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

1977. The Dizrhythmia album.

 

Welcome aboard Mark. As my favorite sports broadcaster used to say, “pull up a chair, we’re just getting started”.

 

I'm really looking forward to it. Such a great band

 

Here's a young Neil in -I think- his first Enz video

 

Getting back to the song of the day... I think "Walking Down the Road" is a pleasant way to kick off a record. The distorted beginning with a smidgen of horns makes for a good opening bridge into the song proper. Kinda reminds me of the opening to Sgt. Pepper (insert your favorite orchestra band warming up opener here; I'm sure there are better examples...). I'm a little amused that the song stops at the 3:00 mark for the distant sounds of a church bell; it adds to the off kilter nature of the main protagonist; taking the last few lyrics literally he's a God fearing killer. Call me crazy but it almost feels like a more fleshed out version of the "Split Ends" single. 3.7/5

 

What really makes the song (and the album) is the contrast between Judd and Finn's vocals. Finn sounds like a choirboy while Judd sounds like he's about to murder someone.

Eddie Raynor was on the radio last year promoting Enzo and he said Tim's parents bought him the mellotron because they'd read all the english bands were using them.

Walking Down the Road. The bass playing is incredible.

 

I do think there are certain themes that recur through these Judd lyrics: social anxiety, rich fantasy life, a lot of portraits of isolated eccentrics whose words have a bit of a threatening undercurrent.

 

Our votes for "Walking Down the Road"

1-0
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3-0
4-3
5-0

 

Today's song is "Under the Wheel".


Written by Judd and Finn, but sung by Judd, with Tim contributing backing harmonies.

 

"Under the Wheel". It's sprawling, it's epic, it's odd, it has interesting lyrics and is a rollercoaster of arrangement ideas, culminating in Eddie Rayner's climactic synth solo followed by a beautiful Wally Wilkinson guitar solo that might represent his finest work for the Enz. Really, this is what early Enz is all about.

Apparently there is a version with Tim on vocals that I'd love to hear; I'm not sure if I would like it more, but it would probably be more tuneful. But in truth, Phil Judd's vocal has an immediacy and there's a sort of rocking-ness to his voice that you just can't fake. What a scream. For all their talents neither of the Finn brothers have a particularly good convincing scream (though I can think of a few instances where they have come close.) When Judd screams you feel it in the depth your bones. He had a sharp edge. For a guy who couldn't sing, he sure could sing.

Lyrically, I think this song has something akin to "Home Sweet Home", about a young talented young boy dancing with abandon while everyone laughs at him; but this one has a much darker tone; now the boy wonder whom everyone adored has been ground "under the wheel" and ended up homeless and sick, dying on the streets. In retrospect, it is clear that Phil Judd's mental health issues were kind of apparent in his lyrics almost from the beginning. When I first heard the song, I sort of snickered, but it was the kind of thing you laugh at because the vocal is so naked it is almost embarassing.

The also has a special place in my heart. While being a Split Enz/Finn Brothers fan in the USA always was a bit of a lonely journey for me -- with Neil being written off as a sort of second rate Phil Collins by many and the rest of the group all-but-completely unknown--"Under the Wheel" is one of the songs that I can remember playing and people actually sitting up and asking me "what is this?" and really liking it, and being drawn into the drama.

5/5

 

“Under the Wheel” is one disturbing song. Very different from anything we’ve heard before. This is full prog rock, with a maniacal vocal from Phil Judd singing lyrics about a disturbed man heading toward his own demise. This is a hard one to “like”, but I have to give the band credit for including a song such as this as the second cut on their debut album. I wonder how this one went over on stage?

I give this one a 3.0. It’s not particularly my cup of tea, but I do admire the dramatic effect of the song.

 

Yeah, I almost surprised myself by giving it a 5. Because it's not my cup of tea either, but the more I thought about it the more I realized how vibrantly it had imprinted itself in my memory.

I can see someone hating the song, to be honest. But it just goes so far out that I can only admire it.

There is a live version on Oddz and Enz that sounds more or less like the studio version. It seems designed to be played live, and I think this whole album was simply their live set put down on tape, with a few overdubs, of course. With a sympathetic audience and the right lights, I think the song must have been really powerful live.

 

The Mental Notes album is a 5 out of 5 classic to my ears. I didn’t always feel that way. I discovered the Enz the way many of us did; the early days of MTV. I bought True Colours and fell in love. Then I moved on to their back catalog. I enjoyed Frenzy on the first listen. But Mental Notes, with its odd artwork, was a head scratcher. How could the guy singing “Time For A Change” be the same one who sang “I Hope I Never”??? Frankly, MN kinda freaked out this pop music lover. Back on the shelf it went, and remained for years. It was just SO different from the MTV era Enz.

After the band broke up I pulled out all the albums and played them in order, from Mental Notes to See Ya Round. It was then that MN clicked for me. I loved the prog-ness of it all (I grew up listening to King Crimson, Yes, and ELP thanks to my musical parents). Even the kinda freaky vocals sounded much more palatable. I think Mental Notes is a great start to the career of one of my favorite bands.

