Think. And think again (Wings To Fly & A Place To Be - Nanci Griffith)

Member Name: lynn_bex

Product:	Wings To Fly & A Place To Be - Nanci Griffith
Date:	14/07/01 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent Introduction, Varied music, Clever lyrics and wise words

Disadvantages: Not enough information on liner notes

I have been off-line for best part of 3 weeks, my modem having been destroyed by what I can only describe as "a thunderbolt". - Had storms been expected, I would have unplugged... They weren't, so I didn't, having only popped to the nearest shops. - BIG MISTAKE!

I would have liked to re-post my Nanci Griffith quote when children were taunting children in Belfast...

Instead, I re-post it following the horrors of 11 September 2001.

The following opinion is unchanged but I first repeat the quote from "It's a Hard Life":

“Doctor Martin Luther King Junior taught us that there are no bad babies born upon the face of this earth. All babies are born good. It’s what we give them in love, what we teach them in education and what we lend to them in trust that they will return to us in that dream of the future.
Whatever bitterness and hatred you harbour in your heart, let the cycle stop with you, and don’t pass it on to your children, because it is the greatest disease that you could ever expose them to. `Cause it’s a hard life, wherever you go.”

My original opinion follows, unchanged:

“WINGS TO FLY AND A PLACE TO BE”

Whatever your taste in music, I defy you to listen to this album and not fall a little bit in love with the magical Nanci Griffith.

There is a detailed “Introduction” by “Claire Horton [Who she?], dated January 2000” but otherwise the liner notes are not helpful, telling us merely that the selections on this “Introduction to Nanci Griffith” are taken from four albums… “Lone Star State of Mind” (1987), “Little Love Affairs” (1988), “One Fair Summer Evening” (1988) and “Storms” (1989). (And then incorrectly listing track 13 as coming from the album “Once in a Very Blue Moon”)

Never mind.
r>It should be noted that these are all MCA recordings, thus pre-dating Nanci Griffith’s more recent albums, notably the magnificent “Other Voices” project, (a self-financed and Grammy award winning labour of love, undertaken with full artistic freedom following her departure from MCA) and the incredible “Dustbowl Symphony”, recorded live with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London, and subsequently “played and toured” during 2000.

As I have said elsewhere, Nanci Griffith is strong on human rights and worldwide social responsibilities. If you too want to change the world, (so long as it’s for the better), may I please ask you to listen to this low-priced CD, and really pay attention to the words?

I now take it upon myself to introduce NANCI GRIFFITH, Texan and International Treasure, with “Wings to Fly and a Place to Be”:-

1 From A Distance (Julie Gold) [Taken from “Lone Star State of Mind”]

This was the first and, to my mind, definitive recording of Julie Gold’s wonderful song, and a hit for Nanci Griffith, who herself says, “…I recorded Julie Gold’s extraordinary world anthem, “From a Distance” in 1986 for my “Lone Star State of Mind album…” Other sources say that it was the generous Griffith, (at that time an already established and successful singer/songwriter,) who published and promoted this song, praising Julie Gold every step of the way.

Lacking Nanci’s generosity, I tend to lunge for my radio’s “Off” button whenever an alternative version of “From a Distance” is played, (later hits by Bette Midler and Cliff Richard springing to mind). Protest songs come in all shapes and sizes but, in this instance, so far as I am aware, only Nanci Griffith has praised the writer and interpreted the song with what I take to be a true un
derstanding of the words:

“…From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need… /…No bombs../No diseases../ No hungry mouths to feed…”
“From a distance we are instruments/ Marching in a common band/Playing songs of hope/Playing songs of peace/They’re the songs of every man…”
“…From a distance you look like my friend/Even though we are at war/From a distance, I can’t comprehend what all this war is for….”
“God is watching us/God is watching us/God is watching us…./ …From a distance...”

As Nanci Griffith says, this is an “extraordinary world anthem”. To me, it’s a protest song… - You must judge for yourselves.

2. I Wish It Would Rain (Nanci Griffith) [Taken from “Little Love Affairs”]

“I wish it would rain, to wash my face clean…”
“..Love and memories…sparkle like diamonds…”
“...When the diamonds fall, they burn like tears….”

