Morphine
Good

"My greatest fear is that, if I let you go, you will reach me in my dreams" (Mark Sandman)

"Good" (1992) was born as an absolutely innovative idea: to create rock starting from a jazz instrumental base and taking into account the teachings of the musical avant-garde. And so here is a bass, a baritone voice, a saxophone, and a drum set that meet in the right place at the right time. Not that the union of such instruments makes me shout at the miracle (I am still shaken by the long visionary improvisations of Ornette Coleman on the saxophone, accompanied by TWO double bassists and a drummer); what deeply amazes me is rather the cohesion of sounds that Morphine managed to create. Despite the "minimal" structure of the ensemble, the sounds overlap and chase into infinite cosmic streams, enveloping the listener within soft patches almost as entire orchestras of 50 and more elements can. Power of passion? Virtuosity? Perhaps just feelings.

The soft phrases of Mark Sandman's slide bass and his enveloping voice perfectly match the notes of Dana Colley's saxophone; they seem like two butterflies chasing each other over a flowery field. Jerome Dupree's minimal and never intrusive drums accompany these two virtuosos of sentiment.

The depth of their sound is infinite, almost you lose yourself in a vortex of essential sounds. If Terry Riley on A Rainbow In a Curved Air managed to surprise us and make us fly thanks to a few synthesizers, exploiting daring harmonic inventions and dizzying musical structures, Morphine, with a stratagem stolen from jazz, manage to overwhelm the listener and surprise them with harmonic subtleties that undermine the structure of the piece without ever overturning it: a whispered voice in crescendo, a saxophone note slightly more decided than the others, a bass riff repeated endlessly but always more captivating. Harmonically, the tracks are small works of musical impressionism, in which small and simple brushstrokes are enough to give a global sense to the entire auditory experience. It hides a surprising formal compositional difficulty in their simplicity and effectiveness. It doesn't make sense, therefore, to make an academic comparison between Morphine and Terry Riley at a structural level. It makes sense to connect two apparently distant experiences but formally similar.

The bass lines that accompany the listener throughout the album are surprisingly harmonic, filling with few notes all our musical imagination, so much that Sandman's voice could even be considered superfluous in giving the harmonic accompaniment effect to the various tracks. In fact, the underlying feeling is that it is not the voice that is the soloist, but rather Colley's saxophone, which sporadically intervenes to slightly move the cards at play just enough to disrupt the listener's perception. In The Ascension of 1981, Mr. Glenn Branca managed to disrupt the roles of the various musical instruments typical of the rock formation, even making the drums the soloist of the piece and the distorted guitar a rhythmic instrument. In 1990, Morphine seems to manage to rise even another step, making the voice a harmonic instrument and promoting brief saxophone interventions as a soloist.

The lyrics are hyper-realistic poems, masterfully interpreted by Sandman's baritone voice. The themes range between real events, overwhelming passions, primal instincts, declarations of love, and visionary reflections.

In "Good" irresponsible love is treated, using monotonous and almost monosyllabic sounds. It is thought-provoking how the vocal melodies perfectly integrate with the bass riff; it almost seems like the love sung by Sandman is nothing but the main topic of a situation narrated by three bass notes that describe the place and time in which events occurred.

In "The Saddest Song" we are welcomed by a cloudy sky and a man who tells us about the memory of love. We could only expect yet another pathetic song, instead "The Saddest Song" is a sweet and cadenced crescendo of emotions, never tragic. The lyrics read: "I had an accident in the night, two worlds collided, but when two worlds collide nobody survives." I had never heard such profound words to describe what is called a bolt of lightning. You almost don't notice the simple triangle riff by Dana Colley that integrates the rhythmic section throughout the track. In live renditions of The Saddest Song, Dana Colley only played the triangle.

"Claire" is crossed by a syncopated rhythm of the drums, on which occasionally appears some brief blues phrases of the saxophone harmonized by a tireless bass riff that repeats the notes sung by Sandman. It seems like getting lost among musical scores in three never simultaneous voices (except in the chorus, saxophone and voice never intersect) that manage to render a warm and fascinating landscape idea. Stunning saxophone harmonization after the second chorus.

In "Have a Lucky Day" Morphine paints, through few endlessly stretched notes, the atmosphere in the worst dive in the world. The lyrics are extremely raw in their formal perfection, as the theme of the track is none other than the chaotic abyss of emotions experienced by a gambler. It seems strange, but on closer inspection, Sandman's voice in the chorus ("Players win and winners play, may you have a lucky day") seems almost parodistic.

The liveliest track on the album is "You Speak My Language". Comparing this track with the other twelve on the album, it seems like listening to a disco piece. Very interesting is the stream of consciousness expressed by a filtered voice that shouts incomprehensible phrases.

Next comes "You Look Like Rain", an engaging and endlessly classy piece. Can physical attraction be summarized by saying "I can say you have the taste of the sky because you look like the rain"? Sudden rain in a cloudy sky: perhaps this is the suitable metaphor to represent the sensations instantly felt when physically attracted to someone. This is not a love song: the lyrics seem to pull out poetic words at random to impress someone. Rather this is one of the most human songs that rock history records.

"Do not Go Quietly Unto Your Grave" is a cadenced, lively track, crossed by repeated and sometimes sudden sounds. Marvelous Dana Colley's blues solo. Very positive is the meaning of the track: "Listen up young men, I'm 74 years old and aiming to live another 60 or 70 [...] I've learned a few tricks and will learn some more, and I still have enough bullets to fight a small war."

"Lisa" breaks the album in two, almost as if Morphine wanted us to catch our breath. From nothing, a heartfelt saxophone solo is born. It resembles an ant struggling within a spider's web, left only with the despair of having lost the ground beneath its feet and the fear of the future. Could it be an irrational and overwhelming love? The fact remains that a certain Lisa is mentioned in the album's thanks.

"The Only One" unites the two souls of You Look Like Rain and Do not Go Quietly Onto Your Grave. Physical attraction is expressed in a much less systematic and much more visceral way.

"Test Tube Baby (Shoot’m Down)" seems like a minimalist track, characterized by small but essential variations on a well-defined percussive and harmonic theme. What strikes the most is the emotional involvement of the singer, expressed by an impressive vocal climax.

On "The Other Side" we are transported to a dark place, through nocturnal sounds and an Oscar-worthy interpretation by Sandman: it's easy to recognize in the lyrics of the track the words that could be heard from a gullible person, enthralled by the idea of a phantasmagorical better world located on the other side of a river.

"I Know You" is introduced and accompanied by a distorted "tritar" (a Y-shaped guitar based on a mathematical study relating to the union of different frequencies that, when summed, form a particular sound) and a saxophone. In the first part, it seems like the instruments want to signal the occurrence of a particular event; who knows if it's Sandman meeting someone he already knows and whispers the sweet words of the second part of this beautiful track.