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Rating: Cream's performances are intense and captivating, with extremely long solos and improvisations at the end, at high volume and energy.
The following year (1968), "Wheels Of Fire" is released, a double album half studio, half live. Repeating success is difficult, yet possible. This time the Cream sound blends its characteristic electric blues with a decidedly pop taste and greater psychedelic influences, with a touch of orchestration, violins, and cellos (studio LP); but live, the Cream maintain their direct and deeply bluesy approach. Lots of energy and unpredictable jams.
Clapton's guitar melts into a slippery wah-wah, it indulges, rages in his virtuosity; Baker shows that jazz technique learned in Blues Incorporated in schizophrenic drum solos; Bruce rides on solid bass lines, writes and interprets the songs.
The masterpiece is "White Room," fluid guitar and choruses, rhythmic drums and never predictable bass; "As You Said" is a psychedelic ballad with voice, guitar, and cello, where the voice is barely a whisper; and the thunderous riff of "Politician"; the energetic "Desert Cities Of The Heart"; the dreamy "Pressed Rat And Warthog."
Live, the performance of "Crossroads" is pulsating and alive, you feel the style of the three instrumentalists; one at a time, Clapton delights in the lengthy "Spoonful," Baker in the baffling "Toad" (17 minutes of drum solo).
If "Disraeli Gears" is a masterpiece, "Wheels Of Fire" is no less. Good ideas, they are there. Perhaps different, but they remain the Cream. In memory.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 White Room (05:03)
In the white room with black curtains, near the station
Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings
Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes
Dawnlight smiles on you, leaving my contentment
I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves
You said no strings could secure you at the station
Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows
I walked into such a sad time at the station
As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning
I'll wait in the queue when the trains come back
Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves
At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd
Consolation for the old wound now forgotten
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings
I'll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd
Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves
02 Sitting on Top of the World (05:01)
One summer day, she went away;
Gone and left me, she's gone to stay.
She's gone, but I don't worry:
I'm sitting on top of the world.
All the summer, worked all this fall.
Had to take Christmas in my overalls.
Chorus
Going down to the freight yard, gonna catch me a freight train.
Going to leave this town; worked and got to home.
Chorus
05 Pressed Rat and Warthog (03:18)
by Ginger Baker and Mike Taylor
Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn't want to; 'twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat's collection of dog legs and feet.
Sadly they left, telling no one goodbye.
Pressed rat wore red jodhpurs, warthog a striped tie.
Between them, they carried a three-legged sack,
Went straight round the corner and never came back.
Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
The bad captain madman had told them to stop
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat's collection of dog legs and feet.
The bad captain madman had ordered their fate.
He laughed and stomped off with a nautical gate.
The gate turned into a deroga tree
And his pegleg got woodworm and broke into three.
Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn't want to; 'twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat's collection of dog legs and feet.
06 Politician (04:16)
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
I want to just show you what my politics are.
I'm a political man and I practice what I preach.
I'm a political man and I practice what I preach.
So don't deny me baby, not while you're in my reach.
I support the left, though I'm leaning, leaning to the right.
I support the left, though I'm leaning to the right.
But I'm just not there when it's coming to a fight.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
I want to just show you what my politics are.
07 Those Were the Days (02:57)
When the city of Atlantis stood serene above the sea,
Long time before our time when the world was free,
Those were the days.
Golden cymbals flying on ocarina sounds,
Before wild Medusa's serpents gave birth to hell
Disguised as heaven.
Those were the days, yes they were, those were the days.
Those were their ways, miracles everywhere are they now?
They're gone.
Those were their ways, yes they were, those were their ways.
Those were the days, yes they were, those were the days.
Tie your painted shoes and dance, blue daylight in your hair,
Overhead a noiseless eagle fans a flame.
Wonder everywhere.
Those were the days, yes they were, those were the days.
Those were their ways, miracles everywhere are they now?
They're gone.
Those were their ways, yes they were, those were their ways.
Those were the days, yes they were, those were the days.
08 Born Under a Bad Sign (03:13)
Born under a bad sign
i've been down since i began to crawl
if it wasn't for bad luck
i wouldn't have no luck at all
bad luck and trouble is my only friend
i've been down ever since i was ten
Born under a bad sign
i've been down since i began to crawl
if it wasn't for bad luck
i wouldn't have no luck at all
More wine and women
is all i crave
big bad women gunna carry me to my grave
Born under a bad sign
i've been down since i began to crawl
if it wasn't for bad luck
i wouldn't have no luck at all
bad luck and trouble is my only friend
i've been down ever since i was ten
Born under a bad sign
i've been down since i began to crawl
if it wasn't for bad luck
i wouldn't have no luck
if it wasn't for real bad luck
i wouldn't have no luck at all
born under a bad sign
born under a bad sign
09 Deserted Cities of the Heart (03:38)
Upon this street where time has died.
The golden treat you never tried.
In times of old, in days gone by.
If I could catch your dancing eye.
It was on the way,
On the road to dreams, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love streams, yeah.
The street is cold, its trees are gone.
The story's told the dark has won.
Once we set sail to catch a star.
We had to fail, it was too far.
It was on the way,
On the road to dreams, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love streams, yeah.
I felt the wind shout like a drum.
You said, "My friend, love's end has come."
It couldn't last, had to stop.
You drained it all to the last drop.
It was on the way,
On the road to dreams, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love streams, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love streams, yeah.
On this dark street the sun is black.
The winter life is coming back.
On this dark street it's cold inside.
There's no retreat from time that's died.
It was on the way,
On the road to dreams, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love streams, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love streams, yeah.
Now my heart's drowned in no love.
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Other reviews
By March Horses
The perfect cover for an album that is the explosion of creativity, the definitive break from the old schemes of music understood as "blues".
This monumental fresco will remain the epitaph of the group, not counting posthumous live (and the negligible "Goodbye").
