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

I agree. There’s better lyrics on the album maybe but, overall, this is the song I seek out the most. The melody, the dynamics, the outro, it really works to my ears. Melodically this is in Together Alone territory. The band is great, each really shining with very creative parts. Of course you have to ignore the claustrophobic mastering job. I hate to say it but this is a gnarly sounding album. Worse than Time On Earth.

 

My ears - I don't think - are not massively sensitive to mastering but I do notice a huge improvement on this album on the recent (ish) vinyl version over the CD.

 

It is improved a little -- I only listen to the needledrop -- but not as dramatic an improvement as Time On Earth. Probably the same master only not quite as limited.

 

"Archer's Arrows" is my least favorite track on Intriguer. I'm not saying that it's bad to me, just that it seems to stand apart from the rest of the album in terms of feel, atmosphere, and arrangement. Several aspects of the song just don't work for me, from the martial drum intro to the electric piano to the piano rolls to the presence of Sharon (her voice grates on my ears). Chiefly, however, it's the vague lyrics that represent the final barrier to entry for me. This is generally my biggest issue with Neil's songwriting, when it rears its head. Unfortunately, Intriguer is probably the Crowded House album that has the highest ratio of oblique-to-clear lyrics, and while I love most of the music on the album, most of the songs fail to connect on a lyrical level. Something about this song seems overly "stagey", as if it comes from a dramatic musical created for the stage. It has a dramatic rush to it that is fairly rare in Neil compositions, which generally tend toward the more folk-grounded.

The live versions don't really improve the song very much for me given Sharon's prominence on vocals. The version on the Intriguer Live: Start to Finish release was recorded at a concert I attended and I remember thinking it was the one new song that didn't sound any better live than on the album. It was nice to see Mark get a spotlight on the piano, but the repeated "hey hey"s got old (those are right up there with handclaps and kids' choirs among the musical devices I like the least).

Despite all of the above, the song has a good melody that I do enjoy hearing. This isn't the black spot on an otherwise fantastic album that something like "Black and White Boy" represents for me. It's just not up to the caliber of the remaining 9 cuts, at least for me.

3.3/5

(Really looking forward to tomorrow's song, one of my all-time CH favorites!)

 

As much as I love the song, I agree that the live versions didn’t really work. Perhaps because there’s too many moving parts in the arrangement?

 

Saturday Sun -

I love this song, and I have since it came out. I remember all of the backlash against it on mailing lists/forums and not getting what that was about. It reminds me of a lovely April/May in Dublin listening to it a lot while out for a run. There seemed to be good light during spring in Dublin that year.

The arrangement of the song is a solid, but the mix of it has always felt a bit squashed and compressed. There are some good live versions out there though. Fantastic bass riff

Exchequer Studios in Dublin is/was Nick Seymour's studio. Brian Crosby, formerly of Bell X1 used to work a lot out of there, so it makes sense that he would have recorded some of Nick's overdubs on Intriguer.
(Sidebar: Nick Seymour produced the debut Bell X1 album Neither Am I and made a damn fine job of it too - it stands up well. It's a shame he hasn't produced more. Also re: Exchequer - I remember hearing that Grant Thomas had advised Crowded House in the 90s to buy property. Nick must have taken his advice and made some pretty well timed purchases in Dublin - his studio/apartment was in a fantastic location.)

I was working on a friend's record in another studio in Dublin at the time, Charthouse. (It's no longer there). The owners of Charthouse were friends of mine and one of them, Lucy also worked out of Exchequer a lot. (I remember "Lucy's off babysitting Nick Seymour's studio" being a sentence uttered a lot in 2009/10). Lucy's Marxophone had migrated over to Charthouse by the time I was working out of there, and I remember being very excited about this during our sessions because apparently it had been used "all over the place on the new Crowded House record", so we recorded a bunch of the Marxophone on our record too. Not a whole lot of Marxophone made the final mix on either record. Even on "Saturday Sun" - it had been re-recorded by Mark Hart at some point. BUT! I still got a big thrill when I heard Marxophone on "Saturday Sun" a few weeks later.

