MORE MAGIC! (Clock Without Hands - Nanci Griffith)

Member Name: lynn_bex

Product:	Clock Without Hands - Nanci Griffith
Date:	15/08/01 (571 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Future Classic, Not one bad track, Educational

Disadvantages: NONE - THERE IS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

UPDATE:

It's well over a year since I posted this crowned opinion, so many of my accumulated miles, originally and abortively donated to Nanci Griffith's favourite but disallowed charity, haemorrhaged away... (Dooyoo, in its wisdom, having decided to delete year-old miles... - Nice touch, Guys)

Nanci's wonderful new CD "Winter Marquee" was released earlier this month, complete with useful liner notes, so, on Nanci's recommendation, I've sent my dooyoo money to The Mines Advisory Group:

www.mag.org.uk

As Nanci would say, "Thank you kindly."

~~

I have never seen her cast a spell, but Nanci Griffith works some special kind of magic that easily opens even the most cynical of ears, eyes, hearts and souls…

I’ve said elsewhere, and truly believe, that she is a force for good – so here I go again, spreading the word…

“Clock Without Hands” was released on Monday, 30 July 2001, so naturally I needed it THAT DAY and, come lunch break, hopped a London Routemaster Bus, heading for HMV in Oxford Street…

I was not surprised to hear the album playing as I walked in.
More magic… Perfectly natural.

Back at my desk, having first “unwrapped” the CD (with the assistance of several strong men and all the sharp implements we could find), I read the liner notes and snivelled…

On the first page, next to the picture of a “handless clock face”, is the reproduction of a handwritten poem (in “American handwriting”, if you know what I mean):

“The clock of life is wound but once/And no man has the power/To tell just when the hands will stop/At late or early hour/NOW is the only time we own/Live, love, toil with a will/Place no faith in tomorrow for/The clock may then be still”*.

Beneath this poem, Nanci tells us a little about the
album:

“CLOCK WITHOUT HANDS is the title of Carson McCuller's last novel. As with all of her work, this piece of fictional art is based around the concept of complacency of emotion, allowing one’s heart to go dormant and the loss of innocent passion in life. Drawing inspiration from Jack London and John Terzano (Vice Pres
ident of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation), once passion has been reduced to ashes the lights of life are flown and the soul has died in waking memory. This collection of my songs and those I’ve covered from the heart are my own awakening.”

*There is a footnote:
“This poem was written by my grandmother, Leota “Babe” McPerson – I’m not sure of the date. I found it tucked away in one of her old books recently – after writing this song!”

Oh! I was in bits, sitting at my desk, reading the liner notes and wishing that this CD was a book!

Arriving home that evening and PLAYING the CD, I was astonished to find myself crying as I listened to the searing honesty of these songs, recognising myself (and others) in the lyrics.

Recent award winning projects notwithstanding, this album is the first “all new” material released by Nanci Griffith for some years and, even through my tears, I knew that I was listening to a future classic…

I saw Nanci Griffith in concert last year, when she told of her work with the VVAF [Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation] and the associated Campaign for a Landmine Free World. Her former husband, the excellent singer/songwriter Eric Taylor, (with whom she remains on good terms) was a member of the American forces during the Vietnam War and she told of how she came to understand him, and their troubled life together, when she walked the streets of Saigon. Being Nanci Griffith, she made a joke of this, “…and Eric said he wished that ALL his wives cou
ld go to Vietnam”.

This wonderful album is the result of Nanci Griffith’s reawakening to life, love – and making this world a better place.

It has taken me a couple of weeks to gather myself, (and listen to the CD without snivelling) but I think I might now be just about strong enough to write my opinion.
Here g
oes:

As ever, Nanci Griffith is backed by her magnificent Blue Moon Orchestra, the band of musicians who chose their own name from the third of Nanci’s albums, “Once in a Very Blue Moon”.

