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Rating: Platinum Grains from Taylor's Hourglass, 1997: "Hourglass" (Clessidra).
Yet another masterpiece of Taylor's mature composition after "Never Die Young" (1988), "New Moon Shine" (1991), and preceding the equally splendid "October Road" (2002). The Boston guitarist has been meticulous with his output of original works since the mid-eighties, offering a quality that is consistently very high. In fact, this is the only album of the '90s alongside "New Moon Shine"; this absence from the music scene probably also benefited the sales, as the album quickly topped the world charts and Taylor's popularity (already very high in the States) skyrocketed (enough to be represented in an episode of the animated series 'The Simpsons' from those years). The album opens with "Line 'Em Up," a soft ballad with an ironic and catchy refrain about the farewell of former U.S. President Richard Nixon from the White House in '74. A moment that is extremely moving for the American artist and is described with great regret: "I remember Richard Nixon back in '74, and the final scene at the White House door, and the staff lined up to say good-by, tiny tear in his shifty little eye... At that time my heart was all broke, I looked like ashes and smelled like smoke..."
The second track is stellar, with one of those 'beginnings' of guitar and voice that give goosebumps, the kind that only James can create. From this comes a bitter reflection on how everything continues to exist on earth, with cynical perseverance: "So the sun shines on this funeral, just the same as on a birth, the way it shines on everything that happens here on Earth..." It continues with one of the driving tracks of the album "Little More Time With You." A very rhythmical single featuring a special guest on his beloved harmonica: Stevie Wonder. (In reality, the James-Stevie collaboration, as bizarre as it may seem, is not new. The two had already duetted about thirty years earlier in 1976 on a track called "Don't Be Sad 'Cause Your Sun Is Down" from Taylor's album 'In The Pocket.'). The aforementioned track "Little More Time With You" soon became famous for the stir caused by some of the lyrics, in which the singer-songwriter with clear self-irony admits to having been addicted in the past to various substances: Methadone (a drug used for detoxifying heroin addicts), cocaine, alcohol, and finally admits to having abandoned them to indulge in the smoking of 'Tobacco Jones'. A glimpse of text from this: "...I passed on the cocaine, said bye-bye to my methadone, put down the bottle for one more day and backing off of my Tobacco Jones..." Sweet and harmonious is the melody for the next "Gaia," a track with great atmosphere about the strength of nature, and a plea to the goddess of nature to save it from our own continuous assaults; Saving nature is saving ourselves, wise Mr. Taylor sings to us. This is followed by two more 'easy' and immediate tracks, less important but equally catchy: "Ananas" and "Jump Up Behind Me," the latter with a particularly catchy and beautiful chorus. It also contains another illustrious duet with Sting on vocals in the 'Chorus.' The seventh track is one of the expressive cores of the album, a piece of extreme sweetness and sensitivity that touches the deepest strings of the soul, at the rhythm with which Taylor plucks those of his classical guitar, inevitably inducing me to a second listen every time. The subsequent tracks are also very beautiful, maintaining a very high level, although the musical strength of the album has already been largely unleashed in the previous part of the record. Returning for the closure is a Taylor gem, it is the concluding piece "Walking My Baby Back Home," a typical Taylorian romantic ballad. Also noteworthy is the extremely country ghost track "Hangnail." A worldwide success (to which James Taylor is not always accustomed) and Grammy for Best Pop Album in 1998.
Listen while allowing yourself to be relaxed by the magnificent melodies traced by the author's notes, but also paying attention to the beautiful lyrics, which account for more than half of the album's beauty.
Tracklist and Lyrics
04 Gaia (05:32)
The sky was light and the land all dark
The sun rose up over Central Park
I was walking home from work
Gaia
The petal sky and the rosy dawn
The world turning on the burning sun
Sacred wet green one we live on
Gaia
Run, run, run, run said the automobile and we ran
Run for your life, take to your heels
Foolish school of fish on wheels
Gaia
Turn away from your animal kind
Try to leave your body just to live in your mind
Leave your cold cruel mother earth behind
Gaia
As if you were your own creation
As if you were the chosen nation
And the world around you just a rude and
Dangerous invasion
Gaia
Someone's got to stop us now
Save us from us, Gaia
No one's gonna stop us now
We thought we ought to walk awhile
So we left that town in a single file
Up and up and up mile after mile after mile
We reached the tree line and I dropped my pack
Sat down on my haunches and I looked back down
Over the mountain
Helpless and speechless and breathless
Gaia
Pray for the forest pray to the tree
Pray for the fish in the deep blue sea
Pray for yourself and for God's sake
Say one for me
Poor wretched unbeliever
Someone's got to stop us now
Save us from us Gaia
No one's gonna stop us now
05 Ananas (05:45)
Je t'aime encore
Means I love you still
C'est pour toujours
Means I always will
Tu me manquais trop
Means I missed you too much
Je fait ce qual faut
Means I'll do what I must
Me voici ta fen�tre
Tous tes gens me voient ici
Here I am at your window darling
For all your people to see me
CHORUS:
Ananas laisse moi une fois
Laisse moi te voir
Let me one more time, ananas
Ananas, I'm lopin' along hopin' you're home
Open up and let me on in
Maybe I rise and maybe I fall
Maybe you lie underneath it all
I ain't got nothin' but for what you see
Even my own heart don't belong to me
Got your river running in my blood
Got your fire burning in my heart
You got me falling like a shooting star
Just like some tragic work of art
REPEAT CHORUS
Here I am at your window baby
For all your people to see
Howling like a dog on the moonlight
Won't you have pity on me
REPEAT CHORUS
11 Boatman (03:59)
Hearts were exploding around us
As we drifted south down the bay
The gray up above and gray down below
Left us with nothing to say
So we drifted along in silence
'Til the tickle of life trickled in
And the rhythm began in the hiss of the sand
We were catching fire again
CHORUS:
Oh boatman, I am the river
I am the mountain and the sea
Oh boatman, taker and giver
Can you deliver me
I would forever run free
Yeah we finally caught up with legends
We were walking along side by side
We worked out a plan
To go out hand in hand
But the long trail just wasn't that wide
The water around us was freezing
We just laughed and threw ourselves in
And although we were old
The sting of that cold
Pumped up the feeling, here it is again
REPEAT CHORUS
Oh I'm a message in a bottle
Drifting along on a deep blue sea
Waiting for some foreign shore
Ready for something to be
No longer afraid of falling
We cut the strings to the sky
We found level ground
And we put ourselves down
Amazing we all didn¹t die
We took each moment as given
By second by second they came
The ice and the sun and the thundering guns
Good God I was finally sane
REPEAT CHORUS
13 Hangnail (02:22)
Oh money, oh money, oh where have you gone?
I need me some money to have me some fun
Gonna pick up my guitar and write me some hits
Build me some houses and blow 'em to bits
Gonna furnish them boldly with style and with taste
Generate truckloads of solid waste
Hangnail, hangnail, hangnail, hangnail
Have you ever seen a man with a hangnail?
Hangnail, hangnail, hangnail
Oh money, oh money, oh where have you gone?
I need me some money to have me some fun
Gonna pick up my guitar and write me some hits
Hangnail, hangnail, hangnail, hangnail
Have you ever seen a man with a hangnail?
Hangnail, hangnail, hangnail
Oh money, oh money, oh where have you gone?
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