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

It’s at the end of this video, which includes other solo acoustic versions of One Nil songs. It was Neil’s first web stream.

 

Into The Sunset touches my heart every time I listen to it, an incredibly emotional vocal. Among my very favorite songs by anyone ever.

5/5

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Tomorrow I'm going to hold up "Human Kindness."

After that, I have a dilemma. It's the song "Lullaby Requiem" that is causing me headaches. As I wrote earlier, it was part of Parables, Lullabies and Secrets song cycle (or whatever it was) which was performed in July 2001; however it was re-recorded later and put on the One All album which came out in May 2002.

On the one hand, my first instinct is to save it until we get to those songs, immediately following the Rain soundtrack: we've already talked about one song from Parables, etc at Christmas; and there are not many songs in general from that project that have been made available: eight in all.

On the other hand it feels weird to talk about One All as a whole when we haven't talked about "Lullaby Requiem".

At the same time, it feels clunky to hold up One Nil for a vote now and One All later. I'd rather hold up both albums at once, perhaps making note of some live B-sides at the same time It makes no sense for me to hold up the albums in, say three weeks after all the other stuff has been gone through -- I'm definitely doing it now, in the next few days. Saturday or Sunday.

So the question is should I hold up "Lullaby Requiem" the day after tomorrow, (and One All/One Nil on Sunday) or should I wait and do One All/One Nil on Saturday and do "Lullaby Requiem" as part of the PL&S cycle?

 

It makes sense to me to discuss it in both contexts, shoehorned into the One Nil/One All set of songs, and also where it belongs with Parables, Lullabies & Secrets.

 

It does make sense, but the prospect of discussing it twice is fairly dreary one -- I don't want to do that, I'm already down this rabbit hole as deep as I want to go. If the version from nilfun.com was in higher quality than the one that circulates, I would totally do it, but the sound is so bad that I feel like just holding up the album version.

 

I guess I'll hold it up on Saturday and the albums together on Sunday.

After that I want to get these oddz and enz out of the way:

• Underestimated (Finn, Melvoin, Blake) b-side
• Now I Get It (Finn, Melvoin) B-side
• Love Is All That Remains [demo] (Finn)
• Time On Earth [demo] (Finn)
• Ray Of Hope (Finn) (2002, theme song for the Littlies Lobby)
• Melody (Finn) Released on the Ferrington Guitars CD and book in 2002.
• Billie Jean (Michael Jackson) 2000 from The Andrew Denton Breakfast Show Musical Challenge 2000
• Sexual Healing (Marvin Gaye) 2001 from The Andrew Denton Breakfast Show Musical Challenge 2
• Two Of Us (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) Neil and Liam Finn from the international soundtrack I Am Sam

And then on to the Rain soundtrack and the Parables, etc stuff.

 

“Elastic Heart” is very cool. Much of One Nil is a bit too pastoral for me, but this has a natural edge and doesn’t sound forced. The vocals remind me of ‘80s-‘9os Roy Harper or perhaps more his son Nick Harper.

I’d kinda forgotten about “Into The Sunset” until we made the live video. That arrangement and performance couldn’t be more perfect to my ears. Sympathetic lighting, too.

 

"Into the Sunset" is just gorgeous and makes for a wonderful closing track. Neil once again reveals himself to be a "master of chords"--there are some unusual changes here, but they work perfectly. The coda, brief though it is, ties together the song's feelings of longing

5/5

 

Into the Sunset - This is tied with The Climber for my favorite song on One Nil/One All. I love the sentiment and the soaring music. It doesn’t get much better than this for me.

5/5

 

I really like this song but it just doesn't land with me emotionally - it's weird, because I feel like it should based on everything else I like/everything else that does land with me. I can't put my finger on it. Something keeps me away from calling it a favorite the way I do with something like "The Climber" or "Last to Know..."

4/5

 

I love “Into The Sunset”. Like for many other tracks on this album the production is a mess but the song transcends it. But why oh why, I ask you, does the fade come in that soon? When he’s singing “maybe this time here I’ll stay”, that line is the lyrical climax, the payoff for this leg of the journey so to speak, and the music that precedes (“and I’m away from home...”) takes us inexorably to that moment and then...it starts to fade?!? Wtf?? If the idea was that the journey he’s on seems never-ending then yeah, OK, intellectually I suppose I understand why the song has to fade away, but for god’s sake let Neil be heard at least once singing that line...he repeats it so fade then! Agh!!
Anyway, I’m glad it doesn’t bother the rest of you as much as it bothers me . It’s still classic Finn.
4.7/5

 

Speaking personally, I've never found the time to pull all the available Parables material together to form any kind of whole. As a result, it makes more sense to me to discuss it as part of One All than it does as part of Parables. That's my two cents, keep the change

 

Yes that’s why I’ve decided to do it that way; I suspect the majority doesn’t know from that stuff, many will tune out for awhile then and thus it makes more sense to do it now.

