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Little history lesson. The Pretty Things, who remembers them? They formed around 1963, after guitarist and leader Dick Taylor was part (for a very brief period) of the Rolling Stones. No less.
Let's jump to December 1968, when our guys release the masterpiece "S.F. Sorrow", anticipating Townshend's big nose by a few months and writing their name in history (which, as we know, is always reluctant to bestow honors at the moment: those will come later). And finally, we arrive at 1969 and then 1970. In a few months, Taylor leaves, replaced by Victor Unitt from the Edgar Broughton Band, and somehow they carry on.
The Pretty Things cultivate the ambition of another concept album, even if the premises are anything but favorable and time flies fast, especially in those years. The risk of being outdated even before releasing the album is real, in short. And so, here is the solution: an album largely acoustic, undefined, elusive from the cover. The plot is somewhat the atmosphere of those years, especially after Woodstock, a pastoral calm to soothe the disillusionments of a battle that was slowly crumbling.
Ready-set-go, and it seems like you are catapulted into "The Piper at the Gates", but it's just an illusion. Scene One leads us to introduce the protagonist of the album, The Good Mr. Square of course. It talks about his life, from when he first sees his beloved (She Was Tall, She Was High) to the first meeting accompanied by a sitar (In the Square) and the sad realization under the rain that they cannot live together in the city. But was it true or just a mirage? We are faced with a cheerful fanfare of humanity, a succession of images: from the dazzles of a circus with its clowns promising spectacle, to thoughts of a possible suicide (Grass), to the return of the mysterious beloved. In the end... there is no conclusion: just a temporary parachute over life's misfortunes.
And the music? The album can be quite coherently divided into two parts, the first acoustic and undefined, the second electric and decidedly more aggressive. They seem like demos, half-songs stuck together, The Good Mr. Square, She Was Tall She Was High, In the Square, The Letter, somewhat in the style of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" and their long medley McCartney-style. By the way, guess where it was all recorded? Precisely at the Abbey Road Studios. Then if we flip the vinyl, we would find the frontal assault in blues form of Cries From the Midnight Circus, followed by jazzy digressions - Sickle Clowns, with a wonderful guitar by the way - and choral anthems à-la CSNY-meet-Beatles-and-together-they-start-playing-prog that could have been in 1970. But above all stands Grass, splendid and heartfelt, compassionate and sorrowful, with May once again at the forefront.
Probably the most heartfelt concept of the Pretty Things, after the psychedelic binges of a couple of years earlier. Heartfelt and at times confused, even though emotionally full; Phil May more than singing in some parts seems to declaim his pain, whether real or supposed. "Parachute" belongs to that category of perhaps "minor" albums, composed in an era when it was worth the effort to spend money on a 33 rpm, and the Pretty Things are part of that crowd of groups that made great English rock, without being aware of it.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
09 Grass (04:20)
As silver tears they weave and lace,
Sad patterns upon her face,
She waits for you.
So low below a laser sun,
Through velvet fields she runs,
Reaching for you.
And so you bleed now,
Your hand holds the knife
That is tearing your life apart.
Why don't you leave now,
The city's too heavy
And your dreams they melt in the sun.
On mellow blue, birds curve and glide.
Through shadows of grief she slides,
She waits for you.
There on a hill before the dawn,
In silence a promise torn,
She turns from you.
And so you bleed now ...
As silver tears, they weave and lace,
She waits for you.
So low below a laser sun,
Reaching for you.
On mellow blue birds curve and glide.
She waits for you.
There on a hill before the dawn,
She turns from you .....
11 She's a Lover (03:31)
She takes the moon and stars
To wear as her disguise.
Then catching cosmic rays
She uses them for eyes.
She's a lover
And you know she's coming through
She's a lover
And you know she's coming through
With warm breezes
She will wipe away the sigh.
In the green folds of her skirt
A tired traveller lies,
She's a lover And you know she's coming through ...
There below the grey stone walls
Behind the hill she waits for you.
Painted on a field of corn
Strange messages she leaves for you.
She sheds her summer dress
Fearing it displeases you
Amid the white silk melting forest
Where she flew.
She's a lover
And you know she's coming through .....
Across the wooded plains
The wild geese have fled.
Beneath the splintered stones
Her anger seeps through red.
She's a lover And you know she's coming through ...
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