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"Too Close To Heaven"
The unreleased
Fisherman's Blues sessions
Released:
Europe, 24/09/2001 (RCA)
The Adventure began when I met the Fiddler. I was ready
for him too. The sound had been in my head for months...
When Mike Scott met "the fiddler" in the summer of 1985
his band seemed on a pre-ordained path. The addition of Steve's unique
violin style to the sound which the band had crafted over two albums
created what was arguably the most inspiring Celtic Rock band of all
time. Soon afterwards the album "This is the Sea" was released,
and its single "The Whole of the Moon" which remains the
band's most well known work to date. Major tours followed, supporting
bands such as The Pretenders and Simple Minds, and with each passing
month the Waterboys' profile was raised ever higher.
Yet when the band's fourth album, "Fisherman's Blues" came
out in 1988 everything had changed. A band that had previously been
dominated by pianos, guitars and sax had suddenly become decorated
by a far more traditional Celtic sound -- accordions, fiddles and
flutes. Gone, it seemed, was the raw power of "Don't Bang the
Drum" -- in its place the beauty of "The Stolen Child"
or "When Ye Go Away". The Waterboys had again invented themselves
a unique sound, a sound that would captivate audiences -- but something
distinctly different to that which was expected.
So what had happened in the meantime? Many wondered, but few knew.
There were snippets of the transition out there though -- bootlegs
such as "The Windmill Lane Sessions" and sessions for Radio
One gave a clue as to what had been going on in the meantime. Songs
such as "Born to Be Together" and "Higher in Time",
covers such as "I'm So Lonesome I could Cry" and "The
Girl From the North Country" showed a side to the band's music
that had not -- as yet -- been unleashed to the world as a whole.
A side influenced by the music of Hank Williams, inspired by "Blues,
Cajun, Country and Old Gospel Music" -- but with a unique
edge yet unheard by all but a privileged few.
And so, it seemed, it would stay. As the band evolved it appeared
that this particular period was to be forgotten. Over the next decade
the band, and then Mike Scott solo, would evolve. The songs would
become more personal -- "What do you want me to do?", "She
Is So Beautiful" and "Dark Man of My Dreams" would
explore and expose the inner feelings of the man himself. In "City
Full of Ghosts" Mike himself admitted to hearing "the ghost
of a sound that ain't ever coming back" and when the Waterboys
returned last year with "Rock in the Weary Land" it was
with a very different "sound" than anything that had gone
before.
In the latter stages of the nineties Mike had, however, been negotiating
with Chrysalis to buy back the rights to the hundreds of unfinished
recordings which had not made it onto "Fisherman's Blues".
Earlier this year he returned to the studio to craft an album from
what was there; to mix the songs, add new parts where they had never
been recorded, to create a collection of tracks that would stand on
its own as a contemporary, rather than a historic, work. In the sleeve
notes to "Too Close to Heaven" Mike explains how "the
work used me, absorbed me, took me deep into every song",
how he found himself yelling out "YES!!" in the studio
time and time again. And then it was ready....
"Too Close to Heaven" is a very different album to anything
yet released by the Waterboys. Described as the "missing link"
between "This is the Sea" and "Fisherman's Blues"
the album compares well in comparison with both. Whilst "This
is the Sea" looked outward (at the Cold War, at Thatcherite England
and at people so busy doing their own thing that they'd lost site
of what was important), much of "Too Close" looks inward,
exhibiting an inner torment and a search for relief. The album starts
optimistically with a cover of the old Gospel song "On My Way
To Heaven", a song that was a regular opener on the band's tours
in the late eighties - "All Aboard, All Aboard" is the joyful
call from Stationmaster Wickham as the metaphorical train prepares
to steam away with Mike onboard, keys to the kingdom in hand.
The next track will also be known to a good many Waterboys
fans; "Higher in Time" has appeared twice on CD to date.
Its first outing was as part of "The Golden Age Medley"
where a curious fellow called Brown MucBlem (somewhere between Andy
Williams and Rab C Nesbit) ranted about sporrans being refilled, and
the second was a stripped-down version included on the "Whole
of the Moon" best-of compilation. Whilst Brown's version was
designed as a joke, the other somehow failed to really fulfil the
potential that the song had exhibited when played on a much-bootlegged
radio session. On "Too Close to Heaven" the song realises
that potential and more; the whole production is glorious! First just
a lone piano, then a single violin note stretched to almost breaking
point, a driving bass and then the drums signal the arrival of a larger
sound than anything "The Big Music" ever had to offer. Even
in a cut down arrangement this song always had great power but as
Anto's majestic sax solo gives way to the words "Well I've been
to the bottom and I've been on the train. I've slept in the gutter
with my head in a drain. I've been brutally proud, mortally shamed,
but this is not a crime" the song takes on a whole new dimension.
