Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread

I completely agree. The CH third album without the Finn Brothers songs would have made Temple look like ABBA in comparison. Don't get me wrong, I like these songs but, other than Fall At Your Feet, they take awhile to show themselves. Not Neil's commercial side.

 

"You Got Me Going" is a very pleasant tune. It doesn't really do a lot for me, but I don't mind hearing it when it comes up. It's not of the same caliber of the songs that would eventually make the released Woodface album, but I'm glad it emerged as a bonus track on the 2016 Deluxe Edition reissue of that album.

3.3/5

 

Commercially.

 

by which I mean, I totally agree and I understand that they were not in a position to disregard the commercial side of things.

However, for me, here in 2019, having all the songs we are SO LUCKY to have, I prefer to listen to them as two separate projects. It rewards me more!

The one, dark and broody but not without some spring and glimmers of light (especially if you add "I Love You Dawn", "Time Immemorial"and "My Telly's Gone Bung". The second light, airy, fun; witty rather than emotional but not without some emotional depth.

Damn. Fantastic songwriters, the Finns.

(sorry-- I'm drunk)

 

Nice spoiler at the end! I’m working on a gin and tonic myself, enjoying the warm late summer Colorado afternoon/evening.

I’m of the opinion that the released Woodface is one of those ultimate rarities in music: the perfect album. More on that when we get to it. I’m very happy that they didn’t put out an album in 1990 and a separate Finn Brothers release. I don’t think either would have been as good as what we got. I am glad that we have all of the songs though because some gems definitely slipped through the cracks.

 

I really enjoy tracing how Neil's songs progress--it's what made the 2008 tour so much fun (and in part what made "Intriguer" ultimately so frustrating--but that's for some time in the future, we have a lot of ground to cover first). Viewed in that light, "You Got Me Going" clearly is not a finished song--it has some quality, but it doesn't really develop. I'm still glad we have it.

 

Please add another 5 for me--wish I had some time to comment on the last few songs. Maybe I can get caught up next weekend.

I'm pretty sure I wrote it earlier in the thread, but I want to add here that this album is my favorite Finn-related album, and one of my favorite albums made by anyone, ever. To me, it has everything--incredible songwriting, multi-layered themes and imagery, staggeringly imaginative arrangements, and perfect performances ("perfect" also including moments of seemingly necessary imperfection). Neil would approach this level again, but never quite match it, IMHO.

 

I quite enjoy You Got Me Going for what it is. Of course, it benefits from having an element of recognisable and well-liked melody. The part of the melody that was never developed further isn't as strong, and it's easy to see why it was abandoned, but there are released songs in Neil's catalogue that are less enjoyable than this. 3/5.

 

Nothing beats a summer evening in Colorado. I suppose I feel much the same about Together Alone as others do about Woodface or Temple of Low Men.

Anyway, our votes for "You Got Me Going."

1-0
2-1
3-6
4-0
5-0
Average: 2.8

 

Today we're going to put on our gleaming helmets, adjust the knobs and zoom forward....into the future....to the high-tech glistening world of 1990. Because today's song is "Creek Song-Left Hand", written by Neil Finn.

Creek Song/Left Hand

"Creek-Song-Left Hand" has many elements that were in "Left Hand [Live Mullanes version]" that we talked about during the summer here:Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread .

The "Creek Song" element of the song also dates back to the Mullanes days, when it was called "Taking Water". The song was recorded by Tchad Blake and produced by Mitchell Froom in LA; however elements of it went into the final version of "Left Hand", which was on the original proposed track-list of what was to become Woodface. I'd like to discuss it here as a song in its own right, as independent from the later "Left Hand" as possible, which will come after Woodface.

I can't find the lyric online, so I'll attempt to write them out here:

Taking water cross the desert to my Dad
Taking water cross the desert to my girl
Drive across in any direction
When I get back I dont even now where I've been
And the reasons flow
Against my will
Now the 12 man jury is hung

Left hand
Always wants to know what the right is doing
Whichever way we miss out on something
We're free
But there is something we're not facin'

Drinkin water in the desert is so good
I hear nothin just the sound of my throat
If you find footsteps you'll find me
When I get back I dont even now where I've been
And the reasons flow
against my will
now the 12 man jury is hung
Now i was (walkin?) up screaming and the lizard man stung

Left hand
Always wants to know what the right is doing
Whichever way we miss out on something
We're free
But there is something we're not facin

(organ solo plays melody of "Left Hand [Mullanes version]" verse)

Left Hand
Left Hand
Always wants to know what the right is doing
Whichever way we miss out on something
We're free
But there is something we're not facing
We're Free
Green Is the colour of envy
Left Hand
Always wants to now what the right is doing

 

The lyric in the verses seems to depict some kind of dream or symbolic hallucination; I suppose it is kind of Rimbaud-esque, or at least Dylanesque.

"Green is the Colour of Envy"is a weirdly pithy line in this otherwise elliptical song. I believe the original Mullanes version of "Left Hand" was about the breakup of Split Enz; so it's tempting to see that this song (or at least the chorus) still doing that. It's somewhat tempting to think it is about Tim, because of the successful/unsuccessful, guilty/envious narrative that Jeff Apted's book focuses on.

