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

Man, this takes me back almost 30 years (yes, it really was that long ago) to you, me, and Stefan crapping up the threads!(*) I tell ya, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

*- There was a fourth horseman that was part of the silliness back then, but he doesn't seem to want to be dug up these days.

 

TIME AND TIDE

This was the very fifth Finn album I owned. The first four were "Beginning of the Enz" (the Chrysalis "best of" rather than the Mushroom album of early recordings), "Escapade", "Conflicting Emotions" and the A&M "Frenzy". I had basically only been listening to these four albums and almost nothing else for a few months and loved these records, but when I bought "Time and Tide" it took my fandom to another level. I immersed myself into "Time and Tide", reading the lyrics on the inner sleeve as I was listening, look at the front cover and ponder that atmospheric image, look at the artistic photos of the band members on the back cover. This wasn't just a collection of songs, this was a complete unit where even the colour of the inner sleeve and the font used for the lyrics were part of the whole experience of the album.
My impression both then and now is that Split Enz stayed true to their artistic visions for the album and didn't allow any record company interference or concerns about radio airplay get in the way. From what I've read later it seems that Hugh Padgham was an inspired choice of producer, he seems to have truly understood what they were aiming for and brought out the best from the band. It sounds very much a true band album, with all members pulling in the same direction and being very committed to each song.

Dirty Creature
A very strong opener, very different to any previous Enz song, funky, dark, ominous yet also catchy. The lyrics are full of vivid dark images, giving a very clear picture of the horror of being in a depression. Tim's singing is top notch and it really sounds like a very personal song. Nigel's bass playing adds a lot to the dark groove of the song. On the LP, the song is credited as being written by Tim, Nigel and Neil (in that order), I wonder what Neil's contributions to the writing were.

Giant Heartbeat
A track that had me mesmerised from the first time I heard it. The guitar intro is haunting, hypnotic and epic, giving the song a kind of enigmatic atmosphere. I like that the lyrics are both minimalistic and profound and invite the listener to think, reflect and interpret. Great guitar playing and singing by Neil and again Nigel's bass lines add a lot of colour to the song.
This is a song which, even now after years and years of listening, keeps revealing more layers and dimensions. A masterpiece.

Hello Sandy Allen
A track that starts off with sirens before quite heavy guitar playing gets the song going. The verses are quite heavy and dark musically, a striking contrast to the optimism of the choruses. It was interesting to learn, years later, that the song was inspired by Neil and the band meeting Sandy Allen, the world's tallest woman, at a TV show in the U.S. during the band's tour there in 1981. Apparently she was asked at this TV show if it was difficult having people stare at her everywhere she went due to her height, and her answer was "When you're number one you don't have to try so hard" which is quoted in the song. This song is a fine tribute to her and a great track from start to finish.

Never Ceases To Amaze Me
After the first three tracks, this is quite light-hearted and relaxing. It doesn't sound like anything else on the album, yet it fits in very well, in that it allows the emotions and impressions and complexities of the first songs sink in. Great singing by Tim.

Lost For Words
This track has quite an unusual song structure, with the blend of snappy new wave pop and semi-spoken vocals at the start, the energy and anger of the chorus and then the long instrumental part in the middle before the vocals come back towards the end.

Small World
After the intensity of the previous song, "Small World" is a superb closer of side A of the album. The melody is strong and builds up to a big chorus. There's a nightmare-ish feel to this song and the very concerned lyrics were relevant when the album was new and are just as relevant today.

Take A Walk
This opened side B of the LP and to me it fits perfectly after "Small World", they are like companion pieces that enhance each other when listened to together. If the previous song expressed concern for the state of the world, this song portrays being in beautiful nature as both a sanctuary for the soul and a reminder of why the concerns of "Small World" are important. Superb instrumentation and great performances by all band members.

Pioneer
I've read that Eddie wrote this in 1975 but hadn't found use for it until this album. It's a great build-up for "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" as well as an intriguing piece of music in its own right, with its dreamy feel adding layer after layer and moving towards a more ominous atmosphere.