I remember Peter Green not being entirely enthusiastic about the new Crowded House album (Intriguer) before it came out, referring to it as a bit slow and plodding. I still have mixed feelings about the record - but mostly because "Turn It Around" seemed to be a fantastic song that I was very excited about hearing, and not only did the recorded version not quite capture it, it didn't even make the record. There are a whole bunch of songs on it that I like a lot though, and looking forward to discussing them.

 

Archer's Arrows

For some reason, I keep feeling like this is a song that would have worked quite well on "Temple of Low Men". I'd like to hear what Mitchell Froom & Tchad Blake would have done with it. There's a few of the parts on the recording that I'm not sold on.

What the hell was that "Love Is In The Air" vibe that seems to plague both the piano part in this song, and the whole feel of "Either Side of The World"? With Neil Finn + records, after a few years I usually feel a bit more positive towards (even really like) parts that grate on me when I first hear them. This is still an outlier for sure.

The difference between the original recording of this song and the album version is pretty stark. Neil Finn did a solid job of turning a dull song about not having any inspiration into something musically and lyrically interesting.

On balance, I do like "Archer's Arrows" - very much including Sharon Finn's vocals, and especially Lisa Germano's violin.

 

Thanks so much for posting that. It sounds like Neil was in excellent voice that evening.

 

"Archer's Arrows" was the song on Intriguer that grabbed me instantly on first listen and I have no idea why. It's not that the lyrics have any particular meaning for me so it must be the melodies. As I listened to the album more and more I begun to appreciate other songs more than this one, but I can't forget the instant reaction I had to it.

4/5

 

"Archer's Arrows" feels like it was assembled from two separate songs - but it works pretty well. This must be one of Neil's most overtly political statements, and the lines ("People take the power back... Live to fight another day") give it an anthemic flair. I don't much like the sound of Sharon's singing; other than that the arrangement is just fine. 4/5

 

Our votes for "Archer's Arrows"

1-0
2-0
3-3
4-7
5-4
Average: 3.9567

 

Today's song is "Amsterdam", written by Neil Finn and produced by Neil Finn & Jim Scott.

Lyric.
Neil's site's player, at bottom of page: Crowded House - Intriguer [Deluxe Edition] — Neil Finn

Neil Finn: Vocals, guitar, optigan
Mark Hart: guitar, vocals
Nick Seymour: bass
Matt Sharrod: drums

Live versions of this have been released on:

• Upstairs At Home
• Intriguer Live: Start to Finish (DVD/CD, Auckland/Denver)
• North American Travelogue (The Denver performance, above)
• Many Kufala recordings

 

Catching up after being out for 5+ weeks, I see that some of my comments match what others are saying ....

It took me several years to warm up to Saturday Sun, I wish I'd liked it better from the first time I heard it. The production, the mixing, and/or the mastering don't allow the song to move me like it ought to. I like to imagine how it would sound if Bob Clearmountain, Neil Baldock, or even Tchad Blake has gotten the chance to mix it. I like it more now than previously because this is what we've been given and I'm not going to turn my back on what really is an excellent song.

Saturday Sun is the right song to start Intriguer. It has wonderful melodies and instrumental flourishes complementing a mysterious, joyous lyric perfectly. The band's performance has all the makings of a great song, it's just not a great recording,

4.5/5

Archer's Arrows again suffers from production choices ... there is too much coming out of the speakers at the same volume, and for the whole song. The keyboards offer some variety and work nicely most of the time, but seem to clash with each other from time to time. I don't think Nick and Matt ever lock together, either. In fact, to me it sounds like everyone recorded their parts separately. It's as if they weren't sure of what to do with the song so everything got thrown together and they moved on to the next song.

Giving Archer's Arrows the second spot on the album would have worked better if Sharon hadn't been placed so prominently in the mix, second song in and it doesn't sound like it's Crowded House.

So yeah, production choices and overthinking the composition and arrangement weaken the song's potential.

