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

Learn to Crawl

This is a really interesting song. Initially the verse sounded a bit 'Neil verse by numbers', but the chorus works really well with it. The acoustic guitars are really nice, and I like the rhythmic sounds and the violinish break. The arrangement is very inventive and provides the variety that the acoustic guitars don't really give. The bridge perhaps could be better, but overall it works. Not quite a little known gem, but close.

I think that if this song had been worked on, it could have been a real standout. However, some bits don't work so well for me, so it's 3-4, not 4-5.

3.8/5

 

Learn to Crawl - This song starts off promising but doesn’t really go anywhere. The verses aren’t bad, but the song desperately needs some kind of change to lift it up and the chorus doesn’t achieve that. This song reminds me of CSNY, perhaps Deja Vu. I do like the drums a lot.

3/5

 

Thanks for compiling the tally so far Lance. It's a solid top 10, though surprised to see 3 Tim albums in there. Not the ones I would've chosen. Maybe after this thread reaches present day we could re-review just the albums to give latecomers like myself a chance to participate? Or are recounts for losers?

 

I’m not surprised by those three but maybe a bit surprised that Before and After is higher than the other two. We’ve still got 13 albums to go before we catch up with the present!

 

Learn To Crawl - Best song on the album, an absolute classic, imo.
5+/5

 

"Learn to Crawl" is more of a soundscape than a song, with inventive textures that grow more complex as the track progresses. It does go on a bit too long, but I find it entrancing. It's on my cut-down version of the album.

4/5

 

Learn to Crawl - It doesn't really go anywhere does it? There's some interesting musical bits in here but the music and lyrics don't do a whole lot for me. And it doesn't even create an atmosphere where I can just go with it being kind of ambient music.

Even though (I guess) it's a finished song, I definitely feel like it could have used a LOT more work.

2.5/5

 

For sure I saw that there wasn't actually a lot of difference in score. I was just surprised because I assumed they were reviewed in close succession so roughly the same people were reviewing. Still I actually think it points more to the very high level of music being produced by the Finns over many decades that there can even be 10 different albums slotted in between!

Well we could argue for recounts - but I think the score matters less than the discourse (and I will curse to my dying day that I did not get my say on early Enz)

 

Absolutely.

 

"Learn To Crawl" is excellent, I think. It has an ethereal, dreamy feel to it that I love. I don't think that Neil's lead vocal is very good, however. The lyrics have some strong imagery and the violin adds an additional dimension. The backing vocals are haunting and reinforce the gauzy, opaque atmosphere. I don't find the closing section ("I wonder where this all's leading...") to be very strong, though. I think the song would have been stronger if that part had been excised and the melody of the main part of the song simply continued through to the end.

One of the highlights of The Sun Came Out and reason enough for the album to exist.

4.0/5

 

"Learn To Crawl" has a hypnotic, meditative feel to it, built up by the acoustic guitar. Neil's singing feels a bit like he's mumbling his way through the song but that aspect gives the song some character. The lyrics don't seem to go anywhere and doesn't make me feel anything at all. Interesting that the title doesn't appear in the lyrics or have any obvious connection to the lyrics.
I think this song could work very well as a moodscape interlude halfway through one of Neil's solo albums, if it was about half the length it is, but as a stand-alone piece I think it overstays its welcome.
3/5

 

"Learn To Crawl" just doesn't do anything for me. I can't rank it too low, because it's technically competent (of course), but I'd never go looking for it.

2.8/5

 

Our votes for "Learn To Crawl"

1-0
2-1
3-5
4-4
5-1
Average: 3.3455

 

Today's song is "Red Wine Bottle", written by LIam Finn, Chris Garland and Johnny Marr; produced by Neil Finn & Jim Scott; recorded and mixed by Jim Scott.


Liam Finn: vocals, acoustic guitar, guitar loops and solo, organ
Johnny Marr: electric guitar
Neil Finn: organ
Bass: John Stirrat
Drums: Glenn Kotche
Eliza-Jane Barnes: Backing vocals

She dropped me off on the motorway
We're driving out of town
Tripped over untied shoelaces
Tumbled to the ground

It was only one moment out of a million
But I still remember her name
It was only one moment, like any other
But I still remember her face

Hitched a ride with an autumn girl
Who loved another man
Her hair was like the leaves that fell
before the winter care

It was only one moment out of a million
But I still remember her name
It was only one woman, like any other
But I still remember her came

We were drinking from a full red wine bottle
We were drinking from a full red wine bottle
We were drinking from a full red wine bottle
We were drinking from a full red wine bottle

It was only one moment out of a million
But I still remember her name
It was only one moment, like any other
But I still remember her face

 

Red Wine Bottle

This song sounds musically and lyrically very 'Liam' to me. While it is a co-write, I wonder if Liam wrote the bulk of it. It's not a style of song that I associate with Johnny Marr, and I wonder if Chris Garland was involved during Seven Worlds Collide or if this is an earlier song that has been brushed up a bit.