Six Months in a Leaky Boat
A true Enz classic, wonderful in every way. It captures both a sense of adventure and fierce determination to overcome traumas and bad experiences. The lyrics work brilliantly on many levels, both as a metaphor for personal turmoil, as a metaphor for going after one's dreams in life and it also provide a sense of history as we listeners can imagine the tough life seafarers must have had in the 18th century when travelling was far more dangerous and time-consuming.
The last part of the song has a contemplative, melancholy feel, a contrast to the determination and optimism of the music earlier in the song. It again makes me think of the seafarers of the 18th century, I can picture them on a quiet night at sea, very far away from home and no land in sight and perhaps doubting they will ever reach their destination.

Haul Away
It sounds very natural that this song too has a nautic feel as it portrays Tim's own journey. I've always loved this song and how it is built up by the synthesizer and the "marching" drums. And the brief sample from the song "Split Ends" (the line "telling them all about Split Ends") is a nice bonus, enhancing the sense of quest in the lyrics.
(Having heard Neil's version with his story, I noted that while Tim sang that he was "his mother's and father's pride and joy", Neil sang that he was "his mother's and father's second son")

Log Cabin Fever
This was a song that took me a long time to warm to, but now I really love it. Very dark, haunting and nightmare-ish. The song takes us listeners on a real musical journey, with lots of shifts in tempo and mood and no two verses following the same pattern. A unique song in many ways.

Make Sense Of It
An excellent album closer. After the darkness of the previous song this song releases the tension that has been built up, letting light and optimism in, especially with the determination and hope expressed in the line "In the midst of human crisis / Goodwill triumphant rises". The instrumental outro allows all of the many emotions of the album time to sink in and also brings closure. For that reason, I am glad they didn't add any bonus tracks on the 2006 CD edition - the album's journey is complete and perfect as it is and nothing should be added after "Make Sense Of It".

Time and Tide definitely gets 5++/5 from me.

 

Stefan, this is so close to my own experience with Time and Tide. I, too, remember poring over the cover and the photos of the band, the lyrics, and trying to figure out what it all meant. It's probably why I can't see it as anything less than a perfect Split Enz album. And indeed it's probably what triggered the whole fandom thing anyway. I bought a lot of Split Enz albums in a very short space of time after Time and Tide (as the finances permitted). For a long time, my record collection was only Split Enz.

 

Many thanks for posting that. Currently listening to it but I'm probably not quite the right person to determine differences since I'm well known to have cloth ears.
(About halfway through and it does sound a bit more expansive but I can't be sure since I haven't reverted back to the 2006 CD to do a direct comparison)

 

Since I was around for Time and Tide when we first did it, I won't rehash everything here. I will say, though, regarding the different versions released -- I have a couple CD versions (including the 2006 remaster), had the cassette way back in the day, and several copies on vinyl, and a clean copy of the LP definitely sounds the best and most natural. That said, I can on only say that this is the case on my system - a good digital playback frontend will probably sound better than a poopy turntable setup, and so on. But I'm definitely in the camp that thinks the initial release on LP sounds good and the others don't sound quite as "right."

 

Again, I'm going to take a break today and plan to hold up Escapade as a whole tomorrow for newcomers to rate and discuss. Unless that's too swift? I could start going week-by-week on this if writing about albums (which usually brings on longer posts, and no one knows more than me how much time they can take to write) every other day is too much of a gruel for some of you.

I have the advantage of having large parts of Tuesday, Thursday and Friday off most weeks, (while working balls-to-the-walls, non-stop on Mondays and Wednesdays) But most people don't have that advantage.

 

Lance, I'm good with every 2nd day for each of these earlier albums (there's about 4 left right?). But I can go with whatever flow works best for Stefan (I believe Stefan and I were the ones chiefly interested in rehashing since we were late to the party..)

I'm familiar with the ones remaining and in any case, I've done some advance listening this weekend...to try and get ahead of the game!

 

Well, I'm thinking about extending the "album re-recap discussion" for now up until, I don't know, later, maybe up until Imaginary Kingdom (?) for you Drew, ToneM and anybody else. I'm really enjoying y'all's thoughts. Plus Hit'n'Run was absent for several months in there. (maybe between Before And After and Feeding the Gods?)

 

I'm good with whatever workload you decide works best for you! I'm not running any threads so I'm a lady of leisure...(well except for my actual job, but that's not really as important as a discussion of the Finns, is it? )

 

I'm also good with every 2nd day for these earlier albums. It's great reading everyone's posts about them!