3/5

 

With Steven's vote, that brings it to 3.8969. Glad to have you back, @BeSteVenn!

 

From the first time I played Intriguer, "Amsterdam" stood out to me as a classic Crowded House song. It has everything I love about Neil's music - drama, melody, somber intensity. The song is like some sort of paranoid fever dream, and it takes me straight to the streets of the Dutch city, right down to the way they pronounce "Van Gogh". The lyrics seem like something out of a Bond movie. I love this song just as much as I love "Fingers Of Love", "Four Seasons In One Day", "Into Temptation", "Recurring Dream" or any other Crowded House classic. Brilliance!

5/5

 

I love this one. Best song on the album, and my favorite "second era Crowded House" song. I would even go so far as to label this one of my favorite songs of all time. That chorus is absolutely one of Neil's all time best, in my opinion. It's tragic comedy that we only get to hear it twice, but I think that ultimately emboldens it, by not over saturating something so great. Lyrics are top notch, Neil's vocals are perfect, and both Mark & Neil's guitars shine throughout the whole thing.

Looking at the credits and seeing "optigan" surprised me a bit, as I don't ever seem to recall hearing it until this listen (and the reason for that is I never even knew what an optigan was until this thread. Neat little thing, and you can actually download a digital version as an app on your phone). I do hear it now, though, at the very beginning and throughout the verses, although it becomes quite buried later on. A funny thing to come out of this thread for me was everyone's comments on Neil's heavy use of the optigan at times. I sometimes jokingly think of Neil asking random artists if they want him to play the optigan on their new album, because he seems to love it so much .

Anyway, this song is just perfect to me. Just a big, beautiful epic of a song that has shades of Neil's late 90's/early 00's sound, especially in the guitars & melodies (and obviously the optigan usage).

5/5

 

When I first heard "Amsterdam" it was an immediate hit for me too and is one of my favourite Crowded House songs too.

Neil's lyrics are just wonderful to describe what he sees. He would be an interesting author for a travel book!! He again sings with energy and intensity.
The way the song is structured and the speed works perfectly with the lyrics.
The chorus is great too.

I also love that guitar combination with Neil and Mark. I love the bluesy guitar lick in the verses and the distinctive fang solo at another point.

I can play this song track-1 without getting tired of it!
5/5

 

In terms of mood, I've always considered Amsterdam as Neil's Hotel California. It's got that languid sinister air and concerns an ill advised trip. In the current climate it's hard to warm to carping about being stuck in a crowded tourist trap, when a weekend away in Amsterdam sounds pretty heavenly right about now.

First Neil was under a bus, then he nearly fell underneath the tram... he really should be more public transport aware. Observational lyrics aren't exactly Neil's forte, resulting in some very clunky lines. There's something particularly cringeworthy about:

"And the Lord walked in
With a monocle and lips so thin
Saw the barman wink as he poured his brandy"

It's a sidewinder of a melody that slithers seductively into a barnstorming chorus. Amsterdam is a big, brash, attention grabbing song that I feel I should appreciate more than I do. Maybe that's the flaw: it's just a little too obvious.

3.5/5

 

Amsterdam

This is a great song, with a great melody. I will agree that he album as a whole is quite slow-paced. But, there's nothing wrong with that. Unless you want lots of hits. It's too early to discuss the album as a whole, so I'll leave that for later.

The lyric is interesting, and I don't think too obscure. It layers an experience in Amsterdam with a more subtle narrative (not uncommon in Finn lyrics) of being knocked down but getting back up again.

Up above, there are mentions of Temple of Low Men. I remember how I was surprised how that album had a darker tone. Some of the songs on Intriguer seem to be, in my opinion, Neil mastering that tone that he used on that album. Both lyrically and musically.

The music isn't a catchy hit single, but it has melodic depths. There is nothing 'forced' in either the melody or chords.