 

Not much to add to what's already been said. "Into The Sunset" is a beautiful way to end the album. Love it. 5/5

 

I'd vote for doing "Lullaby Requiem" now rather than waiting. I would guess that just about all of us think of it as a One All track. I wasn't even aware of the "Parables, Lullabies, and Secrets" concerts until just a couple of weeks ago, and there was never any commercial release of it. When you get to the discussion of the concerts, you can simply note that this song was also part of it and was written for it. I don't know if there's an available version of the song from the PLS concerts for us to consider; if so, we can talk about that version of it then.

 

"Into the Sunset" is a gorgeous song that seems to improve in my mind each time I hear it. Something about it keeps me from giving it the highest rating, though. It's just a tick below my two favorite cuts on the album. Still, it's beautiful, and I absolutely love the middle instrumental section with the "backwards" guitar. It's just very moving to me, even without words. I agree that the coda fades out too quickly, but that's a minor quibble. Excellent closer to a very strong album.

I recall the One All mix being slightly fuller, with more audible electric guitar. However, I can't do a good comparison right now due to being in a noisy environment without my earphones, so it's possible that they are the same mix. They are certainly very similar at a minimum.

4.5/5

 

Into the Sunset - Perfect- Neil at his finest, sublime - I can't give it high enough praise or marks - perfect way to end the album, evokes so many feelings - not crying, just something in my eye.... 5 out of 5, but would give this more if I could....

 

"Into The Sunset" - finally the best song on the album arrives, but it's the last track so it really felt like a long time coming. Then I remembered Temple Of Low Men also has the best song as the last track, but somehow TOLM never feels like an effort to get there. That's the gulf in quality between those 2 albums I guess.

5/5

 

There is, but the quality is so horrible I don't even want to bother, I'm talking like 15 kbps. Some of the other songs have been recently broadcast on FAng Radio and are much higher quality.

 

"Into The Sunset" is such an incredibly beautiful song. Everything about it is perfect - Neil's heartfelt singing, the instrumentation (in particular the Chamberlain strings and the discreet accordion) and the blend of yearning and sadness. The verses speak of hunger for the world travel, stimulating discussion, flying high and so on. It sounds like Neil is taking in how much he has achieved in his life and how privileged he feels to do what he does, but also being aware that this way of life has taken much time away from his family. The album was mainly recorded in the latter half of 1999 but not released until March 2001. I think the delay had a lot to do with his mother being ill and dying in 2000 and Neil being very aware that their time together was running out and him not wanting to be away on tour on the other side of the world at that time.
It seems fitting that the first song was about a climber, a kind of slow travel and about his relationship to his mother, and here it is about flying high and "maybe this time here I'll stay" and his mother fading away. For that reason it's perfect how the song too fades away even though it's so beautiful.
5+/5

 

Into The Sunset 5/5.

I recommend seeking out the version of this from Neil's 2001 piano performance on Live at Helen's, recorded fro Radio New Zealand. I'd increase my rating from 5 to 11 for this performance.

 

I love that video from Auckland! Can someone tell me who's onstage?

"Into the Sunset" is indeed classic Neil. 4.4/5

 

"Into the Sunset"--Because of the lyrical content, I really want to love this song. And it is very good, with a more heartfelt vocal performance than I recall on much of the album. I can't help but agree with Mooserfan, though--the ending always felt super abrupt and completely anticlimactic to me. The song, and its subject matter, would seem to deserve better. It's enough to pull it down a full point for me: 4/5.

 

Thank you, Stefan. And I would add that the ending of Into The Sunset fading too quickly is a metaphor for his mother's life, and how difficult it is to say goodbye every time you leave a loved one when there is the possibility you might never see that person again. You do it quickly to minimize the heartache of a drawn out parting.

 

Our votes for "Into the Sunset"
1-0
2-0
3-0
4-4
5-12
Average: 4.725