Meat Puppets - Mirage
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Category: Music CD
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CD Details
Artist: Meat PuppetsEdition: Music CD
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1999-04-27
Music Label: Rykodisc
Soundtracks:
- Mirage
- Quit It
- Confusion Fog
- The Wind And The Rain
- The Mighty
- Get On Down
- Leaves
- I Am A Machine
- Beauty
- A Hundred Miles
- Love Our Children Forever
- Liquified
- The Mighty Zero
- I Am A Machine
- Liquified
- Rubberneckin'
- Grand Intro
Music reviews of Mirage
Music Review: Don't criticize what you don't know
Rating: 3 Stars
This is fairly simple, if not as concise as I'd prefer: "Rubberneckin'" is NOT "move shlock" because it was never intended for a film in the first place. In fact, it comes from Presley's landmark session in American Studios in Memphis, and is perhaps Elvis Presley's most controversial song, at least among certain fans. The sessions were held in January and February of 1969, on the heels of the first broadcast of the legendary "Comeback Special" as it has come to be known. Most of the songs were worked on meticulously, with many instrumental and vocal "repair" nights, careful overdubs, etc. There were some exceptions to this painstaking approach when Chips Moman would allow {and I do mean "allow": Chips was the only boss in that studio, and Elvis seemed to like it that way at the time - after what he'd been through in Hollyweird, he needed structure} Elvis to mess around with songs he just happened to like. "Hey Jude" is probably the best known, and no one even bothered to go out and buy the record for the words, so he makes 'em up. On some stripped-down mixes, it sounds more like a guitar sing-along at a campfire. Anyway, "Rubberneckin'" was submitted by Elvis's usual "source": Hill and Range publishers, the very same ones who straitjacketed and stomped on his creativity for financial gain. But it was '69, and they would soon go the way of the dinosaurs. Elvis, nevertheless liked a song partly written by Ben Wiseman, a film shlocksmith. Odd, huh? . . . but this song seemed, well, different. And it was. Anyone who hasn't suffered a head injury knows Elvis is NOT singing about either car wrecks or "girl-watching." Car wrecks, unless you're completely demented, do not "give {one} such a glow-oh-oh-oh" nor can one "rubberneck" in the conventional sense, no matter what you're looking for, from the BACK porch! I don't know if Wiseman made the credit change before or after recording was completed, but he pulled his name off the record, and put on his wife's. Highly unusual for this writer, indeed. See, the only meaning the song can have is simply this: a tribute to what is and was known as "Mary Jane" and its uncanny ability to attract company {grin}. I don't know if Elvis ad-libbed just a line, or much more, but it is about smoking pot. It simply, logically, cannot be about anything else. Period. On the sheet music, one line is even identified as an "ad-lib" because he didn't even bother with a rhyme: "people say I'm wastin' time, but I don't really care." It was supposed to be, apprently, "but they don't really know." This was from the "relaxed time" during the sessions, clearly.
Just take a listen; it's easy. And keep the context in mind: this was long before the "War on Elvis {uh, drugs}," and Elvis was just kicking it around in the studio for fun, and it IS fun! They even did a 21st century remix! Especially considering his later bizarre, but comprehensible actions when the heat didn't come from the "glow" of the "Mary Jane." In texts about the drug, the chemical actually does provide this "glow": a sensation of warmth, and often, facial flushing. It also very often "slows down time" or so it seems, so the user can see and hear things with greater clarity, even if they're not actually getting anything done! This is why one should never drive while intoxicated on "Mary Jane." Yes, there are different varieties, but these characteristics tend to apply generally. It's a rather DETAILED description of the experience!
And if he's "rubbernecking" in any other sense, then why "settin' on the back porch, all by myself/Along came Mary Jane - I'm with somebody else!" One idly watches neither car wrecks nor pretty young ladies from "the back porch." And, well, the lyrics of the original are very clear, as the band must surely know.
Time and events change things quite a lot, but in early '69, Elvis was not very concerned about joining The Legion of Decency or whatever happened around very late '70, early '71 when the drug laws suddenly changed and "scheduling" commenced, etc.
Anyway, they put it in his very last fiction-feature "Change of Habit" to accentuate his role as "hip young 'ghetto' doctor." Who can play guitar, sing, and some rollicking boogie-woogie piano! {The latter is not on that song . . .}
The sad thing is that if "Mary Jane" was all he did, he'd have had a long life: in fact, he'd probably be with us right now - like Willie Nelson, Kristofferson, etc. But that's not how it turned out. The more he feared the consequences, the harder stuff he did. Very unfortunate. Great vocal and instrumental work on the original, and most covers are great fun, so I would have no problem recommending.
Just felt like setting the story straight. {was that a '60s joke? I wouldn't know since I was a bit too young at the time to know, but old enough to remember the "dazed and confused" generation. I remember a guy saying, in the early 80s: "I can see sounds!" while intoxicated on pot. "Stop, look, and listen, baby . . .}
All the best and don't do anything illegal,
DR. M.
Description of Mirage
The Meat Puppets at their psychedelic peak. A tightly crafted labor of love, ""Mirage"" was released in Spring of 1987 to increasing interest from mainstream rock circles. Joe Sasfy (Washington Post) proclamed it ""their finest, as close to a polished artistic arrival as you'd want from a frisky anti-pop band committed to musical spontaneity and adventure."" This editon of ""Mirage"" has been expanded to include five extra tracks, featuring early demos of ""The Mighty Zero,"" and ""Liquified,"" as well as a cover of the Presley movie shlock, ""Rubberneckin',"" and the previously unheard ""Grand Intro.Alternative Rock CDs
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