The arrangements on this album are often very good, and this is one such example. For me, it's often the keyboards on this album that are the most notable elements in arrangements. The guitars dominate here, and the lines are simple but effective, as is the drumming and bass. The more electronic elements are used appropriately sparingly, but enough to give the song an interesting sound. I've got a vague feeling that I've heard a solo acoustic version of this, but can't think where. I think the song would suit that. Not as a replacement for the album version, but as an additional way to enjoy the song.

The guitar solo however, is OK, but not wonderful.

4.50001/5 (just to make sure it rounds up )

BTW: I once got stuck in Amsterdam due to weather delaying a flight from London and making me miss a connection. I'll just say that my experience was a lot better than that of the Finns, if any of this lyric is based on fact. Great weather, no queues for the Royal Palace, and I never came near to falling underneath a tram.

 

Amsterdam - I’m not a fan, and this may be the weakest song on the album for me. I find it slow and plodding, and I don’t like the melody. I find the verse melody to be meandering and tedious to listen to, and the chorus, which is better, is not a big enough payoff to make me like the song. I especially dislike the chord that comes right after the line “But the line went halfway round the block” in the first verse. That chord is an unpleasant musical change to my ears, and even though when it subsequently appears in the song it is less prominent, I don’t like it and it ruins what is already a weak song for me. And again, the lyrics don’t resonate with me. This song contains nothing that I listen to Finn music for, other than Neil’s voice, which, while nice here, can’t save it for me.

2/5

 

Amsterdam for me suffers from some really poor lyrics, especially in the verses. Conversely I really enjoy the chorus and it's still one of the strongest tracks on the album. Unfortunately after a really strong start Intriguer is definately all downhill from here.

4/5

 

I find the song interesting: when he's talking about walking in the rain and waiting in line to see the Van Gogh and going back to the hotel and the crowded restaurants...."a million people on a protest march"....I"m reminded of my trip to Rome in 2018....it rained the whole time and there were these African guys that kept trying to rip us off....there was even this protest March, I think some pro-immigration/Communist march (they were singing "The International"). It was kind of scary and my wife and I got separated because these protesters were sweeping everything in their path away, and one if us had a run-out battery in our phone; and no matter where we were in the city, on whichever day, there were all these black-clad cops with Machine guns standing around everywhere -- there was definitely this element that was kind of scary ... but I had such a blast! Literally exactly three years ago today I was there.

Damn, I'm depressed about not being able to travel.

So it's vaguely amusing that Neil puts all these similar elements into this sort of trippy nightmarish vision of a cynical city founded on the wealth based on the quite creepy exploitation of various colonies: and still profiting off vice just as they profited off of diamonds, sugar and slaves centuries ago.

Not judging much, to be clear: it could be worse and few of the rich countries in the world are without these dark stains on their history, including my birth-country.

I can see how even my trip to Rome could have been seen in a similar light...but me and my wife are possibly more easily pleased with things than Neil -- we stayed in an Air B'n'B and I really can't stand the sterile, posh hotels that he probably favors.

But it really works for me -- I like the fact, too that this is not an overly complex track, instrument-wise: just the four plus some synth strings -- and the guitars on the vinyl version have a satisfying crunch.

I also have to say I really like the Upstairs At Home version that Jaffaman linked to above (and which I have at home): certainly more than the Denver/Auckland versions.

There's just something nice about the way the dual guitars sounds in a smaller space like that room -- and there are actually quite nice three-part harmonies in that that I don't really hear on the studio version.

For some reason though I am a bit suprised by the fact that people really consider this a masterpiece: I mean, I do too, but for some reason I thought this would not be a favorite...

I'll give it a 5/5

 

Amsterdam: the first time that the post-Hester CH had reached their previous heights. This is classic CH. I just love the guitars, the groove, the claustrophobic atmosphere. The chorus is just a classic (sorry to use the word again) CH chorus: it soars.

There are only two faults to this performance: firstly, Neil's voice sounds a little off in some places. Secondly, it isn't long enough. It cries out for a false ending with a wig-out coda. In fact, I was fortunate enough to pick up a promo that features instrumental mixes of these tracks and appended the last couple of minutes on to the main song in order to create such an ending. Sublime.

5/5.