inability to shut up; me describing how I got into the band was supposed to be one paragraph, maybe two, tops. I can get a good first post going to encourage people, but as soon as somebody asks a question, I'll write them a novel and tell them to read it and come back tomorrow. But you're right, we should have a dedicated thread for that - or, more specifically, we should be discussing everything else outside of this dedicated thread. But right now I've just saddled you with about a half hour of reading - I'll plan my next move while you wade through my insanity. Ahahahahaha! (Oh, and check your email when you get a chance.)

 

Look, you know how many times I've gotten "Too many words, dude. Summarize" to one of my long posts. I don't even "ramble" as much as make 10 paragraphs full of detailed points to reinforce whatever point I'm making. I, therefore, can related to, understand and appreciate someone's longer - thoughtful or off-the-cuff - novel posts.

You tend to show passion and fill your posts with interesting information or food for thought. You state your opinions strongly, which is good to invite agree or disagreement. It's a dang MUSIC forum. Where else are supposed to obsessively talk about music. Literally, no non-musician person we know could deal with or even comprehend most of the crap we think about 24/7. THIS is the place. People are free to skim or skip if they couldn't be bothered to read. I like to read people's opinions about music - especially music I'm interested in. Keep going and forgot how its perceived. The Waterboys need as many champions as possible. Imagine a world where everyone lived a life inspired by the best of Mike Scott's most spiritually uplifting songs. His music is a soothing balm for the world while also giving them a groove. There are far worse things to rant about.

I find, every time I take a break from the WB and then go back, I become obsessed with whatever their newest album is along with one or two older ones I hadn't explored as much as I have the "major" ones - going back to the "gift that keeps giving" idea. It's always worth it. I still even put on FB every so often and it transports me back to that time like no other album does. In fact, it transports me to so many different places and times- even long before I was born. It's timeless music.

Perhaps that's why "Dream Harder" or other Scott albums that got kinda date-stamped by the production never make it so high on our lists. Timelessness is a hallmark of the WB built into the DNA of Mike's songs. Like Dylan and Morrison, he's aware of reaching back as much as ahead. Even when he mentions "blogs" in a song.

The new one and Rock/Weary are two of the few albums that really use modern sound approaches (although in his own way). Even Still Burning is a modern pop/rock album that takes a classic rock approach (as does Modern Blues, in many ways). In the end, it's that strange, scratchy, unique voice that ties it all together. His over-enunciation, smiles and sneers. I guess it's impossible to nail him down (which is what he's going for), but the attentive listener can see the thread, fuse-like, burning through all of it.

So, I say, screw 'em and let's start a new all-purpose Waterboys/Mike Scott thread, but call it something other than "all-purpose." We can OP it with "Feel free to write essays in this thread. As Waterboy fans, discussing and exploring their music and hoping others might want o check out and fall in love with it, too, is worth tossing around some words for. If you like Dylan, or Van, or Nick Drake - even Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, John Lennon - than you should really give MIke Scott/The Waterboys a good listen. He is the "them" of his generation. That's a big statement to make, but it's simply true. Most underrated singer/songwriter of his generation and absolutely in that league - if he wasn't in the generation below and. therefore, inspired by them. But, unlike, other artists where the influence is so obvious on worn on the sleeve, Mike Scott has found his won voice and as transcended influence without losing the magic each of those influences may have brought to him."

I don't remember my "speedboat" quote, but I agree with it - so I''l take credit!

 

I'd add Universal Hall in the ones that used modern production to great effect. Who would have known that hip-hop drum loops served spiritual mantras so well? In fact, maybe that's why there's no spiritual/introspective songs on the new one... who knows?

Dream Harder is time-stamped only by the snare drum. I think the rest of the production is decent, but the snare drum reeks with the "'80s production was terrible, but we can't remember how to make it not sound terrible" sound that was especially prevalent in '89 and '90. I say this with no disrespect to the late great Bill Price. Mike mentioned in his book that it was originally mixed by a then-unknown Brendan O'Brien, with the sound you'd expect from Mike Scott, but Geffen thought it sounded too anachronistic and brought in Bill to make it sound more "modern". Key point here: when you try to make something sound "modern", you're going to make something that people will call "dated" in ten years.

