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Rating: What times those must have been! Times of vinyl and cassettes, and even 45s. Times when everything was slower and more reflective, and when a record could last an entire season. Paradoxically, however, for a band, releasing a long-playing record each year was routine, and the anticipation was intense for those few who back then had the opportunity, the time, and the means to follow the music market as well as a wallet that allowed them to own both a turntable and buy a thirty-three record.
Today, a record is already old before it is released. The output of individual artists has thinned considerably to partially compensate for the flood of new records that weekly (and many uselessly) invade us from all sides.
With this 1970 work, Caravan was only at their second album release and already showed full maturity and awareness of their resources. Valid exponents of the so-called "Canterbury sound," albeit from the less hard-line wing, in reality, they offer no more and no less than a sort of progressive noticeably turned in a melodic key.
The typical features of the genre are all there: song titles divided into various movements, excessive dilation of each single song, a cascade use of keyboards, and melodies that struggle to get under your skin but slowly make their way in and never leave.
Controversial and debated for years, progressive rock, faced with large numbers of detractors, also has many admirers. However, a record of this magnitude can bring everyone to agreement, as the recording era offered an as-yet untapped territory, and the exaggerations, exhaustive suites, and purely self-indulgent tendencies of the genre were still far from arriving, and the sense of restraint was not yet optional.
Undoubtedly, it is a record that is a product of its own era. The approach to listening must be necessarily and sensibly directed towards the past, and let's be honest, this music hasn't aged well: today it would be unfeasible to present a record of similar nature. Nevertheless, it holds a certain allure.
Caravan is almost never mentioned as standard-bearers of progressive rock since there are other well-known names, especially in Italy in the early seventies when they gained endless followers, but at least for a short period, they proved worthy to stand alongside them.
Having not lived through it firsthand, I can't say I am nostalgic for those times, but something tells me that, at least musically, I would have felt at ease. What times those must have been!
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 And I Wish I Were Stoned / Don't Worry (08:11)
Once I had a dream, nothing else to do
Sat and played my mind in time with all of you
Got down in the road
Crossed my heart and cried
When you told me how you`d love
To live and not to die
Why why why?
I wish I were stoned on my mind
Why why why, oh why?
Dreamed I saw a man walked upon the sea
Dreamed it once again and saw that he was me
Looking close at me I looked a lot like you
Knowing where to go but not quite what to do
Why why why?
I wish I were stoned on my mind
Why why why, oh why?
Give me all your love in a smile
And I`ll tell you what I`m thinking
Let me see the world through your eyes
And I`ll show you where I`m sitting
Once I had a dream, nothing else to do
Sat and played my mind in time with all of you
Got down in the road
Crossed my heart and cried
When you told me how you`d love
To kill and not to die
Why why why?
I wish I were stoned on my mind
Why why why, oh why?
Don't Worry
Don't worry about me
I've got all that I need
And I'm singing my song to the sky
You know how it feels
With the breeze of the sun in your eyes
Not minding that time's passing by
I've got all and more
My smile, just as before
Is all that I carry with me
I talk to myself
I need nobody else
I'm lost and I'm mine, yes I'm free
03 As I Feel I Die (05:13)
With a song on my mind
I'm thinking of you
Through the dreams of a million eyes
I'll stand still with you
And wait till I find
The world that you're searching for
A cloud-coloured blind
Has entered my eyes
And everything's going
A slight shade of purple
But me, I don't mind
Today is my day
I'm living the life that I choose
I've found a way...
I can see a noser
Sit there all alone
And dream I'm sitting here
While magic fires the moon
I turn around my mind
And bid farewell to fear
Swimming through a wish
That I know I'm in a dream
I'm changing the music by ear
I'll have to leave behind
To reensure them in
And wanting oh so clear
Deep insert of time
I catch my breath to find I've got so far to go
Howlin' through the trees
A cry which is my ears
I turn around and go
Following the dream
Is not the easiest thing
Out of the shadows I see
And blackened till the moon
A magic creature moves
And says belongs to me
04 With an Ear to the Ground / You Can Make It / Martinian / Only Cox / Reprise (09:52)
05 Hello Hello (03:45)
Up on a hill top, far from the city
Overlooking a stream
I heard a sound, it made me look round
I looked back where I had just been
There just behind a ledge
There was a man he leapt to and fro
Clipping away at a hedge
Suddenly I heard a ringing singing
But he was nowhere to be seen
Pulling my trousers up to my knees
I waded across the stream
Back to the place where I could hear sounds
And where the old man once had been
There just behind a ledge
I looked about, I couldn't make out
Where he had been clipping the hedge
I could not hear what he was singing
But I found my ears ringing with the sound
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Other reviews
By CosmicJocker
"Their fairy-tale jazz-rock with strongly bucolic hues... manage to carry me away."
"Listening to this album is a tour into the past, full of naive exuberance and sweet anguish of a boy falling in love for the first time."