 

Mental Notes was something I couldn't find until about 2000 or 2001. (Though I had bought Second Thoughts in 1997 or so.) Yes, this was a band that really went through a major transformation. I think though that elements of this early period sort of survived into later work, even up to many albums in the last ten years: Intriguer has a bit of a Mental Notes thing going on in some songs, for example.

I think that early Split Enz was clearly an influence on Neil Finn, and much of the arty touches on his songs can be traced back to the early seventies and the Tim/Phil era.

 

Supposedly they were playing at The Pier Hotel in Frankston and all these tough guys were up front laughing during the spoken word bit. After that Phil left that part as instrumental and instead of the vocals had a mirror ball effect in the light show with Phil standing dead still until the screaming started.

 

I saw The Phil Judd version of Split Enz about 100 times that's how I know all this stuff.

 

Awesome stories, Mylene.

 

"Under the Wheel" is indeed dark and disturbing but at least it's foreshadowed a bit with how "Walking Down the Road" ends. It's completely different from anything we've heard before and may be a tad out of place (you don't normally have such a dramatic piece so early on in a record) but it's quite effective in telling us the "mental" state of the protagonist. It is however, a hard song to like. 2.8 / 5

Also, here's a version of "Under the Wheel" from a 1975 documentary with Sydney Ball. It's only about the first 2 minutes but I think it "paints" the picture of a struggling artist.

 

I guess I should post the whole Sydney Ball documentary from 1975. Sounds like Split Enz scored the entire project and this is as good a place to mention it as any. Enjoy:

 

Good point. Coming right after "Walking Down the Road" makes it a bit harder to take. It's strangely sequenced, I think it would work better at the end of side 1 personally.

 

Our votes for 'Under the Wheel"

1-0
2-0
3-2
4-0
5-1

 

Today's song is "Amy (Darling)". Written by the Judd/Finn team, apparently it was written in honor of Phil's newborn baby girl, Amy Judd.

 

Lyrically it's one of the lightest things that the team did, I think. I think the lyrics do a great job at capturing the array of emotions that the new parent feels.

Musically, after the last two epics, this one feels like a bit of a throwback to the singles of1974 at first, but then it goes on and goes through many permutations and parts and changes. It's also very energetic: the ending is muscular, nervous and hyperactive, giving it a zany but almost frightening feel.

While the sound is good, I think a lighter production touch would have suited the song a little better. For some reason, while the 1974/early 1975 songs sound a little less professionally recorded and mixed, I feel that they capture the Enz songs better than this one. Perhaps having more tracks caused them to overcook the song a bit....I always feel like this is kind of a stupid criticism: "Too Many Notes, Sire"as it's put in Amadeus. Still I just want to hear a little less....clutter, personally.

After many listens the song opens up to me, but it's still not great and I can't help but think that a stronger producer could have pared some of these arrangements down to highlight the song better.

Still, there are certainly things I really like about it: the frenetic energy, Chunn's amazing bass, Tim's lead vocal and the sprinkling of electric piano that comes before the end-bit.

I'm only giving this a 3/5. I like it. But I think it could have been done better. I'd like to have seen what Phil Manzanera would have done with this, perhaps it would have worked better with him.

 

How did you get into these guys?

For me I got into them twice. Crowded House's first album was a big hit and I had it back in the 80s and LOVED it. I wasn't so keen on Temple of Low Men and I moved on.

Then later in the mid-nineties I had moved to Denver. The Finn Brothers actually had some kind of following there, and they got played on a local radio station out of Boulder (a "modern rock" station) fairly regularly.

I read an interview in the local paper with Tim Finn --The Finn Brothers were playing in Boulder that night and he was promoting that. Of course, the paper mentioned Crowded House and Split Enz (who I had never heard of.) Remembering how much I had loved that first Crowded House album I made a note on it. Later in the year, I got Woodface, Together Alone and the Finn Brothers first album. (Known only as Finn in the rest of the world, I believe.)

I was absolutely blown away, particularly by Together Alone and the Finn Brothers. Both those albums in particular just suited my tastes at the time so well. After that I re-bought Temple of Low Men, True Colours and History Never Repeats -- the US best of compilation. That was all that was in print by Split Enz back then.

Over the next two years I managed to get almost everything else that the Enz did, plus Big Canoe and Before and After, which were quite easy to find back then. Escapade and Tim Finn were very hard to find, as was Mental Notes (though I had Second Thoughts) and Time and Tide. I found Tim Finn and Mental Notes in 2000 and in 2002 my brother procured me a cassette of Time and Tide that did me for years.

Most of these albums were imported. I never heard Escapade until about ten years ago, when I ordered a CD from somewhere in Belgium. (The Internet really does make these things easier.) I've only recently (like in the last month) been able to buy The Rootin' Tootin' Luton Tapes (and then only the single disc version.) At this point, the main thing I"m missing is some soundtrack albums and some B-sides from Neil and Tim, and I may have to be content with missing those as prices are exhorbitant!

 

Yes the quirkiness and oddness both image and music was just toned down & focused to make them more commercial. Same applies to Judd's work with The Swingers.

Here in Australia I got into them like most Australians did through their breakthrough hit "I Got You" in 1980 (mainly via Countdown the main music video TV show at the time) and followed their career from there. A couple of earlier singles made a minor impact such as "I See Red" but "I Got You" was a monster hit as was the album True Colours.