After consecutive weekends with no
downtime, Sheila and I finally got a chance to just hang out at home last night
and play our favourite game, Arkham Horror. One win and one most unfortunate
loss resulted.
I also got a chance to finally
listen to all the new music I’ve been buying. I liked all of it, although I may
have overdosed Sheila on Guy Clark for the foreseeable future.
Anyhow, let’s get on with this
whole music review thing I do.
Disc 647 is….Swamp Ophelia
Artist: Indigo Girls
Year of Release: 1994
What’s up with the Cover? Behold these Ladies
of Distinction, resplendent in their nineties vests, as they recline in their
sumptuous chamber of kitsch! This room looks like a cross between an antique
furniture store and the seventies rumpus room my aunt and uncle used to have
with that floor to ceiling tree-scene wallpaper.
In
an attempt to make the cover even ‘artier’ the Girls have cut it up into pieces
and then glued it back together, slightly off. The overall effect is akin to
having to unexpectedly visit your Grandmother after dropping acid, which is to
say, unpleasant.
How I Came To Know It: I was a fan of the Indigo Girls
since their first album, and “Swamp Ophelia” was me buying their latest album
the moment it came out.
How It Stacks Up: I have six Indigo Girls albums. Sadly, I’ll have to
put this one last. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means the other five are
better.
Rating: 3 stars
“Swamp Ophelia” was the first
Indigo Girls album that was a bit of a disappointment. It isn’t bad, it is just
that the four albums that preceded it were so strong that it couldn’t help but
come up a bit short by comparison.
The main ingredients are all still
there. We’ve got Amy Ray’s deeper rock-style voice complemented by fellow Girl
Emily Saliers’ high folksy range. They are kind of the female Blue Rodeo this
way, alternating taking the lead just as Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, do, instinctively
knowing how to best support each other’s style as they go.
“Swamp Ophelia” has a softness
around the edges that has more in common with 1990’s “Nomads Indians Saints” than
the previous album, 1992’s “Rites of Passage.” I prefer their “Rites of Passage”
sound.
There’s still a lot to recommend “Swamp
Ophelia” though. “Least Complicated”
is a sing-a-long ‘lessons learned’ type song that is right in the Indigo Girls’
wheelhouse. I’ve listened to it lots of times and still don’t fully know what
it’s about, though. I think it is the collapse of a relationship causing Emily
to think back to the first love of her youth. Whatever the case, it reminds you
that you can’t go back in life and even if you could, you wouldn’t know what
the hell to do any better than you do now.
The upbeat and positive songs like
“Power of Two” are a bit saccharine.
I wish the Girls all the happiness in the real world but I like them best when
they are feeling angsty and uncertain.
“The Wood Song” is a standout about getting older and holding on
through the good and the bad. My favourite line is:
“The thin horizon of a plan is almost clear
My friends and I have had a hard time
Bruising our brains, hard up against change
All the old dogs and the magician.”
Because magicians do tricks, and
old dogs can’t learn them – get it? Get it? OK, it is a bit too clever, but I
still like it. Also, the chorus has a nice message that reinforces the general
theme of the record; that you gotta go through rough patches to make it all
worth it:
“But the wood is tired and the wood is old
And we’ll make it fine if the weather holds
But if the weather holds we’ll have missed the point.”
Weirdly, because this song has a nautical
theme, and is about aging and ultimately sailing off into the Great Beyond it
had me thinking about Tennyson’s “Crossing
the Bar” for the second straight review. (“Crossing the Bar” also ‘crossed’ my mind discussing Gram Parson’s “In My Hour of Darkness”).
That’s a lot of Tennyson on the
brain, but Tennyson is pretty awesome, though. My university text of his poetry
still has my graffiti on the cover where I wrote “The Master” and “the Demigod”
with arrows pointing to Alfred’s portrait. I still love me some Tennyson, and
if you have never sat down on a rainy evening and read “In Memoriam” from cover to cover without stopping, then you haven’t
lived. But I digress…
Back to “The Wood Song” which in addition to being thoughtful and
considered, has a clever arrangement, with a mournful violin leading off that
makes you think of an old sea dog sitting on a barrel in the hold and sawing
out a sea shanty. Likely an old sea shanty that he’s been playing for years
because like I said earlier, old dogs…
Even though “Swamp Ophelia” isn’t
the best Indigo Girls album, it still got me thinking, and listening to Amy and
Emily play off each other’s voice and guitar so artfully is always worth the journey,
at sea or otherwise.
Best tracks: Fugitive,
Least Complicated, Reunion, The Wood Song
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