Nanci Griffith herself is a quirky, instantly recognisable singer, with a far wider range than the casual listener might realise (as a matter of fact, she also plays excellent guitar). I personally hear a great lyricist whenever I play a Nanci Griffith record, but then “play” is probably the wrong word… What you must do with a Nanci Griffith record is LISTEN.

1. A CLOCK WITHOUT HANDS (Nanci Griffith)
This lovely song is far from “obvious” so there is NO “tick-tock” in the pretty musical backing. The words tell of the emptiness that remains when a love has been lost.

“I am a clock without hands/…Counting all the moments/Of the loves I’ve left behind…” “I am a clock without hands/I’m just tickin’ and that’s all”.
Listening to this song, it is as though Nanci has dropped her defences and opened her heart...
I have certainly felt the kind of emptiness described here… Have you?
Maybe we’ll get over it, now we’ve found each other!

2. TRAVELING [American Spelling] THROUGH THIS PART OF YOU (Nanci Griffith)
This is the song that Nanci wrote of and for her former husband, Eric Taylor. The liner notes contain two direct quotes, which I will not reproduce because I want you to buy this CD, then you can read them for yourselve
s (and look at the pictures). The second quote, however, ends “…The conflict affected all Americans of all walks of life and Nanci was one affected deeply. This song spills out that pain and makes others of us reflect upon our own feelings. LISTEN TO THIS SONG.
Larrie Warren, VVAF Country Director in Cambodia”.

Undoubtedly,
the breakdown of her marriage was an indirect result of the Vietnam War, due to the affect it had on those who fought there.

Nanci sings “Nothing that I’ve ever seen/Now means much of anything/In travelling through this part of you…”

“Where are you amongst this madness/On the streets of Saigon?/Where were you in 1969/When I was but a youth/Oh, here were you/You were travelling through this part of you…”
“I’ll make my way now on my own/Back to my home to live alone…”
“You were an American boy/Whose innocence was lost here in the war/And I wear your scars/While travelling through this part of you”.

Powerful stuff.

3. WHERE WOULD I BE (Paul Carrack)
Nanci says that when somebody brought her this Paul Carrack song, it gave her the same feeling as when she first heard Julie Gold’s “From A Distance” (as I have said elsewhere, Nanci Griffith’s version of that song was the first and definitive recording of Julie Gold’s magnificent “World Anthem” – which is more Protest Song than the Hymn some fools mistake it for). Fellow dooyooer “pje” has reminded me that Nanci’s version of “From a Distance was used as an Olympic Anthem… And Nanci herself, (in a radio interview) recently confirmed that her version of “From a Distance” is the “Wake Up Call” of choice, beamed to America’s astronauts.

This track “ Where Would I Be” is absolutely lovely, and I am told that i
t has hit the “pop” charts in the US, having been released as a single.

“Tell me where/Would I be now without you/Without an angel/Watching out for me.”
“Took a long, long time/For me to realise/All my faith in you/Was so justified.”

Beautiful, I love it.

4. MIDNIGHT IN MISSOULA (Nanci Griffit
h)
This is another lovely song about separation and long distance love.

“Are you sleeping now?/It’s midnight in Missoula…/…I am down in Rio where I cannot find the sky….”
“…I am off to Liverpool on an early evening flight/And wondering of you/And if you’re sleeping in Missoula tonight.”

Oh, I’ve done this kind of thing, haven’t you? Wondering and wondering what that distant loved one is doing… (Sigh…)

5. LOST HIM IN THE SUN (John Stewart)
This is an excellent up-tempo song by singer/songwriter John Stewart, who is here on Acoustic Guitar and singing backing vocals. This track really drives along, with guitar riffs and an insistent beat... …and, “Hey, it’s quite hard to type, when you’re keeping in rhythm…”

“Any given day there’s a jet flying somewhere/Oh, he bought a ticket and vanished in the sky/…Oh, what can I say, I lost him in the sun….”

Great stuff. - And amazingly, for lynn_bex, I’m jigging to the music as I type this, and forgetting to pay attention to the lyrics!

