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Of all the groups that contributed to the birth of grunge, the most artistically valid are very likely the Meat Puppets, creators of a country-hardcore that underwent various modifications and transformations throughout the '80s. The band of brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood first made a name for themselves with an innovative and fleeting cow-punk (the one in "In A Car" and "Meat Puppets") and gradually refined their technique and style, achieving immediate maturity and perfection on the albums "Meat Puppets II" and "Up On The Sun". They were very much genius, and like all genius artists who promoted important musical inventions, they did not meet with commercial favor until a well-known Seattle band performed some of their songs live.
Although "Meat Puppets II" is their most renowned and inspiring work, "Up On The Sun" remains the artistic peak reached by Meat Puppets. There is not a piece that should not be considered for its emotional charge or its effective instrumental ideas. All that was done was further softening the tones of the beginnings (a path that had already been partially undertaken for "Meat Puppets II"), perfecting a psychedelic country, at times progressive. Even Curt Kirkwood's voice changes register, ranging from catastrophic screams to a disenchanted litany, symbolically moving from furiously denounced pain to resignation.
The titletrack-opener is a serene country song, with complex melodic passages that soon turn to melancholy, exacerbated in the verse «Not too much more, too much more». "Maiden's Milk" is an instrumental full of guitar inventions, music for open spaces that transitions from the initial medieval atmosphere to the lightness of the whistled verse and optimistic bass lines. In "Away" we find instead a simpler, more immediate structure and rhythm section, melodies barely sketched, almost whispered, balancing between joy and depression, also due to Curt Kirkwood's interpretation. "Animal Kingdom" is a fleeting fun that combines psychedelia (the "strange" visions proposed by the lyrics) and medieval settings. It is built entirely on a single melodic phrase, around which a series of sudden instrumental variations are articulated. "Hot Pink" is halfway between Neil Young and the Grateful Dead of "American Beauty", boasts effective and well-defined bass lines, paints natural landscapes with words, and forcibly drags melancholic motifs, sung by Curt with usual negligence, to give a darker touch to the piece.
Among the most interesting tracks of the album is "Swimming Ground", which unfolds between guitar arpeggios drenched in sadness and carefree openings, although it progresses towards the end into melancholy. A bit similar to the Gun Club, but more pop, is "Buckethead", which flows pleasantly with vocal lines that intertwine perfectly with a mandolin-like guitar, suddenly leading to an intriguing instrumental interlude. "Too Real" is based, both in text and music, on contrasting moods, boredom interspersed with bursts of happiness, rain and rays of sunlight, only to get lost again in reality, which isn't entirely rosy. Toward the end of the album, the masterpieces begin to concentrate, introduced by "Enchanted Pork Fist", a convulsive indie rock comparable to the contemporary Dinosaur Jr. of the first album. "Seal Whales" is the best instrumental track ever made by the Meat Puppets (along with "Aurora Borealis", on "Meat Puppets II"), full of emotions, moving passages, incompleteness (the conclusion is almost indefinite). But the absolute masterpiece of the album is "Two Rivers": it starts with a deep and powerful bass, which blends with a pleasantly obsessive guitar arpeggio, until the verse arrives, which opens into a guitar phrase interspersed with harmonics, all completely dissociated from the steep paths of the bass. The singing is a lazy mumble, giving a clear sensation that everything is falling into the void, that there is no way out, despite the instrumental optimism of the piece.
"Creator" is the symbolic track of the album, a progressive folk where Curt Kirkwood drags melodies suspended between sadness and happiness, hope and disillusionment, depression and a will to live, enriched by his peculiar vocal style. The Meat Puppets decide to end their best album this way, with a little jewel built on antithetical feelings, which are then the foundation, the essence of "Up On The Sun".
One of those classic albums that must be felt, not just listened to.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Up on the Sun (04:04)
a long time ago
I turned to myself
and said, "you are my daughter"
I saw that the image
I saw there was well,
"so you are my daughter"
well then we've got something to talk about
who told you so?
that gold burns slow
like coal camper's candles
all lost in the snow
lay down you're on
the warmth that I'm weaving
is for you alone
up on the sun
where it never rains or snows
there's an ocean
with a wind that never blows
and if you see it closer
then the finer points will show
not too much more
too much more
04 Animal Kingdom (01:24)
down in the valley
there's an animal kingdom
you can't even see it
till the sun goes down
up in the mountains
there's beautiful rings
on fingers that dance
to invisible sound
up in my head
there's an animal kingdom
I am the king
of the animals there
up in the mountains (my head)
I'm a beautiful singer
to birds that dance
on invisible air
06 Swimming Ground (03:06)
the sun is up and beating down
hot enough to melt the ground
a little water would do us good
the clouds'd help us if they could
they'd send showers of pouring rain
get everything wet again
we could go and float around
in our favorite swimming ground
the best place I ever found
wasn't close to any town
was a little swimming ground
everything just floating around
out to lunch and out of town
pretty close to falling down
a little water would do us good
07 Buckethead (02:22)
Got no head
It's a bucket with teeth
It likes to dream
It likes to sleep
It knows hot
It knows cool
It know's what's what
It's no fool
Fill up the bucket with whatever you got
Make sure it's something that the bucket likes alot
Fly on a window
looking through
Its tiny bucket
Knows just what to do
It goes over here
It goes over there
It takes its tiny bucket
almost everywhere
Fill up the bucket with whatever you got
Make sure it's something that the bucket likes alot
I'm a buckethead
That's the truth
What I do
sure shines through
And what goes in
gets mixed around
And overflows
And makes this sound
Fill up the bucket with whatever you got
Make sure it's something that the bucket likes alot
08 Too Real (02:13)
around here it's all the same
I said it's all the same
when drops of sunshine
start to turn to rain
I said it's all the same
they don't know what to call it
but they all say it's wrong
well I don't see no greener pastures
this must be where I belong
12 Creator (02:09)
everybody's got some kind of
belief about creator
some say openly, "I don't know"
some build elevators
to take the chosen few
who can afford the scenic view
to the top of some big tower
looking out on fields of blue
walking clouds on caves of emptiness
that fall around their minds
to flirt openly with vapor
and the trail it leaves behind
fences fly and sidewalks cry
concerning our creator
turning loose the butterfly
that ate the alligator
picking up its open-ended
holographic roots
it moved out to the tower
to look down on me and you
walking caves of empty water
in the boring morning rain
making love to open windows
and the vapor trails refrain
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