It would be very easy to over-simplify this song, which records, and reflects upon, first love, puppy love, unrequited love, and then the geographical and familiar love of home…

A foot-tapping number that will pull you up short, once the words register....

3. Lone Star State of Mind (Pat Alger/Gene Levine/Fred Keller) [Taken from “Lone Star State of Mind”]

This is a great song. Do try to listen – and maybe sing along… (air-guitar optional).

“Your `phone call took me by surprise/Gee, it’s been a long, long time….”

“..But here I sit alone in Denver, sipping the California wine/And I’ve got all night to remember you/I’m in a Lone Star state of mind”
“…I just saw John Wayne on the late-late show, save the girl and
ride away/And I was hoping as the credits rolled, he’d make it back to her some day/And here I sit alone in Denver, sipping the California wine…”
“…It’s a thousand miles or more, from here to your front door/I’d be there tomorrow if I left today…” “…When you called you said I’d have a place to stay…”

These clever lyrics have dreamers like me reviewing the past through our rose-tinted wine glasses. Next morning, we’re wondering if we mightn’t have been a touch maudlin, California wine and all…

4. Listen to the Radio” (Nanci Griffith) [Taken from “Storms”]

This track begins with a rock-like riff, quietens for the vocal, then builds into a salute to the companionable influence of the “portable” and “car” radios that moulded pre-Radio/Cassette/CD generations….

“…When you can’t find a friend, still got the radio…” (She’s off down the road…)
“… I left a handsome, two-stepping, good old boy in Tennessee/Now he’s sitting on the sofa/He’s looking for his supper/Wondering what’s become of me….”
(By now, she’s driven way up the road, with the radio turned on…)
Later:
(-She’s taken a look into the distance, and done another runner…)
So, (another good old boy…) “…Will find a band of gold upon his stereo/Then my mamma’s gonna call/She’ll say “Where’s she gone?”/He’ll say, “Down the road with the radio turned on….”

- I detect a definite “Whoop!” at this point. - Go, Nanci, Go!

5. It’s Hard Life Wherever You Go (Nanci Griffith) [Taken from “Storms”]

If you have the good sense and/or good fortune to see Nanci Griffith p
lay live, I guarantee that she will sing this song, which was her Grandmother’s favourite (and Granny Griffith knew a thing or two, having lived through all but a few months of the turbulent 20th Century).

Nanci Griffith regularly re-visits and re-works “It’s a hard life…”, the most recent versions appearing on her own “Dust Bowl Symphony” and the newly released [June 2001] “Concerts For a Landmine Free World”, which features one-song-a-piece by Nanci Griffith and other like-minded artists… (I must give due credit to the pivotal Emmylou Harris, who organised the “Concerts for a Landmine Free World” project)

The currently released “Landmines” version of “It’s a Hard Life Wherever you go” is my favourite, being louder, angrier and altogether stronger than this sorrowful “Storms” recording, so I am going to cheat here, and quote Nanci Griffith’s introduction to that more recent performance, just to set the scene:

“Doctor Martin Luther King Junior taught us that there are no bad babies born upon the face of this earth. All babies are born good. It’s what we give them in love, what we teach them in education and what we lend to them in trust that they will return to us in that dream of the future.
Whatever bitterness and hatred you harbour in your heart, let the cycle stop with you, and don’t pass it on to your children, because it is the greatest disease that you could ever expose them to. `Cause it’s a hard life, wherever you go.”

We begin this song in Northern Ireland… “I am a back seat driver from America/They drive on the left on Falls Road/The man at the wheel’s name is Shamus/We Pass a child on the corner he knows…”
“…He says, ‘There’s barbed wire at all these exits/And there ain’t no place in Belfast
for that kid to go’.”
“It’s a hard life… And there ain’t no place in Belfast for that kid to go”.

Moving to America… “A cafeteria line in Chicago/The fat man in front of me/Is calling black people trash to his children/And he’s the only trash here I see/And I’m thinking this man wears a white hood [a reference to the infamous racist organisation, the Ku Klux Klan]/In the night when the children should sleep/But they’ll slip to their windows and they’ll see him/And they’ll think that white hood’s all they need...”
“…If we poison our children with hatred/Then the hard life is all that they’ll know/And there ain’t no place in Chicago for those kids to go”.