It's a nice Liam song. It doesn't have a strong guitar riff but doesn't really suit one. The melody is interesting, and the arrangement and performance are good. However, it just lacks that spark that makes an excellent song, in my opinion.

3.3/5

 

I love the chorus, it has a very sad yearning quality to it. And the simple lyric is nice: those moments where we brush up against someone in life and always wonder what could have been. It really only happens when you are relatively young, at least in my case.

And yes, I suppose I believe it is an earlier song, another song from Betchadupa's aborted third album that got finished here. It would have graced "I'll Be Lightning", so it may have been much more unfinished at that time: as for Johnny Marr's contribution, who knows? Maybe he threw in a chord or something, it certainly sounds more Liam than Johnny. There is some interesting atmospheric guitars going on in the background.

I think that Liam seems to write about the "road" and travelling as much as Neil writes about "light" and "dark" or Tim writes about water.

Of the Finn songs on this album, this is actually my favorite one and I'll give it a

4.4/5

 

“Red Wine Bottle” - It certainly is a very “Liam” sounding song, yeah. There’s an amazing song on his album FOMO that has an almost identical rhythm to this, but I’ll have to wait a couple albums to properly heap praise onto it.

I like this song, but yeah it lacks an element that would make it great. Lyrically it’s really great, though, and the way the song is structured is good. I’m not a huge fan of the way the layered vocals sound in the chorus, but I like it otherwise. It’s also got that crazy guitar solo, which to me is a little off putting in this kind of song, but it’s not horrible. Overall a nice song that I have no huge issues with.

3.7/5

 

Yeah, it's my least favorite part of the song; it's not terrible, you're right, but I keep waiting for it to push the song onto another level and it doesn't.

 

Red Wine Bottle - This is another pleasant Liam song that never really pulls me in. The lyrics are very good, and the music does capture their wistfulness, but “nice” is about the best I can do with this one.

3/5

 

Red Wine Bottle - This is a very Liam song. I quite like it - except for that guitar solo, which kind of kills the song for me. Up to then, the song had me totally on board.

Lyrics are excellent. But again like a lot of Liam songs I get the overwhelming feeling that I should admire his songs rather than love his songs.
I think @Lance LaSalle is right - Liam's thing seems to be travelling and being on the road. I think the lyrics nicely capture those "snapshots" of life when you are never truly settled in one place.

3.8/5 (would have been higher without that guitar solo!)

 

Lyrically and musically this one just *works* for me ("It was only one moment out of a million but I still remember her name" - I mean, come on!), and the guitar solo doesn't bother me at all sonically - EXCEPT that it goes on too long. If it were shorter it would have been a cool interlude, but instead it ends up actively keeping me from getting back to a song I am really enjoying.

4.2/5

 

Nothing to add, really. @KangaMom said exactly what I wanted to say (except that my rating isn't quite as high).

3.5/5

 

Red Wine Bottle - I generally love everything Liam does and this track is no exception, and I love the guitar solo, too.
4.5/5

 

"Red Wine Bottle" is one of the better tracks on the album. I think it's fascinating to follow Liam's progress as a writer through the years. When he was with Betchadupa, I didn't hear anything that I thought was special, but his solo records are very good. This song has an interesting and slightly odd rhythm and he has a gift for storytelling in his lyrics. The lyrics here are miles better than "Learn To Crawl" and paint vivid images, I can really see the narrator and the mysterious autumn girl and the landscape around them when I hear the song. There is a level of frailty in Liam's voice that to my ears give the song a sense of yearning and melancholy that enhances the song. However, I don't like the guitar solo at all, to my ears it sounds like it was lifted from another (not very good) song altogether. I do think the song needed something different at that point and while I'm not sure what might have fitted in well there, without that whatever-it-should-have-been the song doesn't quite fulfill its potential.
3,5/5

 

I like "Red Wine Bottle" more than I like most of Liam's work. The guitar solo doesn't really work for me, but otherwise this is a pretty strong song with excellent lyrics. That said, I didn't place it amongst the 10 "keepers" on The Sun Came Out.

3.4/5