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From here on the mood becomes more subdued. "The Ladder",
primarily voice and piano with just a touch of violin and mandolin
glorifying the arrangement, is a short song - less than three
minutes - but one that makes such an impression you just want
to play it again and again. "Once in my lifetime, I intend
to see," sings Mike, "a ladder ascending in front
of me, in front of me, in front of me." And from this into
the showstopper of the whole album, the title track "Too
Close To Heaven" - a 12-minute epic of such proportion
that it takes several listens to really sink in. The song is
so powerful that it is difficult to imagine it being by anybody
other than the Waterboys, though it is clearly influenced by
Prince; the inspired interaction between the violin and the
sax, the feeling obvious within the delivery. Here Mike counsels
a friend; lines such as "Now in the morning, you can cry
all that you want to - we'll spend the whole day weeping. Right
now I want you to lay down your weary head and let me see you
sleeping" define the first half of the song - strict in
tempo and vaguely reminiscent in sound to the far earlier "Love
That Kills". After five minutes have passed as the tempo
slows and the timing starts to stretch the song becomes even
more personal. Aided by the musical virtuosity that has always
been the band's hallmark the song is deeply moving. As Mike
sings, "Now I know this hurt that you're feeling, and I've
felt these same things too" you really believe he does.
And later, as he desperately pleads for the subject to "Smile
for me baby", you can't help but hope that she did.
Stunned and silenced by the power of the previous track, the
relatively upbeat tempo and arrangement of "Good Man Gone"
comes as quite a relief. The tune, familiar to many as "Maggie,
it's time for you to go" (an anti-Thatcher song played
by the band live around 1989), might be fairly bright but the
mood is still anything but. Here Mike looks within, perhaps
letting us into some of the demons that made him - encouraged
by friend Jackie Leven - "get on the bus"; "My
eyes are like two troopers in the foxhole. I'm doing things
I used to know were wrong. I've hurt all my friends, and I'll
do it again. Lord, where's the good man gone?" The album
at this point is becoming distinctly personal, brutally honest
and listening to the songs you start to feel the pain that Mike
was clearly feeling at the time. In "Blues for your Baby"
the narrator (presumably again Mike) pleads with a sax man to
play one last song - "You've been blowing all night I know,
and you need your rest. But before you go to bed, man, I've
got one request. You played a blues for your baby, now play
a blues for me." As "a bottle of something" is
pulled from Mike's coat, the sax man is coaxed to go on playing
as the emotions are outpoured. The request is for the lost and
the lonely, it's for the tricked and misused, it's for every
storm-blown disappointed soul and for every heart that's been
abused. The song is for all the women in the world, but it's
tellingly also for him - for he's hurting too.
Maybe after all the soul searching exhibited within the previous
three songs it's just as well that "Custer's Blues"
is next. A complex song with a brutally honest message to anybody
who believes that they can claim what isn't theirs and survive
unscathed, the vocals are at times whispered over a desolate
backing and at others screamed over a crescendo of awesome proportions.
Dynamically this is perhaps the most complex of all the songs
on the album, the song ending with an eerie desolation. And
from this desolation comes the beauty of the eighth track, a
cover of a song from "How the West Was Won" called
"Home in the Meadow". Sung to the tune of "Greensleaves"
(Henry VIII's finest musical work, they say) the writer invites
the listener to "Come, come, there's a wondrous land where
I'll build you a home in the meadow." Mike Scott's voice
has always been ideally suited to love songs and this is no
exception. With a backing of flute, sax and the occasional mandolin
and a gentle tempo the song's impression lasts long after the
final notes have resounded.
Following a brief Wicko-led musical hoedown, the penultimate
track blasts into life with a tinkle of pianos and a soaring
sax. "Tenderfootin'" is a pleasant enough blues ramble,
unlikely to be the track that gives the Waterboys' their next
international best-selling single but clearly not included for
this purpose. In the sleeve notes Mike writes "The ultimate
improvisation was Tenderfootin' - made up on the spot as the
tape rolled and never again played." -- an awesome
achievement and one which defines exactly what made, and still
makes, the Waterboys great. Despite its spontaneous nature the
song's words flow freely, the intervention of each of the musicians
seems pre-planned. Finally we come to the close of the album
with the hauntingly beautiful "Lonesome Old Wind".
I first heard this song in 1990 when the Waterboys played it
in Galway on New Year's Eve. For me, it was an immediate love
affair and hearing this finished version for the first time
made my heart leap with joy - the memories that song invokes
of the West of Ireland and the friends I made there cannot be
understated. "You say I'm cruel, and you call me a fool!
Oh yes, and I agree! But that old wind is driving me, it wrestles
and it writhes in me, and alone is all I know how to be. When
I fall, brushed and broken, barely fit to crawl - hand to knee
- that lonesome old wind keeps on blowing me." As the song,
and the album, draws to a close it is fitting that the band
fade out and Anto is allowed to play the most touching solo
of the whole album, and as the drums signal everybody re-entering
for one last blast there's some time for consideration of what
it is we've just experienced.
"Too Close To Heaven" is a stunning album. It won't
necessarily appeal to everybody but it seems sure to touch anybody
who listens to it. It is the brutal honesty in most of the songs,
combined with awesome musical virtuosity and an incredibly inspired
running order that gives the album its power. I've listened
to it many times now but I still feel shell-shocked as the silence
returns.
Thoroughly recommended - if you only buy one album this year
then this should be it... 9/10
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