 

While we are on the topic of Time and Tide... in 1985, my father went on a business trip to Malaysia and being well aware of my Split Enz fandom and that I was looking for certain albums, he did visit a record store in Kuala Lumpur. He told me that they didn't have any vinyl at all there, only cassettes, but they did have one Split Enz cassette, Time and Tide. He bought it for me plus a few other cassettes. All of them look like bootleg cassettes. They do have the correct artwork, but some of the titles are incorrect, to quite comical effect - so this Malaysian cassette edition of Time and Tide features those well-known Enz songs Six Mothers in a Leaky Boat and Loo Cabin Fever...

The track is order is quite different too. Side A has Dirty Creature, Never Ceases To Amaze Me, Lost For Words, Small World, Haul Away and Loo Cabin Fever, while side B has Giant Heartbeat, Hello Sandy Allen, Make Sense Of It, Take A Walk, Pioneer and Six Mothers in a Leaky Boat

No information about the label, only a catalogue number, TIG1066. The sound quality is, if I remember correctly, rather dodgy.

 

I dropped out while we were discussing random non-album tracks such as Sacred Cow, Happy XMas (War is Over), etc. I wasn't around for Together Alone (and I feel guilty about dropping out when @StefanWq gave me a very nice shoutout about that time. And my appearance on page 265 was @Jimbutsu mentioning me.) I came back for Underwater Melon Man.

I don't expect you to repeat Together Alone, or other albums that had a good set of votes, for me.

 

By the way original CDs of Time and Tide (from 1987) are going for as little as €390…..

Split Enz – Time And Tide (1987, CD)

 

OK, I love this album and CD is my preferred media at the moment but that's a lot of moolah...

@StefanWq I love the story about the bootleg cassettes! As you say, the duplication is not perfect in any respect.

 

That's the edition I played to refresh my memory yesterday. If it's really worth that price, I could charge a nominal fee to just come to my home and look at it.

Any takers?

 

Can you be paid in home baked cookies???? I'd hate to ask what it may cost to actually listen to it...

(Side note: In another thread a similar thing came up with a CD. It was an OOP and it was selling for 545 Australian dollars. Again, I love the album but no CD is worth that..)

 

Excuse me, Lance, but what do you mean by "middle channel"? Stereo has a left channel and a right channel, so I'm at a loss here.

 

The stuff in the middle. Yeah I know that Stereo is two channels. But the middle is quieter, muffled, and the sound is wider. There's a a bit of reverb on it that I don't hear on vinyl.

I was thinking about it more and I guess what it is is the middle is cut out of the sound and the middle parts, I.e the parts that play in both sides happen to have a lot of middle. The bass is not boosted in anyway, it may actually be turned down a bit too. Note: I'm mainly talking about the 1992 silver box set version. I've never even heard the 2006 (or the earlier one.) The sound is not far off from the rest of the CDs in that box set, but it's definitely different from the needledrop.

 

Today, we'll go over Escapade as a whole and give those who were not around a chance to rate it.

Our original song-by-song discussion started here and our discussion of the album as a whole (which only had four votes) started here.

Escapade was Tim Finn's first solo album, but it was intended as a side project originally when Split Enz took several months off in 1983, after having been working non-stop for several years. Escapade was comprised of original songs that dated back to the late seventies that either Split Enz had rejected or had tried but not managed to pull off. It was produced by South African ex-Flames/Beach Boys/Rutles drummer/multi-instrumntalist Ricky Fataar and Mark Moffatt, both friends of Tim's an was mainly played by Melbourne-based musicians and other sessionists, some of them rather big names (Vanetta Fields, Vince Gill, Fataar and MOffat themselves....)

Though only meant as a side project for Tim it became an unexpected hit, and the album hit #1 in New Zealand and #8 in Australia, spawning no less than three Top 40 hits in both countries.

The original Australasian track list was:

1. Fraction Too Much Friction (Finn)
2. Made My Day (Finn)
3. Not For Nothing (Finn)
4. IN a Minor Key (Finn)
5. Grand Adventure
   
   
6. Staring AT the Embers (Finn)
7. Wait And See (Finn)
8. I Only Want to Know (Finn)
9. Growing Pains (Finn)
10. Through The Years (Finn)

After it had become a hit in Australasia, A&M picked it up and released it internationally. For the international release, they dropped one song (the arty "Grand Adventure" and included a B-side ("Below the Belt", and shuffled the sequence.

