•
Rating: Am I a pirate, am I a gentleman? Or am I just an old senile fool? Please, don't be mean. Meanwhile, let's assume I'm a sort of gentleman, no matter if I say it myself.
Thinking about where I come from, a place without a book at home and where the aesthetic was like a bargain store, well, in the end, I got lucky.
Sure, I grew up on snacks and television, so, obviously, I can't be that great.
From the little I had, though, Giamburrasca/Alan Ford/Arsenio Lupin/Cochi e Renato/Peanuts, I found what I needed to live a little like on the moon, unrolling my personal carpet of fantasy.
It was an attic, it was a basement, with the small recorder always on, Battisti first, De Gregori then. And Deep Red with its scary music.
And then finally albums like this one that at first listen made you say “come on!”, but slowly you got there...
We were small though, and so we used to laugh to defend ourselves. Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, oh please!!! Better, much better, Cico Felipe Cayetano Lopez Martinez Y Gonzalez. We definitely got Zagor better.
After all, we didn't notice the ugliness around us, the tasteless sloppiness was the only possible world. Then if we finally noticed it, it's also thanks to albums like this.
Indeed, the albums.
All that intelligence came to us precisely with the music, that is, with a direct and, so to speak, physical aesthetic experience.
Then came the books, of course....
And then, again, that type of intelligence that needs neither books nor music.
But, let's be clear, they are all things that only brushed by me.
I'm nothing but a fool...
...
“Hello automatism”
“Hello emotion”...
“What the hell are you saying, Lulù?”
“Don't worry, I'll get there”
...
Et voilà, a melody like a magic lantern or crystal ball, then the aristocratic ennui of the voice. And be satisfied, because I can't describe it better.
Above all, though, it's what comes next, like a small keyboard thrown in a blender and then sautéed...
It reminded me of a mechanical organ or a close relative. Also because Eno had an uncle and this uncle had one of those strange gadgets at home.
“Automatism and emotion”, thought our young man. And this is the first thing, the fact that, indeed, the young man was a thinking head.
The second thing is that it’s nice that opposing concepts exchange a greeting, albeit from afar. And this thing happens here, track eight or nine of this album...
And so:
“Hello automatism”
“Hello emotion”...
...
Magic chest of the absolute beginner, this album feels doubly youthful, mine I imagine, but also that of certain music.
That everything here is for the first time, after all, who had ever heard of things like the chamber of secrets, or the blender/crucible creator and devourer of sounds?
And all possible relationships between three-letter words (art/pop) and a four-letter one (play) are contemplated, with the latter intended especially as unpredictability and play. Soccer is beautiful thanks to the madness of the ball.
...
Here we inhabit a world between chance and control, between the wheel of fortune and science, as if an incongruous link united in the same person Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio.
So here is a surprising freshness “cum grano salis”. A very personal “grammar of fantasy”, that if there is a logic there is also a fantastic one, and here both logic and fantastic exist...
And everything holds together: distorted vintage sounds, the foggy decadence, the still glam sparkle, the explosions from a modern little chemist, and a lot of new wave ahead of its time.
Not to mention certain songs that are proof that even a dandy sings in the shower. And he does it, among other things, with a very egghead art school voice.
In short, a masterpiece...
Trallallà...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch (03:00)
My, my, my, we're treating each other just like strangers
I can ignore the significance of these changes
But you can't treat it lightly, and you'll have to face the consequences
All my worst fears are grounded
You have to make the choice between the Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and me (no, no, no).
By this time I got to looking for a kind of substitute
I can't tell you who I found, except that it rhymes with dissolute
But my baby's so lazy, she is almost unable, and it's driving me crazy
And her loving's just a fable that we try, with passion, to recall
Send for an ambulance or an accident investigator
He's breathing like a furnace
So I'll see you later, alligator
He'll set the sheets on fire
Mmm, quite a burning lover
Now he'll barbeque your kitten
He is just another learner lover
You have to make the choice between the Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and me.
04 Cindy Tells Me (03:30)
Cindy tells me, the rich girls are weeping
Cindy tells me, they've given up sleeping alone
And now they're so confused by their new freedoms
And she tells me they're selling up their maisonettes
Left the Hotpoints to rust in the kitchenettes
And they're saving their labour for insane reading.
Some of them lose - and some of them lose
But that's what they want - and that's what they choose
It's a burden - such a burden
Oh what a burden to be so relied on.
Cindy tell me, what will they do with their lives
Living quietly like labourer's wives
Perhaps they'll re-acquire those things they've all disposed of.
06 On Some Faraway Beach (04:40)
Given the chance
I'll die like a baby
On some far away beach
When the season's over.
Unlikely
I'll be remembered
As the tide brushes sand in my eyes
I'll drift away.
Cast up on a plateau
With only one memory
A single syllable
Oh lie low lie low.
07 Blank Frank (03:35)
Blank Frank is the messenger of your doom and your destruction
Yes, he is the one who will set you up as nothing
And he is one who will look at you sideways
His particular skill is leaving bombs in people's driveways.
Blank Frank has a memory that's as cold as an iceberg
The only time he speaks is in incomprehensible proverbs
Blank Frank is the siren, he's the air-raid, he's the crater
He's on the menu, on the table, he's the knife and he's the waiter
09 Some of Them Are Old (04:40)
People come and go and forget to close the door
And they leave their stains and cigarette butts trampled on the floor
And when they do, remember me, remember me.
Some of them are old, some of them are new
Some of them will turn up when you least expect them to
And when they do, remember me, remember me.
Lucy you're my girl, Lucy you're a star
Lucy please be still and put your madness in a jar
But do beware, it will follow you, it will follow you.
Some of them are old but it would help if you could smile
To earn a crooked sixpence you'll walk many crooked miles
And as you do, remember me, remember me.
10 Here Come the Warm Jets (04:00)
[...Inaudible...]
[Further] we make claims on [our teas]
[Dawn inner here] for we've nowhere to be
Nowhere to be
Nowhere to be
[Father stains], we're all on our knees
Down on our words and we've nothing to be
Nothing to be
Nothing to be
Further down we're all on our [sails]
[Paid to upheed] though we've nothing these days
Nothing these days
Nothing these days
[Further still, their stall in a daze]
We're down on our knees and we've nothing to say
Nothing to say
Nothing to say...
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By francis
These are masterpieces for which the very word "review" is an unforgivable offense and impudence.
Brian Eno proves to be an absolute genius: in the title track he even manages to move by always using the same riff and starting the vocals after two minutes.
By Nevadagaz
Here come the Warm Jets reveals something new with every listen and paves the way for an incredible musical career.
Eno was brilliantly tuned to the Glam Rock wavelength and soon would have been onto New Wave and Punk too, a casual or conscious precursor of the sounds that would come.
