The Waterboys
This Is the Sea (Bonus Disc)

THE REVIEW

Four in the morning, a marble morning. A man is at the piano, trying to play the notes as delicately as possible not to wake up the wife upstairs. But it’s hard to hold back emotions. It’s dark and you find yourself alone with a notepad and a pencil. And your pure genius. You find yourself being Mike Scott, a romantic poet, a visionary musician, an outstanding mind, a great forgotten or perhaps never listened to. You find yourself producing much more than what a simple compact disc can contain. Or what your record label wants.
It is impossible to enclose so many phrases, so many words and so many notes, symphonies, emotions, in a single album, moreover with just 8 songs.

This premise is for those who, reading here and not having the work at home, might think that the second CD consists of so-called "scraps" or "exclusions".
Frankly, I can't understand why to relegate "Spirit" to barely 2 minutes in the official version and double it amply in the extra CD.
Frankly, I can't grasp the fact that a song like "Beverly Penn" (or Then You Hold Me) could not be included in a record.
Poetic visions, moments of utmost inspiration. And the whole second disc is like that, with 14 tracks against the 8 "official" ones. Fourteen complete tracks, mind you, no promos or live versions of already known tracks (except "This Is The Sea (Live)" and just a couple of alternative versions). Everything else is mixed and finished. They could have released it singly and sold a lot more records riding the wave of success. But the Waterboys are gentlemen from another era, true musicians.
In short, if the record is the infinite sea, this is the shore of a virgin and deserted island.

It starts with the Poetry of "Beverly Penn", a piano that captures you and dresses you with magnificent words, with a sensitivity that only an old Irishman can have. Among the top 5 best of the group, a truly great exclusion.
It continues with other songs like the relentless "Medicine Jack", but most importantly, there is a central body of the album that is purely instrumental. And what music. "High Far Soon", "Even The Trees Are Dancing", "Towers Open Fire". It ranges from classic rock to alternative electronic, always staying within the genius of Mike & co. After a few repeats, the live version of the title track might come to you: slightly different text, a truly unique passion. It’s hard not to believe that Mike’s love words are about anyone other than himself. Perhaps he is the most romantic man on earth. And he shows it amply with "Then You Hold Me": A lonely man, a woman far away, a lonely man with a sheet and a pencil in a completely empty room except for a rug and a piano, a woman upstairs sleeping but sensing his words. Then she comes down, hugs him and he wouldn’t want to be anyone else in the world. A man who dreams and the spirit flies. The miracle he wants is her. And a pre-fisherman's version of "Sweet Thing" can only be a pleasure before the record leaves us and Mike rests.

If there’s time now, I’ll talk to you about the real CD, even if it is well known. The classic and epic "The Whole Of The Moon", now a classic rock of the 80s, stands out, the orchestrated "The Pan Within", with its overwhelming strings, then there’s the final title track of infinite beauty.
But my heart doesn’t want to hear: it wants to listen to the story of Beverly Penn once again, wants to fall in love with that voice and soul, as enormous as it is little considered.

I could set fire to a hundred men or swim in an icy lake, just once in my life, to love someone the way Mike Scott loves music.

That was the shore, but this, believe me, is the Sea.