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Rating: Welcome back, dear friends of DeBaser, after a necessary break, I resume with renewed vigor my examination of the artistic journey of Alastair Ian Stewart, which I had interrupted right at its peak, namely the beginning of his golden years, marked by a wonderful and unfortunately underrated album like "Past, Present And Future". From a strictly commercial point of view and also according to many critics, the true consecration occurs instead two years later with his sixth studio album, which is "Modern Times". However, from my personal perspective, it is the most "weak" record release, so to speak, of the Al Stewart period 1973-1980. Compared to an eclectic, grandiose album overflowing with fascinating historical references like its predecessor PP&F, enriched by refined and charming ballads such as "Old Admirals" and "Last Days Of June 1934" and majestic musical paintings like "Nostradamus" and especially "Roads To Moscow", in my opinion, the highest point ever reached by Stewart as a storyteller, "Modern Times" appears generally more opaque and subdued, dominated by more nuanced and reflective sounds and atmospheres, at times slightly bitter.
The troubled and exemplary blues rock of "Carol" is the perfect example of a more introspective and almost existential songwriting that dominates almost the entire album, also noticeable in "What's Going On", in the melancholic ballad "Not The One", in the rhythmically smoky arpeggios of "Next Time", which seems to return to the musical simplicity of "Zero She Flies", with a more severe and reflective approach and also in the orchestrations (curated by producer Alan Parsons) of the long and sinuous title track, which brings back melancholic adolescent memories in what almost seems like a hymn to nostalgia, with a subtle charm and, depending on the moments, more or less perceptible, a statement that constitutes the very essence of the album, namely an accessibility and appeal strongly conditioned by particular moods, sometimes a strength, many others a limitation.
At least initially, the only two "lively" episodes capture the listener's attention: the brilliant homage to science fiction literature in "Sirens Of Titan", an engaging and visionary uptempo folk that somewhat covers the same role that "Warren Harding" had in "Past, Present And Future" and especially a grand instant classic like "Apple Cider Re-Construction", an enthusiastic and lively country rock that smells of America, of freedom, and of long journeys across prairies and sun-drenched highways, with the wind in your hair and the roar of a Harley-Davidson twin-cylinder, a great homage to a counterculture that became a legend as a precursor to a great affinity with US-oriented atmospheres destined to continue in "Year Of The Cat" and even in the recent "A Beach Full Of Shells" and "Sparks Of Ancient Light". The quintessence of "Modern Times", the song that best represents it is undoubtedly "The Dark And The Rolling Sea", velvety and soothing, almost comforting despite the intrinsic pessimism of the song, a delicate accordion, elegant guitar phrasings, and a calm voice that sings a beautiful poem, a perfect paradigm of the fragility of life: "Oh you set your course for the furthest shore and you never once looked back, and the flag you flew was a pirate cross on a field of velvet black, and those landsmen who you but lately knew were left stranded on the lea, don't call on them when the storm clouds rise on the dark and the rolling sea".
In summary, the eight songs that compose "Modern Times" form an album of great songwriting depth, something Al Stewart had already attempted three years earlier with "Orange", an album overall much less "focused" and successful than this but capable of reaching great peaks of pathos; as far as I am concerned, the absence of the storytelling component, perfectly elaborated with PP&F and a hallmark of this artist, weighs heavily in the final judgment, which in my eyes makes it an interlude, a transitional episode between the great album of 1973 and the sumptuous trilogy that will follow, managing to harmoniously coexist with refined reflection and history.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Sirens of Titan (02:53)
I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
Carried along by their call
Seeking for a way to enlighten
Searching for the sense of it all
Like a kiss on the wind I was thrown to the stars
Captured and ordered in the army of Mars
Marching to the sound of the drum in my head
I followed the call
Only to be Malachi Constant
I thought I came to this earth
Living in the heart of the moment
With the riches I gained at my birth
But here in the yellow and blue of my days
I wander the endless Mercurian caves
Watching for the signs the Harmonians make
The words on the walls
I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
And so I came in the end
Under the shadow of Saturn
With statues and birds for my friends
Finding a home at the end of my days
Looking around I've only to say
I was the victim of a series of accidents
As are we all
I was drawn by the sirens of Titan (as are we all)
As are we all
I was drawn by the sirens of Titan (as are we all)
As are we all...
02 Carol (04:27)
Sometimes it seems unimaginable
That you were ever any other way
With your white rose face and your orphan clothes
Embroidered jeans and silver chains
You're a well known face in all the hang-out places
Where the lost souls congregate
You sit all night, but you talk too fast
I don't know what you're trying to say
Oh Carol, I think it's time for running for cover, a-ha
Believe me, you're everyone's and nobody's lover, a-ha
You've got a one-way ticket for all your yesterdays
I know your daddy said he'd talk to you
But he never really found the time
And your TV mother with her cocktail eyes
Could never really reach your mind
So you fixed your star to a passing dream
And took a cocaine holiday
Now the years flow round you in a muddy stream
And you need another place to stay.
Oh Carol, I think it's time for running for cover, a-ha
Believe me, you're everyone's and nobody's lover, a-ha
You've got a one-way ticket for all your yesterdays
Reach down, silvery ship from the stars, I know you're there
I know you'll understand me, you can take me anywhere
I know you must be there
Well, sometimes it seems impossible
That the game could get that rough
But the stage is set, the exit's barred
And the make-up won't come off
So you make your bow to the balcony
You light another cigarette
And the lights grow dim as the music starts
And it's easy to forget
Oh Carol, I think it's time for running for cover, a-ha
Believe me, you're everyone's and nobody's lover, a-ha
You've got a one-way ticket for all your yesterdays
Reach down, silvery ship from the stars, I know you're there
I know you'll understand me, you can take me anywhere
I know you must be there
04 Apple Cider Re-Constitution (05:22)
When we came to the station all the trains were rusty,
The doors were open and the windows broken in
There was grass in all the cracks and the air hung musty
The travel posters were flapping in the wind
So we moved through the dust and gloom
Playing waiting games in the waiting-room
Lay our sleeping-bags out on the floor
CHORUS
And on Sunday morning easy rider comes to me with apple cider
Leaves me here without a place to go
If I followed the coast road, I'd be home by evening
The harbour lights still cut across the bay
>From the slot machine arcade the lights go streaming
To the bikes outside the rock 'n' roll cafe
Ah but you know those small town blues
Are really too much to lose-
There's nothing really there to go back for
CHORUS
Any railway station would be just fine, fine, fine
To settle down and wash the cobwebs from your head
If your situation's running dry, dry, dry
Find a waiting-room beneath the stars to make your bed
You know London can make your brain stall
The streets get cold and empty on a rainy night
So you duck into the subway station, you can hear the trains call
They want to take you to the Earl's Court Road, but it don't seem right
And there's na, na, na noowah
On the juke-box, singing in the burger bar
See the people's faces in the passing cars don't want to know
CHORUS
YOu have the most appealing surface I have seen
Bring it over here, lay it down by me
Don't mean to make you nervous, I just mean
To make you see, this is the place to be
When we came to the station all the trains were rusty
The air was empty and the platforms overgrown
There were old tin cans and cats and the doors were crusted
With mud and leaves and names carved long ago
and the rails go on forever in a silver trail to the setting sun
You can follow them anywhere you want to go
CHORUS
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