Anyway, I asked Mike if he still had that mix, and he said "I have cassettes. Geffen Records should still have the digital masters. We should include 'em on a reissue." He also stated that he was unhappy with the finished track list, and said that "Blues Is My Business", "King Electric", "Bleecker Street", and "Where Do You Want The Boombox Buddy" were supposed to be on the album. This year is the 25th anniversary - I'd kill for a 2CD reissue with the original mix, all the B-sides, unreleased stuff (if there's any left), and Sunflowers, and then a separate CD with the Brendan O'Brien mix and original intended track listing. There could be a box set with all of that, and LPs with the Price mix, O'Brien mix, and maybe even Sunflowers too. I'd be all over that!

I think we should probably call it "The All-Purpose Mike Scott/Waterboys Thread" - if for no reason other than the title you suggested being too long for a thread title! But all-purpose does mean all-purpose; those who want recommendations can ask; those who want to talk about particular songs can talk about particular songs, those who want to make lists of their favorite songs or rank the albums can do that, those who want to talk about his fabulous suits and hats can do that, those who want to complain about him being an ******* on Twitter can do that. Those who want to say I'm too obsessed can do that too!

And your speedboat quote comes from my original thread, right here. I can't believe I picked that username to begin with, let alone had it for three years. Blech!

 

BTW - does the part starting with "She said she'd meet me down in Santa Fe" chorus sounds exactly like the verse that comes in after the "Loves Walks In" chorus but over different chords? That's another Mike Scott go-to melody - although I always love it. You mentioned other classic Scott go-to melodies and he's got a bunch of them, but they're all great.

I think it's a function of him writing the lyrics first. There are many songwriters who do it that way, like Nick Cave, Dylan and Costello, so it makes sense that they might get certain habitual melodies or rhyme schemes or phrasings that they'd use while focusing more on trying to place the words/melodies over new chord/music approaches.

I'm always fascinated by the old which comes first for various songwriters: words, chords or melodies (some say all at once, but I find this hard to believe). McCartney and Jeff Lynne and many of the well-known "chord/melody" guys usually writer the lyrics afterwards. I've always wondered about the pros and cons of both. I emailed Mike about this topic, but I have yet to hear back. Sometimes it takes him a while if he's on tour, but I've never asked him something so technical about process, so I'm not holding my breath for a response.

 

That sounds fine to me as a thread title. I might try to be too cute and have some kind of "The Deep Dive into The Waterboys: Thread or something. But, yeah, an all-purpose thread is the idea.

 

Yeah, I hear that. One note goes up - "Your touch is softer than the FALL of snow" - if it had stayed stepwise it would have been the same. Funny! The melody I mentioned was the "Glastonbury Song" one, which shows up here in "Yamaben" and "Girl In A Kayak", and the same progression is on "Rokudenashiko" as well. I don't know how he writes his songs, but in my experience, I write the chords, figure out what rhythm the lyrics will fall, write words that fit those lyrics (sometimes), and then figure out the melody from there. I haven't written enough lyric songs to know if that's how I write or if the handful that I have written just happened to be that way, though. I do have a number of instrumentals that I've thought of nice melodies, and if I find words that fit them, the melodies will already be there. But for the handful of songs I've written lyrics to at the same time, that's how it happened.

By the way, did you get that email?

 

Once again, a song I already know every nanosecond of in my bones continues to be a spiritual experience every time I listen to it. I don't think this is the remaster. Play it loud!

 

Got it! Waiting to respond when I get a moment to do so.

 

Interesting to see the new lyrics posted by @InStepWithTheStars, with it’s references to living off Portobello Road. Mike has said that the new album will have a song called “London Mick”, about his friendship with Mick Jones. There’s certainly a connection there.