Fans of so-called “New Country” will LOVE this one. – In fact, I can hear strong musical similarities to the Dixie Chicks' “Goodbye Earle”, but as this song dates from 1979, I’m hoping that maybe you “New Country Folks” will finally twig that “New Country” ain’t so new, it’s just been repackaged by the marketing people!

Pr
omise me one thing? Please, please, don’t line-dance to Nanci, I couldn’t bear it!

6. THE GHOST INSIDE OF ME (John Stewart)
Another wonderful John Stewart song… (If you are wondering “Who he?” I have to say that this is not the place for detail, but EVERYBODY sort-of-knows John Stewart, if only because he wrote “Day
dream Believer”, a multi-million seller for the Monkees back in the 60’s and still given regular air-play.)

I don’t think I have the eloquence to explain the lyrics of this beautiful, swirling song.

It is about all those times when you could have done the right thing. But didn’t.

“Every prayer that I’m not praying, and every promise I’m betraying/Every price that I am paying is like a ghost inside of me…”

I say that it’s “swirling” because of the chorus:

“Look around, around, look around/Every time I turn around/I’m not who I ought to be/Down, down, it gets me down/Every time I look around/There is something haunting me…”

I found myself singing this quietly to myself at work today… Now I’m thinking that I was already familiar with it… It is not a new song and may well have been a hit for somebody else. Huh! Nanci’s version is bound to be better!

7. TRULY SOMETHING FINE (Nanci Griffith & James Hooker)

James Hooker has led Nanci’s Blue Moon Orchestra since it formed itself during the Christmas holidays of 1986. She describes him as “The heart and soul of this band” and says that he helped co-write her heart awake with a few of these songs.

This song too is “Truly Something Fine”, it puts me in mind of a tinkling musical box.

“Oh love is a hand you hold/When you think you’ve lost your mind/It is bitter as persimmons/Yet as sweet as rose on vine&#
8230;”
“Love is something truly fine/Love is love and truly blind/Love is only human kind/Love is something truly fine…”

8. COTTON (James Hooker)

There’s a touch of the “Down in Dixie” about this one, and it’s another winner.

“If I came back to the land of cotton/Would you love just me?/
Old loves lost are ne’er forgotten/That’s the way it’s supposed to be…”
<br>
“…I’m standing at your door/With my heart in your hands/Ain’t you gonna ask me in?/If you say “no,” I’ll understand dear/And never come south again.”

Nice.

9. PEARL’S EYE VIEW (THE LIFE OF DICKEY CHAPELLE) (Nanci Griffith and Maura Kennedy)
This is a true and startling story, researched by Nanci’s friend and co-writer, Maura Kennedy. Nanci dedicates this song to the memory of Dickey Chapelle, a forgotten American heroine who was the only American photojournalist to die in Vietnam.

The American troops were supposedly in Vietnam merely as advisors but Dickey Chappelle, as I have learned here from Nanci, was the first journalist to blow the whistle in a 1962 article for National Geographic, that the Americans were actually in combat.

Dickey Chappelle returned to Vietnam to cover the war, and was killed in 1965 when she stepped on a landmine near the village of Chu Lai. She was wearing her legendary pearl earrings as she was given the last rights in the field.

“…She tiptoed through the land mines/All along the enemy lines/But she never saw the one that took her down…”

10. ROSES ON THE 4TH OF JULY (Nanci Griffith)

This is a duet, with Michael Johnson joining Nanci on Vocals and Classical Guitar. It’s another song about Vietnam and a long married couple…

“He still sends her roses on The 4th of July/T
hey’re always white roses and she’s never asked why…”

“He was a soldier in the Vietnam war/He lost half his right leg whilst daydreaming of her/She lit a candle each holy hour he was gone/”You Were On My Mind” was their favourite song”

“Love is a mystery/From birth `till we die/Cross words of a morning/By e
vening entwined…/…Love is white roses, and you never ask why”

Beautiful, beautiful.