But honestly, I think seeing their relationship in that way is reductive and rather stupid. From all I've seen Tim and Neil were getting on very well in 1989-1990..in fact, they were living together in LA and sharing a bedroom during the LA sessions, even though Tim wasn't in the band. But there were probably other people envious of Neil in his world.

Anyway, given the nonsensical nature of the lyric as a whole (IMHO), I think they made the right decision to jettison the verses and the "envy" line, which I don't like at all as it burdens the song somehow for me.

But....I think the music from the band is fine and the overall SOUND of the record is fantastic. What I like about this is it seems relatively unsweetened and without a lot of the heavy glossy overdubs that Finn/Froom seem to be so fond of -- the overpolishing that sometimes takes the fire out of songs. This sounds like it's being played live in a room with a guide vocal and just a few overdubs.

And the band of Finn-Hester-Seymour-(Froom?) sounds good....if indeed it is Froom playing organ. One reason I think it might be Neil on organ and not Mitchell is that the melody of the solo is taken from the original "Left Hand"-- whereas as far as I know Froom often seems to come up with his own ideas for songs, (otherwise why not let Mark Hart play?)It is known that the Woodface sessions were very fraught with tension. And there were times that Froom thought "Neil wanted to do it..[i.e. produce] so I sat back and let him....Nothing got done."

I wonder if this was one of those times where Mitchell was "sitting back" and letting Neil do the production? At anyrate, I'm not sure if the melody of the organ supports the overall song of "Creek Song-Left Hand" and it seems out of place here.

Neil and Mitchell made the right decision in ditching this song for something better, in the end though.

2.9/5

 

Creek Song / Left Hand is written by Paul Hester and Neil Finn, with the Creek Song elements by Paul and Left Hand by Neil. If I recall correctly (quoting Nick Seymour) the Creek Song lyrics are about Paul Hester’s father.

I’ll look into the song later today.

 

Thanks for that information. For some reason my booklet with Woodface deluxe lacks songwriter credits. I know that they are on Wikipedia, but I usually don't bother checking those because, well, there's usually no need.

What was the deal with Paul's father? I know that he was raised by a single mother, but I've always been a bit confused by mentions of his father "the legendary bushman Mulga Hester" or something. It all sounds like an in-joke that I'm not privy to.

 

The chorus sounds a little awkward and forced here. The lyrics are, as Lance has said, rather nonsensical and this would have been album filler.

It certainly doesn't compare with most of what made it onto Woodface.

2.5/5.

 

"The Creek Song" parts are really good. I wish they had worked on that a bit more and just dropped the "Left Hand" chorus. In my opinion, "Left Hand" (the "Afterglow" version) has so-so verses and a mediocre chorus with cliches in the lyrics, and here we get the worst part of that song...
In the deluxe edition liner notes, Neil says "The Creek Song" was inspired by Paul's father, Mulga Mike, "a legendary bushman" and if they had written a chorus to go with the very good verses, "The Creek Song" could have been a worthy album track.
3,4/5.

 

I just found a very interesting article, written by bushman Michael Hester who used to take people on "Mulga Track Tours". The article is titled "Creeks and Waterholes" so it seems very appropriate today of all days to read this. The link for this article is here:
CREEKS AND WATERHOLES

(Paul and Crowded House are not mentioned in this article, but I think it's very interesting anyway)

 

I really like the 'taking water' verse, and I think this is far and away the best use of 'Left Hand' and the two go together to make a pretty good song. The coda is pretty good too, and again is a very good setting for the 'Left Hand' lyric and melody. This is produced well, in a very straightforward 'Crowded House' style. There's nothing wrong with that, but to address a point that Lance raised earlier, I've been re-reading bits of Chris Bourke's book and continued right through Woodface and through Together Alone. I would guess that this is the kind of production that CH were reacting against when looking for something different for Together Alone. However, this very Froom sounding production does suit the song well in my opinion.

However, despite CH's seeming keenness to use the 'Left Hand' refrain, I think it's a little unsophisticated for CH, even in this very good presentation. I'm not surprised that it ended up not being used. But, this is a fabulous b-side.

3.8/5

 

I see that in going off and reading CB's book again, I've missed rating 'You've Got Me Going'. That's OK with me as I don't think it stands up to other CH songs and would be rating it fairly lowly compared to other tracks. I'm not even sure that Sacred Cow is good enough to be on an official CH album, but we'll come to that later I guess.

I also see that others have commented on this thread while I've been off sending my son off to university and generally doing other stuff.

I think an album similar to the track listing above would be, for me, an album that's not as good as the released Woodface, and certainly much less commercial. There was some luck involved in CH hitting it big in Europe with Paul Young having covered DDIO, but the songs that really hit in Europe tended to be the Finn Bros. songs.

