"Backwater", probably the last gasp of quirky/silly Eno, certainly lyrically, this track is just insanely catchy and just so well arranged.
Ooh what to do in a tiny canoe The wordplay on this burger bender bargain blender album is an absolute joy. Is BAAS the first rap album? I kid, but maybe not. I've got another truckload of stars on order from Amazon. Only have about 14,000 kicking around the house, delivery time is iffy, and the pace of this thread is killing me. Also, I went overboard on AGW, dishing out trillions of stars when billions would have served. 911 stars for Backwater
I found this on Enoweb. Russell Mills is an artist who has worked with Eno. “According to Russell Mills, the line 'On its metalled ways' is from the poem Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot.” Here is a link to the poem in case anyone wants to get any deeper into what it might mean. It’s at the end of section III. Four Quartets - 1 Burnt Norton
Backwater. This track defined Eno for me in the early days. The quirkiness, the playfulness, it’s so much fun and so well done. Is “not a sausage to do” a common Britishism? I’ve always found it odd, yet delightful. 5/5
Kevin Phillips Bong polls "no votes at all, not a sausage" when standing, for the Slightly Silly Party, in the constituency of Luton in Monty Python's Election Night Special sketch.
Backwater is so delightful it hurts! Cheery doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s wonderfully silly, incredibly catchy and the lyrical wordplay is top notch. Another mention of Peru in an Eno song too. He either loved the country, or, more likely, loved the rhyming possibilities the word allowed! Where would you find Peru rhymed with Turkish guru? Anyway this is absolutely joyous and always puts a huge smile on my face.
Backwater. A sequel or cousin to I’ll Come Running? It’s a fun bit of pop albeit entirely devoid of any tooth. It’s all very tidy and ingratiating, hand claps and all. It makes me wonder if this kind of thing comes easily to him (there is after all plenty of catchy music on the previous rock albums) and it ultimately embarrasses the pretentious side of him who would rather be seen rubbing shoulders with Steve Reich. Between this and No One Receiving, it’s very pleasant and enjoyable.
Backwater Eno sounds like he’s having a lot of fun with this song. It has an engaging melody and sing-along feel that is very enjoyable. It doesn’t signal any future musical direction, but it’s great on its own merits. 5/5
Backwater - One of my all time favorite Eno songs. It's catchy, it's quirky, it's fun to sing along..."we're all talking to keep the conversation alive" and "his daughter was slated for becoming divine" still make me crack a smile, and almost certainly employ his tactic for just finding words to fit a rhyme scheme and melody without much concern about making sense. Now that folks are saying Talking Heads, I definitely hear that in this song and No One Receiving, and I also hear a bit of Lodger in Backwater...or rather the other way around. An excellently crafted pop song. 5/5
Jaki was not put to good use here, or maybe was having an off day. Mixed feelings about this song, really like the lyrics and playful quality but it's a bit clunky. Maybe it's the rhythm or the vocal register. All the synth stuff is really tasty, the chiming broken chords in the second verse, and Eno's synth (a slightly overdriven minimoog?) sounds like Fripp in the solo section. Many of the songs on Before and After have more primitive sounds brushing up against emerging modern sounds and production, a quality I should like, but often enough feel it's to the albums detriment.
Backwater This one is probably the most obvious bridge to pre "Green World" Eno on the LP. I adore the motorik pace of the hi-hat, hammered piano 8th notes and the compressed vocal phrasing, and it's nice to see that Eno still had the inclination for pop mutations in him (those synth horns!). A bit of a bloated bauble to be sure, but the pop Eno will always be an old friend to me. 4/5
I'm very torn on "Backwater". Lyrically, it's a tour de force. (When I first heard it, I thought the daughter was harshly criticised for becoming divine, but now realise it's "slated" as in scheduled or designated. The words may be chosen for their sounds, but there's always so much to unpack in Eno's lyrics) Musically, I think @dubious title summed it up well as "clunky". It's that piano at the start - not quite Chas & Dave but dangerously close. I also dislike those synth stabs that are meant to sound like a horn section. 3.5/5.
Hey, nothing wrong with a bit of Chas & Dave. You don't expect them to turn up on an Eno album admittedly.
Love that (I think its an) electric piano that first comes in at 1:10 with its descending riff. It's buried, but is oh so sweet. The dada-esque lyrics are a riot.
I think I'm in a minority here, but I don't hear much from the first 2 albums here. I like the lyrics. It's kinda catchy and slightly irritating. Still not convinced I like Eno singing straight. 3/5
I've always read "slated" as harshly criticised, but it sounds odd in the context of the song. I will try listening again with your other reading...
It's not really the same band, it's more like Phil Manzanera carrying over the flag of convenience to his second studio album. The 801 of 801 Live is Eno's live band, which is what makes the album so remarkable and why we're discussing it here. When I first discovered it I was astonished that, not only did the guy who never played live have a live album hidden away in his catalogue, but it was a cracker! Listen Now has almost no Eno involvement (just a couple of nondescript treatments on a couple of tracks), and I'm sure I'm not the first or the last to discover this the hard way!
Since we've started on Before and After Science, here are Eno's anagram attempts with the title (from More Dark Than Shark): In a seed bereft of cancer Cretins feared boneface Fade, O brief Cretan scene Beret finder faces ocean Of fate bred near science Innate forces feed brace Faction-based reference Eno defecates finer crab I an effect on sacred beer A bin of accented reefers
I think "Listen Now" requires a bit of re-alignment of expectations. As amazingly twisted as his work for others has been, Manzanera seems mostly to be a conservative as a leader. "Listen Now" works if you think of it like an Alan Parsons Project style pop album. Much of it is rather bloodlessly performed/recorded with little in the way of ensemble spontaneity (but then Diamond Head sounds like that too). It has some nice instrumentals, with "Initial Speed" in the mold of the fusion-y tracks on 801 Live (Simon Phillips slamming away).
OK I'll join the fun. Backwater has some of my favorite Eno lyrics. In how many pop songs can you find the word "heuristics." I barely know what it meant back when I heard it in 1979. But if you study the logistics And heuristics of the mystics You will find that their minds rarely move in a line
On No One Receiving: This song conveys two contradictory feelings to me. On one hand it feels like it is floating in air, with the off kilter drums and the odd bass lines. On the other hand it feels heavy. Few songs do that.