1. Fraction Too Much Friction (Finn)
2. Staring At the Embers (Finn)
3. Through The Years (Finn)
4. Not For Nothing (Finn)
5. In A Minor Key (Finn)
   
   
6. Made My Day (Finn)
7. Wait And See (Finn)
8. Below The Belt (Finn)
9. I Only Want to Know (Finn)
10. Growing Pains (Finn)

Our original collated ratings are here:

Escapade:

1. Fraction Too Much Friction: 3.125
2. Made My Day: 3.275
3. Not For Nothing: 3.5125
4. In a Minor Key: 3.575
5. Grand Adventure: 2.775
6. Staring AT the Embers: 3.2167
7. Wait and See: 2.635
8. Only Want To Know: 2.4333
9. Growing Pains: 2.8
10. Through the Years: 3.822

Escapade: 2.95
Average Song score: 3.117

Bonus tracks

• Below the Belt: 2.4833333
• Another Chance: 1.9871428

 

New votes for Time And Tide, including the four old ratings:
1-0
2-0
3-0
4-2
5-8
Average: 4.73

 

Albums ranked.

Time And Tide redone. The score changed from 4.625 to 4.73, however, the ranking did not change at all and it remains at #4..

No other changes.

It's worth noting that the song average of Escapade is 3.43 or 3.44 or something, considerably higher than the 2.95 rating below: only four people voted on Escapade as a whole, ditto for Time and Tide (only those four votes were considerably higher than Escapade's.) I have added notes to reflect that below. I actually think if votes on those were held today, Time and Tide would fare about the same -- it is regarded as Split Enz's best by many, including the band themselves -- but Escapade would be closer to the song average.

Similar irregularities may exist in the early Betchadupa's albums: Aiming For Your Head, might be an accurate score, but on the earlier albums and EPs, some refrained from voting, thus skewing the scores slightly.

I may give some time for whole album discussions of the early stuff at least, later on in the year.

Green: abums with Tim and Neil
Orange: Neil Finn
Blue: Tim Finn
Purple: Tim Finn/Phil Judd albums
Magenta: Liam Finn albums
Grey: Neil Finn and sons albums
Light blue: elroy
YELLOW!!!! HARPER FINN (RUNNING OUT OF COLORS)

1. Everyone Is Here 4.975
2. Woodface 4.8033
3. Together Alone 4.7333
4. Time And Tide 4.7
5. Temple of Low Men 4.5577
6. Dizrhythmia 4.5333
7. True Colours 4.5125
8. Frenzy 4.4944
9. Before and After 4.4667
10. The Rootin' Tootin' Luton Tapes 4.42
11. Mental Notes 4.3
12. Caught By The Heart 42571
13. Second Thoughts 4.2438
14. Crowded House 4.2142
15. Imaginary Kingdom 4.2042
16. Try Whistling This 4.2
17. The Conversation 4.1727
18. Time On Earth 4.13
19. Say It Is So 4.055
    1. Time and Tide song average 4.03054
20. I'll Be Lightning 3.9889
21. FOMO 3.9625
22. Tim Finn 3.9429
23. One Nil 3.9
24. The Fiery Maze 3.9
25. Finn 3.889
26. Beginning of the Enz 3.8667
27. Out of Silence 3.85
28. The View Is Worth the Climb 3.84
29. Waiata/Corroboree
30. Feeding the Gods 3.833
31. COLLECTED WORKS OF HARPER FINN 3.8101
32. The Nihilist 3.7778
33. Intriguer 3.6615
34. Suzanne Bartsch On Top soundtrack 3.6 (only two votes)
35. The 3d EP 3.5667
36. Aiming For Your Head 3.5333
37. Dreamers Are Waiting 3.5269
38. Conflicting Emotions 3.4444
    1. (ESCAPADE SONGAVERAGE 3.43)
39. The Alphabetchadupa 3.28
40. Lightsleeper 3.2385
41. Pablo Vazquez 3.1825
42. See Ya Round 3.175
43. Big Canoe 3.16
44. Rain 3.083 (song average)
45. Dizzy Heights 3
46. Altitude 2.9714
47. Escapade 2.95
48. Pajama Club 2.89722
49. Steel City 2.82
50. Betchadupa 2.8
51. Elroy 2.644

 

OK, I'm going to take this opportunity to revise my vote for Escapade.