11. SHAKING OUT THE SNOW (Nanci Griffith & James Hooker)

This is a raw, raw song, full of hurt and anger. And pain. The pain that makes you feel that your heart has all but frozen.

“Snowing – through South Dakota I once drove/With the wife of my best pal/Who cloaks her heart from cold with gold…”

“…the laughter could thaw Enderby/And shake me from the snow…”

“Snowing – one Christmas morn’ when I was four/My brother told me it was warm/So a swimsuit I adorned/Then he sent me to the weather/And behind me locked the doors/A FOUR YEAR OLD IN A SWIMSUIT AND BRAND NEW PLASTIC SKATES/Out into the snow to catch this cold/I cannot shake…”

Oh! I want to cry.

Nanci must have forgiven her brother because Robert and his wife Debbie are thanked “for always being there”. BUT I AM VERY, VERY CROSS WITH HIM, even if this did happen 40-odd years ago! (And I have always loathed practical jokes of this nature. I was probably on the wrong end of too many when I was a four year old!)

12. ARMSTRONG (John Stewart)

A third song from the brilliant pen of John Stewart, and these are thoughtful lyrics about the first man on the moon.

Everyone, all over the world, shared the moment when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon on 21 July 1969. I sat up all night, watching television and waiting for the big moment, which was a
very long time coming but unforgettable, with its “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”.

“Black boy in Chicago…/…Young girl in Calcutta…”

“The rivers are getting dirty/The wind is getting bad/War and hate are killing off/The only earth we have…”

“And I wonder
if a long time ago/Somewhere in the universe/They watched a man named Adam/Walk upon the earth”.

<br>Do you know, there is not one “bad” song on this album. As I listen to each track, it becomes my favourite of the moment!

13. LAST SONG FOR MOTHER (Nanci Griffith)
<br><br>
Except this one. This is a perfect song – but I can barely listen to it, crying a little bit more each time it plays.

When I last saw Nanci Griffith in concert, in May 2000, her mother was very much in the present tense and until the release of this album, I was unaware that she had died.

Beside these lyrics in the liner notes there is a photograph of Nanci with her obviously desperately ill mother… More than enough to start me snivelling before the song plays…

“If I promise not to cry/Will you look me in the eye/And tell me that you’ve known me…”

“…And will you sing this song again?/Let us sing it hand in hand/While the band is still playing…/…Before I lose my voice again…”

“`Tis the sweet sound of goodbye/Amazing grace how sweet the sound/Between your soul and mine/If I promise not to cry/If I promise not to cry”.

This is ridiculous. I can barely see the computer screen through my tears… (Sob)

14. IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS (Bob Hilliard and David A Mann)

And this is worse.

Nanci ends with a “standard”, one of her mother’s favourites from years ago…

&
#8220;In the wee small hours of the morning/While the whole wide world is fast asleep/You lie awake, and think about the girl/And never, ever think of counting sheep”.

“And your lonely heart has learned its lesson/You’d be hers, if only she would call/In the wee small hours of the morning/That’s the time you miss her most of all…”

NOW
LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE…. I have tears pouring down my face, just because you wanted me to write yet another “Nanci Opinion”.

I cannot recommend album highly enough. It is an absolute treasure.

PS Nanci Griffith will be touring in October and November 2001:

<br>Croydon ~ Cardiff ~ Reading ~ Basingstoke ~ Birmingham ~ Liverpool ~ Cambridge ~ Hemel Hempstead ~ Canterbury ~ Llandudno ~ Glasgow ~ Newcastle ~ Edinburgh ~ Belfast ~ Dublin ~ Kilarney ~ York ~ Manchester ~ Leicester ~ London (Royal Albert Hall) ~ Coventry….

I have a ticket for the first date, in Croydon. – You’ll easily recognise me, I’ll be the fool sitting, SOBBING, in the stalls!!!

:)

Summary: