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Rating: The fields in bloom, her very long hair, her leather pants, the plain-colored shirts... But most of all, her voice: the exasperation of a cackling goose ("You-uha, you-uha, you-uha, oughta kno-o-owuha"), the insistence, the forcing at all costs to reach the end of the verse without a breath of air in her lungs, the asthma and self-induced pharyngitis to improve performances, the cycles of DDT aerosols to undergo, the oral vaginitis to be experimented in the research labs of major record companies...
Since MTV put Alanis Morissette and her not-so-great "You Oughta Know" in heavy rotation, nothing was the same: her way of singing became renowned everywhere, becoming indeed the reference style for the new female pop-rock recruits. Each one found herself (forced?) to develop her own version of the Canadian goose's mating call: some anticipated the barking by a quarter of a second, some fainted due to respiratory insufficiency at every verse, some composed rhymes where, for example, "you-uah" rhymed with "do-uha" and others rhymed "idiosyncrasy-uha" with "misunderstatement-uha"...
Here from where we come from, the miracle of the laboratory creation of a Catania girl who only sings when she inhales... And along with the French-Canadian cackling goose and besides the Sicilian owl-quail and the anorexic Irish swan, emerged even the less famous egg-laying hen from San Diego, California, known as Leah Andreone, whose vocals unmistakably echo the pains of ovulation inside a twenty-square-centimeter cage.
"It's Alright, It's Ok", a highly catchy single even on Italian radios, has Leah executing an American pop-rock piece like even a three-year-old girl wouldn't manage, and then, just before a very radio-friendly chorus begins, she ventures in a vocal exercise that, the first time I heard it, I thought "this woman is crazy!".
We laughed, not because when I laugh everyone must laugh and when I stop everyone must stop, but perhaps because we all simultaneously thought we were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that certain girls, in order to stand out, would do anything, even choose this interpretive standard.
"Veiled", her debut album, opens precisely with "It's Alright, It's Ok", which is like Leah saying to us:
Now, the issue wasn't that Andreone had released a neither infamous nor laudable root pop-rock album as fit the times and undoubtedly her own tastes, venturing into folk, with guitar and vocals, with something ("Kiss Me Goodbye") that feels like unplugged grunge, drawing here and there from the past and her contemporaries... The problem wasn't that "You Make Me Remember" resembles Clapton's "Tears In Heaven" and that "Who Are They To Say" is a seventies rhythm and blues over the base of "La Vie En Rose" as sung by Grace Jones... The problem wasn’t even that, whatever genre she ventured into during the verses (blues, funky, root), the choruses were all the same, and it wasn’t problematic the almost absolute lack of personality (an exception that confirms the rule is "Problem Child", nearly bossa nova, with suggestive choruses mid-piece)... The problem was us. And now I'll tell you why.
Saturday night out with the girls, winter 1994, the licensed friend puts Andreone's tape in... The girls hummed in their way an inexistence English, trying to emulate Leah's vocal infantilism; they "vocalized" with conviction and hummed the easiest non-dance chorus of the nineties. Even we guys, sitting in the front, emitted that silly sound, laughing complicitly. The girlfriends had no time to respond to our provocation: they truly believed it was good singing, and it was clear that they were (disturbingly) involved. In the disco, we took turns going out as couples, getting into the car, putting the tape back on, and did what was to be done...
With the strongest track as the opener and the remaining ones to "dive into" yes, but certainly not on a Saturday night with friends around, inside and in the disco parking, what remained unheard from the tape didn't intrigue the girl, and if you used it as a simple background for your incursion into planet Venus, Leah Andreone wouldn’t distract either you or your "counterpart". I can tell you anyway that Leah wasn’t the only one, in the moments I was busy, to attempt the most surprising vocal exercises...
Returning home, we finished side B at a very low volume since the girls were sleeping and we didn’t give a damn. After dropping them off, we were alone, ready for a city raid, the last five or six red Diana cigarettes, the final breakfast, and especially the merry search for other friends and especially girlfriends... At that late hour, there was no desire to rummage among the other tapes scattered carelessly around the car, so we would put side A back on... Once the moment arrived, cigarette lit and window rolled down wide open even in the freezing cold, we neighed too, convinced as if it were normal, as if it were beautiful, without snickering, without noticing anything, and then we dived into the chorus, one beating an open hand on the steering wheel, the other on the knee.
Things that happen in moments of semi-consciousness, when you're distracted and thinking about nothing; when you’re satisfied, have everything, and couldn’t care less. Even though you know that everyone else believes in it, and you don’t.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 It's Alright, It's OK (04:25)
Broken doll baby
And she says that life's a waste
It doesn't have to be that way
Dad threw away her mom
Her mom gave up his name
Crucified by their words
Nailed by shame
She stares into the sun
Self-inflicted pain
She sees that they're blind
Why does she take all the blame
The rhyme has changed compulsion rules
Mary's little lambs are now raised by wolves
A voyeur with wings flashes a cure
She knows forbidden things they have a lovely lure
It's alright it's ok
Welcome to this life
Killin' time
Just watchin' the grass grow
It's alright it's ok
Welcome to this life
Don't worry sweet baby
Cuz it's over before you know
Persecuted she's not normal
I envy her strange ways
Seven deadly sins
Seize the hour seize the day
Her ideas need expression
Her wounds never bleed
Her beauty lives in my eyes
Too bad she can't see
She doesn't try I watch her spirits die
But giving up the ghost would feel so good
A voyeur with wings flashes a cure
She knows forbidden things they have a lovely lure
It's alright it's ok
Welcome to this life
Killin' time
Just watchin' the grass grow
It's alright it's ok
Welcome to this life
Don't worry sweet baby
Cuz it's over
Chorus 2x
Crumbling Camelot idle teardrops
Cloudy diamonds freebase funhouse
Expecting to fly but she's just standing still
Every time she gets it up she just can't close the deal
So she gives herself another way out
Walks her dog for the 50th time and
Files her nails till they bleed and she cries now
She doesn't have to try
02 Happy Birthday (03:55)
You're nice and warm
The water's deep
I'm kicking while you sleep
Muffled words I don't understand
But it sounds like talk is cheap
You're pushing hard
It's cramped in here
Is this what warps my head
The lighting's red, the pressure's high
Is it birth or is it death
Made in your image, are you prepared
You are what you conceive
You're my first love
I know you inside out
And what you already ate I'll eat
Naked and lonely
Will somebody hold me
The deed is done
Let's start day one
You're stuck with me
Ahhhh happy birthday
This bloody maze is puzzling me
I can't find my way out
Should I turn back, is it too late
Do second thoughts count
If I can't speak who'll speak for me
Can't even stand on my own two feet
I'm not afraid to ask, will you hold my hand
Leaving here's kind of bittersweet
Naked and lonely
Will somebody hold me
The deed is done
Let's start day one
You're stuck with me
Finally I'm safe, home sweet home
Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone
So many people, so much love
Hip hip hip hooray, I'll never be alone
Noah's ark didn't show up here
Holy water, I guess I'm blessed
What's the buzz, why the sweat
What's the hold up, why the mess
Soon I'm yours and you're all mine
I hope I'm all you planned
Deliver me, believe in me
Salvation's in your hands
05 Who Are They to Say (04:09)
Feels good
To wonder what I'm doing here
Feels right
Getting smashed with god all night
Relax
Exploit my mind
To each his own king
Within his own tribe
Define for me free at last
We are history
They don't want no human contrast
They should know
Jekyll shouldn't have to Hyde
Who are you - who am I
Who said I can't alter my mind
Who said the puzzle needs each piece
Who said say your seven Hail Marys
And who are they to say
You keep invading me with your
Self-righteous camouflage uniform
Can't you let me be
Who I want to be
If I had gills I'd fly
You can't tell me what's right
If I lose my mind
I wonder what I'd gain tonight
A lunatic
Just livin' a real life
Stimulate me try to find me
Who would call it sin
Every Tom Dick Harry
Who said absence makes the heart grow fonder
Who said smiling means I'm happy
Who said I can't scream for mutiny
And who are they to say
Who are they to say
Chorus
09 Hell to Pay (03:49)
If I didn't know your game
Would you lay me down and lie about your name
If things didn't go your way
Would you tell the lawyers you were just playing
If there were no hell to pay
I wonder would you still need a god
If the rich were weak
Would you fight for their lives
Without a marriage would you give up your wife
If you saw me coming would you take another route
In your house does difference stay out
If there were no hell to pay
I wonder would you still need a god
If there were no hell to pay
I wonder would you still need a god
Do you dig for gold
Would you sell your soul
What should we know
Who are you when you're alone
If my eyes were closed
Would you launch your stones
What should we know
Who are you when you are all alone
With the cameras off
Would you beat him till he's dead
If you found the cure
Would you make us beg
If no one had to work
Would you still get out of bed
If the bullet was for me
Would you take it in the head
If there were no hell to pay
I wonder would you still need a god
If there were no hell to pay
I wonder would you still need a god
Chorus
If I believed in you and you believed in me
Would you still need a god
If no one cared would you sleep all day
Would you still need a god
If my eyes were closed would you launch your stones
Would you still need a god
With the cameras off would you beat him dead
Would you still need a god
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