The Waterboys - A Pagan Place
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CD Details
Artist: The WaterboysEdition: Music CD
Format: Extra tracks, Import, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2002-03-19
Music Label: Chrysalis
Soundtracks:
- Church Not Made With Hands
- All the Things She Gave Me [Unedited]
- Thrill Is Gone [Unedited]
- Rags
- Some of My Best Friends Are Trains [Never Included on This Album Before
- Somebody Might Wave Back
- Big Music
- Red Army Blues
- Pagan Place
- Late Train to Heaven [Rockfield Mix][#][*]
- Love That Kills [#][*][Instrumental]
- Madness Is Here Again [#][*]
- Cathy [#][*]
- Down Through the Dark Streets [#][*]
Music reviews of A Pagan Place
Music Review: I have heard the Big Music.
Rating: 5 Stars
And I'll never be the same. That's not only a line from one of the best songs ever written, but the definition of an entire sound. The self described Big Music sound of the Waterboys.
I first heard the Waterboys in 1985 at the Tower Records Store on Watt Ave. in my old hometown of Sacramento, CA. I had been shopping probably for the latest Leon Russell or Elton John album when out of the ceiling came the opening piano licks to "A Girl Called Johnny" from the Waterboys self-titled debut album. I gathered my jaw from the ground long enough to buy that album and race home with it. What a joyous sound! I had never heard anything like it in my life! It sounded a little like Lennon, you could hear Dylan and Bowie, a little U2, possibly even The Cars. All at the same time! I remember shaking as I drove back to the store to see if they had any other albums I could buy. And there were two more albums! "This is the Sea" and "A Pagan Place."
For the next six months all I listened to was The Waterboys. Like a man posseded by the truth I went about preaching their sound to anyone that would listen. I had found a new musical messiah. My favorite album of the three quickly became "A Pagan Place". Songs like...A Church Not Made With Hands, The Thrill is Gone, All the Thigs She Gave Me, Somebody Might Wave Back, Rags, The Big Music, Red Army Blues...Oh, Red Army Blues!
I fell in love to these songs, I dreamed with these songs, I planned my life with these songs. Even thinking about them here gives me the chills. I don't know where this music came from, but calling Mike Scott a musical genius would have been like calling Jesus an important historical figure. Surely the Waterboys were destined to become the kings of the music world.
But it was not to be. For the next two years as I awaited their next release I was daily at my Tower records like a demented disciple begging for scraps of bread: "Is it here yet? Is the new Waterboys album here yet? Finally one bright and sunny day having other things on my mind, much how the pot boils when you stop watching it, the record clerk presented me with a shiny new copy of "Fisherman's Blues". The light reflecting from the cellophane blinded me as I approached the altar. Is this it? I asked the smiling clerk.
I did 95 miles an hour on the way home. Very carefully I put the black disc on the turntable and...(cue the sound of the needle screeching off the vinyl)...oh my God! What is this? Fiddles? This isn't the Waterboys! Fiddles? There's no fiddles in the Waterboys. It says right on the album The Waterboys. It says this is the blues. "Fisherman's Blues".
You see, Mike Scott decided that instead of putting out another album of good music, he would experiment with the celtic sound. Lots and lots of fiddles. Imagine in the 80's if Bruce Springsteen had suddenly taken up the flute, or AC/DC decided that polka was more their thing.
I had come full circle as my jaw once again hit the ground. All those people I had preached to would have to be called. The Waterboys were not the Second Coming. They were merely a band who at one time briefly put together a sound unlike any other. Ocasionally they reveal glimpses of the promised land with albums like "Dream Harder" or "Rock in a Weary Land" and you might even enjoy "Room to Roam" at times, but seldom has there been a resurrection of the Big Music sound from those first three albums.
Note: The remastered "A Pagan Place" CD, with the bonus songs adds little to the album. Frankly you're better off with the original version.
Description of A Pagan Place
UK reissue of 1984 album, remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road. Includes unedited versions of Waterboys' classics 'All The Things She Gave Me' & 'The Thrill Is Gone' along with six bonus tracks, 'Some Of My Best Friends Are Trains' (previously unreleased), 'The Late Train To Heaven' (previously unreleased mix), 'Love That Kills' (previously unreleased instrumental), 'The Madness Is Here Again' (previously unreleased early version of 'Be My Enemy'), 'Cathy' (previously unreleased version of a Nikki Sudden song) & 'Down Through The Dark Streets' (previously unreleased). Additional highlights include track-by-track musician credits (for the first time) & in-depth sleevenotes by Mike Scott. 2002."I have heard the Big Music and I will never be the same," Mike Scott declares triumphantly on "Big Music." The lush romanticism of that song--with its layer upon layer of acoustic guitars, trumpet solos, and sax and violin--stands as a unique achievement. "Church Not Made with Hands" is as claim-staking an opening cut as any--powerful, fast, unashamedly romantic, and rounded out with a tremendous Scott guitar solo. With reference points that include the Celtic soul ramblings of Van Morrison and the then-burgeoning epic rock of U2, this was where Mike Scott began to build his now iconic status. The trumpet playing of Roddy Lorimer, the sax of multi-instrumentalist Anthony Thistlethwaite, and the keyboards of Karl Wallinger fill out the sound of this record. "Some of My Best Friends Are Trains" is a little jaunty to be a totally welcome new centerpiece to the restored album, but "Red Army Blues," "All the Things She Gave Me" and the astounding title track sound more impressive than ever. The producers of this reissue deserve credit for approaching the deluxe upgrade without the cynicism of some labels. Working with Scott to restore edited and missing tracks left off the original long-player for time reasons, and adding additional contemporaneous tracks, they have created a valuable CD for longtime fans and new acolytes alike. --Rob Stewart
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