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Rating: With absolute ease, that synthesizer that introduces "Time Passages" seems to continue right where "Year Of The Cat," the song, ended: a refined and light melody, splendidly clear and dreamy, that develops freely, without radio duration constraints, reaching its peak with a memorable sax solo. Great artists create great albums, and sometimes from great albums come even better ones; in terms of sound richness, variety, maturity, atmospheres, "Time Passages" from 1978 is Al Stewart's highest peak ever reached. In these nine songs, there's a bit of everything: the shrewd and captivating billyjoel-esque pop rock of "Valentina Way", the emotional crescendo of a sumptuous "A Man For All Seasons", the turmoil of post-revolutionary France in "Palace Of Versailles", the dark and pressing atmospheres of a Jules Verne-like "Life In Dark Water", country-western echoes with a hint of Leonard Cohen in the melancholic "Almost Lucy", a gentle hint of sirtaki in "Timeless Skies", flamenco in "End Of The Day", and jazzy-oriented pop rock in "Song On The Radio".
This review is very brief by my usual standards, but I hope I have conveyed the idea well: "Time Passages" is art, is love for music, is the usual Al Stewart album, with the usual class, the usual beautiful lyrics, the usual seductive voice, never coarse, never arrogant. Screw genius and recklessness, perfection is achieved only with work, passion, constant refinement, humility, perfection belongs to Al Stewart. An album to listen to at any time, whether happy or not, also wonderful as a soundtrack for a highway trip, from personal experience.
"Some call on Jeowah, some cry out for Allah, some wait for the boats that will row to Valhalla, well, you should try to accept what the fates are unfolding, while some say they're sure where the blame should be falling, you look round for maybe a chance of forestalling, but too soon it's over and done, and the man for all seasons is lost, behind the sun"
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Time Passages (06:42)
It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel
That there's something to learn
It's just a game that you play
Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
02 Valentina Way (04:04)
Find another lover tomorrow
Go find another lover today
You've been so long on lonely street
That you're surely falling into decay
It's time to reconstruct yourself
Time to test the water again
Well it's sad to see
It's a tragedy
That you're wasting away
Look around ... tell me
Is it really worth the price
That you pay
On Valentina Way
I don't think she's ready to listen
I don't think she wants to come back
The atmosphere's too cold in here
To attract a butterfly like that
I think she took the boat-train out
Maybe caught the night express
She's got devious lies
And chameleon eyes
And she can't care less
Oh, buy yourself a ticket
On anything leaving today
From Valentina Way
Oh the rain comes down
And shines up the stars
Oh, the night steps out
In streetlights and bars
To the sounds of guitars
Listen ...
05 Almost Lucy (03:43)
Lucy worked a different club every day,
And though she put her mind to it,
Her heart was never in it,
She stayed around just long enough to get paid,
She won't pass the time with you, she can't stay a minute,
And all these changing faces never bothered her at all,
They just existed like a back-drop or a pattern on the wall,
Lucy looks like someone who is waiting for a call,
She knows he'll come, but no-one else can hear at all,
Lucy finds the dressing room and the bar,
Hangs her clothes up, hopes tonight,
The contract won't be broken,
Well, they kick you round so much when you're not a star,
Make you play all night just for a pittance or a token,
But all these imperfections never bothered her at all,
She says it sharpens your perception when your back's against the wall,
There's something that enables her to rise above it all,
To shrug it off, just when it seems to go too far,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel the pain comin' on inside,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel it now and you don't know why,
You don't know why.
(Instrumental Solo)
The last time that I saw her she had given up the chase,
Moved away to California, got a suntan on her face,
She said that life was just another time another space,
It's over now, she learned a lot, it's not a waste,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel the pain comin' on inside
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel it now and you don't know why,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel yourself reaching out inside,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel it now and you don't know why.
06 The Palace of Versailles (05:23)
The wands of smoke are rising
From the walls of the Bastille
And through the streets of Paris
Runs a sense of the unreal
The Kings have all departed
Their servants are nowhere
We burned out all their mansions
In the name of Robespierre
And still we wait
To see the day begin
Our time is wasting in the wind
Wondering why
Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles
Inside the midnight councils
The lamps are burning low
On you sit and talk all through the night
But there's just no place to go
And Bonaparte is coming
With his army from the South
Marat your days are numbered
And we live hand to mouth
While we wait
To see the day begin
Our time is wasting in the wind
Wondering why
Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles
The ghost of revolution
Still prowls the Paris streets
Down all the restless centuries
It wonders incomplete
It speaks inside the cheap red wine
Of cafe summer nights
Its red and amber voices
Call the cars at traffic lights
Why do you wait
To see the day begin
Your time is wasting in the wind
Wondering why
Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles
Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles
07 Timeless Skies (03:34)
Sleeping under the sky
The barges are gone to a lost decade
On overgrown banks here
Lovers footsteps went by
Long before ever the roads were made
And in our turn we passed here
And carved our names on trees
As the days washed by like
Waves of an endless sea
Under timeless arcadian skies
Under timeless arcadian skies
Time runs through your fingers
You never hold it at all till it's gone
Some fragments just linger with you
Like snow in the spring hanging on
I left the village behind in the night
To fade like a sail on the darkening seas
The shifts and changes in the patterns of life
Will weather it more than the centuries
And in another village in a far off foreign land
The new day breaks out opening up its hand
And the sun has the moon in his eyes
As he wanders the timeless skies
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