Looking at the songs that were dropped, I think that all of SC, FAFOYK, DL, and LH aren't as good as the songs that replaced them. The exceptions for me are ACT which I think it is a brilliant song - one of CH's best songs not released on an official original album. And, Tall Trees is one of my least favourite CH songs on one of their official albums. But, overall, this is a better and more commercial album than the original.

Reading CB's book, Neil did think of doing some of the Finn Bros. songs as CH even before the original WF was rejected. And even when the album was rejected, Neil was asked to write more songs. There was then the decision of whether to share out the songs between Neil and Tim. Tim joining the band and merging the albums wasn't a simple response to the album being rejected, and it wasn't something Neil had no say in. There were several ways of addressing the rejection - and merging the songs and adding Tim to the band was the one chosen. Quite likely for the best - if a ToLM album had been released and sunk without trace on both sides of the Atlantic - which I think possible even if I would have enjoyed the album myself - then would we have had Together Alone, which I think is the highlight of the first era of CH? (I'm getting more impressed by ToE and despite its status as not really being CH, it might become my favourite CH album.)

 

I like the melody of the first line of Creek Song and it has that groove but then it seems to lose impetus. Overall, it's a fine song, well produced and I think they did a better job of playing it in the studio than they did with the final version of Left Hand but I'm glad it was rejected, otherwise we wouldn't have that wonderful live rendition of the final version of Left Hand that appeared on Recurring Dream. I like the opening line enough to bump this up to a rather generous 4/5.

 

Creek Song/Left Hand is a tough one for me to rate. I want to like it, the playing is fine, the vocals are fine, it sounds great, but something is missing. This is Crowded House by the numbers. Instead of being inspired by/with new melodies, themes and lyrics, they were working on older previously rejected scraps and coming up with material that didn't have any spark, it didn't rise to the level of the songs around it. The practice of recycling older scraps and whole songs worked sometimes, but not this time. They were right to reject this one.

2.2/5

 

Awkward double tracked vocal... is Neil singing two different sets of words? I hear the first part as "Now I was walking upstream ..."

"Creek Song" was first played by The Mullanes during the "Coaster to Coaster" tour of Australia. It wasn't in the band's repertoire beyond the first half of 1985. Neil Finn and Paul Hester sang the song in unison, Neil played acoustic guitar, Craig Hooper was on keyboards, Paul plays a very basic pattern on drums and Nick plays bass (sometimes playing chords). As far as I know there is only one live recording of "Creek Song" (Tivoli, Sydney, 29 May 1985). The full lyrics (found on Re: Name that Mullanes tune! ) are slightly longer:

Taking water 'cross the desert to my dad
Taking water 'cross the desert to my world
Drive across in any direction
When I get back I don't even know where I been

Drinking water in the desert is so good
I hear nothing, just the sound of my throat
If you find footsteps, you'll find me
When I get back I don't even know where I been

And the reasons flow against my will
Well they drag me ashore
I was pulled up heaving from the bottom of the ocean
Their faces show that they won't give in
Now the twelve man jury's hung
I was pulled up heaving from the bottom of the ocean

The truth be known
There's so much to drink there
And the stories flow
I could listen forever

In contrary to what I posted earlier "Creek Song" is a Hester / Finn co-write. The recording we're talking about now is a "resurrected" version omitting a part of the chorus with the already used line ('heaving from the bottom of the ocean') for "When You Come". The medley with "Left Hand" feels forced and lyrically doesn't work. The song has a promising beginning, but understandibly it wasn't worked on further. "Creek Song / Left Hand" was performed by Neil, Nick and Paul in Melbourne at Platinum Studio's. It was produced by Mitchell Froom.

2.9 / 5

 

I don’t think “Creek Song/Left Hand” was meant to be double-tracked. Sounds like two vocal takes which were meant to be comped. It bothered me too, so I had intended to get this redone at Roundhead before the CD release but time ran out.

“Green is the colour of envy” near the end was probably sung as an experiment. It wouldn’t have been on the finished product if the song had been included on the original album.

Neil also tried singing this at a higher pitch with the backing track sped up. It’s been a while since I heard it but I think it was only for the first verse or two.

 

Quite obviously two songs mashed together--the chorus doesn't fit the verses, either musically or lyrically. An interesting experiment, I suppose, but not a satisfying song.
2/5

 

"Creek Song/Left Hand" is a weird outtake from the early 1990 sessions for the third CH album. Although the lyrics are really quite unfocused and largely a mess, from a musical standpoint, I like the verses and the brief instrumental bit before the final chorus, but I have to agree that this sounds like two songs mashed together. While this approach had worked well in the past, it doesn't work here. The "Left Hand" chorus just doesn't seem to belong to the "Creek Song" part and I wish they had just recorded a longer version of the latter without trying to force in the chorus from the former, an unused older song from the time of the debut album. On the other hand, the production is great here and the track sounds perfect. I'm glad this finally saw release as a bonus track on the Deluxe Edition of Woodface; it's certainly an interesting example of an approach that Crowded House often tried in the studio. It just wasn't very successful on this occasion.

3.1/5

 

Our votes from "Creek Song/Left Hand":

1-0
2-2
3-5
4-2
5-0
Average: 2.91111