Posted by
zerotest
on Sep 10, 2007
‘Cool Fire’ review, by ‘The Half A Minute Music Critic’ Teddy Bandara.
available at CDBABY.COM
John Lyle’s cd features an eclectic grab-bag of styles, all of them soulfully executed and sheltered beneath the apt umbrella of the title ‘Cool Fire.’
‘When Wind Gets High’-
I love this tune. The lyrics’ tone of absurdist detachment is belied by a deep sadness at the core of the music, which is Lightfoot-like in its easy circular rhythm tied to the demented cycles of the song’s theme-
‘I’ve been counting backwards in my sleep
Breaking down the horror of belief
I’ve been laughing at things that give me grief’
The simple, descriptive melody is sung with a laidback fervor that perfectly complements its spirit. Almost my favorite song on the album, if only because of the last verse-
‘My old red rooster crows at dawn
When everything I’ve prayed against is gone
He leans his back against the fence
And sings a song’
It may be a guy thing but I don’t think so.
The second song on the album ‘Walk It On Down’ is a black/comic rocker, with stinging guitars, a droll, immaculately pitched vocal and a set of outrageous lyrics designed to ensure that John Lyle will never have a song included in a Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise movie.
‘Scientologists are coming
There’s a Mormon at the door
There’s a Witness counting heads
But he don’t know what for
The glory train has left the track
It’s barreling down the street
Scaring the bejesus out of
Everyone it meets’
Funny as hell, and a little scary too! Just how I like ‘em.
There’s an insane Ogden Nash your teeth at the wordplay environmental rocker called ‘Do Whales Have Scales,’ and a bizarrely unpredictable blues number called ‘A Dog Lies Down Sometime,’ which features the immortal lines-
‘Scrape the haggis off the wall
At the lesbians’ ball
Take your big foot off my throat
Write a letter to the Pope
We gotta legalize dope
And don’t forget to vote’
For sure, John. You stole my checklist.
For this writer, there’s not a bad track on this cd. But the highlight is the final three songs which hang together like The Beatles in their heyday. The first of the three is ‘Old Hontana Road,’ which begins gently with an open-tuned acoustic guitar slowly establishing an easy-going, if sharply picked, slightly Spanish theme.
After eight bars of dozing in the sun, an inventively aggressive electric bass enters, panned hard right, to be followed by a right of centre dulcimer contributing a catchy figure which provides soon to be needed light through the dark staves to come. Then the singing starts.
I don’t know what’s behind this song, but I’m glad I didn’t have to live it. It is the most tightly compressed, vivid portrait of violence that I have encountered in a song. It is also lovely and sad and finally peaceful in its own way. The words are obtuse, and somehow that’s right. The last verse is a heartbreaker, followed by a weeping electric guitar outro gracefully taking it home-
‘Sun burns down on Old Hontana Road
Turn your head and you won’t see them go
You won’t see scarecrows smile
At nothing in the dirt
You won’t see them leave a world of hurt’
The second of my defacto ‘trilogy’ is ‘I Won’t Be Lonesome When I’m Gone.’ It is my understanding that most of the instrumentation on ‘Cool Fire’ is by John Lyle. On this track, guitars and bass are by John Murray, a longtime associate, whose playing perfectly complements what I suspect Lyle is trying to do, which is to create an oasis of serene respite between two very difficult songs. And that is just what ‘I Won’t Be Lonesome When I’m Gone’ is: an exceptionally beautiful calm before the terrible storm that is my favorite song on the album ‘Sparkling River.’
‘Sparkling River’ is a devastating portrait in words and music of psychosis, the falling apart of the human being, with attendant points of view of loved ones and enemies playing their illusory parts to ‘tragic’ helpless perfection. The shifting of perspectives suggestive of the splintered self and its significant others culminating in the one ‘I’ arrived at through the mighty twists and turns and magic mischief of our flowing engine of events the ‘Sparkling River,’ is brilliantly done. By the Sparkling River too, of course.
Accompanied by acoustic guitar, bass and drums, Lyle’s voice sounds desperately strong despite carrying an ascending verse melody that cannot break out of its shell, its release found only in the fatalistic submission of the chorus-
‘You know where I’m going
You know where I’ve been
You know which wind’s blowing
And you know it’s not a sin’
It is tempting to quote all of the lyrics because they are so good. This is the chilling first verse-
‘Like a faded leaf
Hanging by a thread
I blow into the wind
And tumble down
Like I was dead
I say I’m not a thief
But I won’t stand in the light
So you can wash my face
And give my empty mouth a bite’
All’s well that ends well, and this is how ‘Cool Fire’ ends-
‘There is a Sparkling River
Flowing through my head
Bringing understanding
Who I though I was is dead
Rollin’ and ‘a tumblin’
Through wind and stone and sea
Laughing like a baby
When a baby is free’
Watch out for what lies between!
It is rare to find songs of such quality in popular music. John Lyle would probably get more recognition and about the same remuneration if he trod the path of the poet. But he’s a singer, a guitarist and one of the finest songwriters I’ve been fortunate enough to discover in my erstwhile guise of ‘Half A Minute Music Critic.’
If it took you more than 30 seconds to read this, lengthen your nap.