I think I underrated it back in 2019. I'm not sure why: partially it's because at the time I think I had some negativity about Tim Finn left over from the nineties when I really didn't like Big Canoe and only half-liked Before And After when I heard them: time has been kind to both albums for me and I like them all more than I did back in the day.

I also don't get my criticisms about Tim doing this kind of hybrid post-Abba Europop/soulful Yacht rock/synth pop thing. It's like I didn't like Tim doing this kind of music, and felt like he shouldn't be doing it. In fact, though, I like this kind of music in general, so there was some weirdness going on in my vote.

I also think I was influenced by the discussion which was often negative about these songs and maybe I just wanted to fit in a little. Or I was self-conscious at the time when all the Split Enz fans and Neil Finn/Crowded House fans suddenly stopped discussing and I was worried about the thread dying? Boy I sure have got over that fear nowadays. It was early days back then.

In fact, it's just melody heaven, this album. Chock full of great melodies and vocal and instrumental hooks, it's just a cool glass of lemonade on a beautiful and hot summer's day.

I do slightly think that on a couple of songs Tim's tendency to always sing exactly on the beat and his elevation of beauty over expression takes a little soul out of them, but he did in fact write the songs in the first place, and I think that Tim's early tendencies toward rather formal, romantic forms are a feature, not a bug, now.

It's light, sure, but it's very pretty. Some notes;

• I prefer the international album's tracklisting, and I think "Below The Belt" deserves to be on the album.
• I love "Grand Adventure", though, too, so I tack it on to the end when I listen.
• I still don't like "Growing Pains" : it's just a ditty and parts of it seem ripped off from McCartney's "With A Little Luck"; but put right before "Grand Adventure" (which is the artiest, most avant-garde, and uncommercial song of the bunch) it sounds OK.

So I'll be changing my vote now to an even 4.1/5, and I feel good about that.

By the way, I didn't own or even hear this album until about 2013!!

 

I looked up what it says in Mike Chunn's excellent book Stranger Than Fiction. The Life and Times of Split Enz about the Escapade sessions. Here's a very interesting quote about this time:
"In February (1983), shortly after putting down his 'Next Exit' vocal, Tim got the okay from Mushroom to go ahead with his solo album. He put aside his Split Enz hat and headed north to Sydney's Festival Recording Studios, where eight years before he had sweated over his Mental Notes vocal takes. He had hired Ricky Fataar and Mark Moffatt as producers, after hearing a Renee Geyer single that featured Ricky on drums. Tim had always paid a massive amount of attention to drummers (ask Croth and Green!) and his preference was always for the simple, solid, groove player. Fataar was one such stickman, and the fact that he and Moffatt were successful producers made their appointment a certainty. As far as the rest of the players went, Moffatt was on guitar and they brought in some top session people - Chris Haig on bass and Sam McNally on keyboards, as well as guests Joe Camilleri and Wilbur Wilde on brass and Venetta Fields on backing vocals. To top off this esteemed bunch, Richard Tee happened to be in town with Paul Simon; he dropped in for a session and played piano on 'Fraction Too Much Friction' and Fender Rhodes on a couple of others. Tim was amazed at the man's dexterity.
From day one, Tim was blissed. His initial anticipation had seen him pretty much alone in the studio with drum machines, programmed synthesisers and so on. But with a full band in the room, the music jumped to life and he found the spontaneity uplifting. Tim had around 35 songs on offer, of which 10 or so were more than six months old and hadn't made it to the Enz repertoire. In the end it was principally the newer ones that found their way on to vinyl, although the album's lynchpin harked back to 1979: 'A Fraction Too Much Friction'. The album title looked to the future: Escapade."

 

Boy, I'd really like to know what the other 25 songs were and how many of these songs were turned up on later albums.That's a lot of songs.

Interesting too that most of the songs -- "Fraction Too Much Fiction "Aside -- were newer ones. I mean, I think most artists are more interested in their newer songs than the older ones so it's no surprise.

I read (the other day) that Split Enz attempted "Fraction Too Much Friction"-- it's older than 1979, I believe, I think it's on the Nineez Tapes. But couldn't get the feel down, I guess it just is not their style.

 

I'd love to know what the other 25 were as well, although Tim being Tim, we probably have heard them - albeit as totally different songs with his penchant for recycling...