“It’s a hard life…. And if we poison our children with hatred… …There ain’t no place in this world for those kids to go…”

Powerful stuff, and little wonder Nanci’s Grandmother was so proud.

6. Trouble in the Fields (Nanci Griffith/Rick West) [Taken from “Lone Star State of Mind]

This is where you will begin to fall in love with Nanci Griffith, just by listening to her (intentionally funny) spoken introduction, in what must surely be a one-off Texan accent…
She sets the scene by describing her mother’s family background, where five Great Uncles were farmers during the 1930’s Great Depression… After the depression, “Four of them sold off the family farms and bought liquor stores and dry-cleaning businesses, getting ready for the war boom, you know?”

This song was written for the one Great Uncle who continued farming, (pushing his plough for almost 80 years,) and his wife, Great Aunt Nettie May, who features here by virtue of her description of the blowing dust during the Great Depression, (I won’t spoil the story and insi
st that you hear it, one way or another, first hand from Nanci Griffith).

I know next to nothing about American agriculture, save that they have (or had) many small family farms, built with a pioneering spirit and subsequently passed down through the generations. -If you are interested in the detail you must make your own investigations, because I offer no guarantee of accuracy. However, my understanding is that these people were encouraged to borrow from the banks to invest in hi-tech equipment (hence the mention of the John Deere [a tractor] in these lyrics). When it all went wrong, the banks called in their loans and the small farmers were in deep trouble.

In 1985, on stage for the American side of “Live Aid”, Bob Dylan expressed a wish that something similar could be done to aid the American “family farmers”, who were also in need. “Farm Aid” was thus born and remains a continuing benefit to struggling small-scale American farmers. [I have no comment whatsoever on the relative merits of “Live Aid” and “Farm Aid”. Ask Bob Dylan, if you need to know.]

Round about the same time, Nanci Griffith wrote a song:-

“Baby, I know that we got trouble in the fields/When the bankers swarm like locusts/Out there turning away our yield…”
“Our parents had their hard times…fifty years ago/When they stood out in these empty fields/In dust as deep as snow”

[Chorus]
“All this trouble in our fields/If this rain can fall/These wounds can heal/They’ll never take our native soil./What if we sell that new John Deere?/And then we’ll work these crops with sweat and tear/You’ll be the mule/I’ll be the plough/Come harvest time, we’ll work it out/There’s still a lot of love/Here in these troubled fields”.

These are powerful images, - and this is a great song.


7. Out
bound Plane (Nanci Griffith/additional worlds Tom Russell) [Taken from “Little Love Affairs”]

Here we have Nanci Griffith with attitude:
“Don’t want to be standing here/With this ticket for the south-bound plane/’Cos I’ve been here before/Somehow this doesn’t feel the same”

(There’s a terrific drum backing to this track, building nicely by now)

“I don’t want to be standing here/And I don’t want to be talking here/And I don’t really care who’s to blame/’Cause if love won’t fly of its own free will/It’s gonna catch that outbound plane…”
“…Two lonely hearts in this airport knowing/Neither cares where that other heart’s going…”
“…These broken wings are going to leave me here to stand my ground/And you can have this ticket, for that lonely plane that’s flying out”

This is an incredible “Goodbye song”.

8. Ford Econoline (Nanci Griffith) [Taken from “Lone Star State of Mind”]

If this does not blow you away, you’re reading the wrong opinion and I suggest you leave now. This song is loud, challenging and features my kind of feminist:

“She drove west from Salt Lake City to the California Coastline/Hit the San Diego Freeway doing sixty miles an hour/She had a husband on her bumper/She had five restless children/She was singing as sweet as a mocking bird, in that Ford Econoline”
[Obviously the Ford Econoline is an American car but I am unaware of any particular significance]
“…She’s the salt of the earth/Straight from the bosom of the Mormon church/With a voice like wine/Cruising along in that Ford Econoline.”
“Her husband was a gambler/He was a Salt Lake City rambler/And he built a golden cage around his silver-coated wife/So many nights he left he
r crying/With his cheating and his lying/And his big mistake was in buying her that Ford Econoline…”
- Jeez! (Sorry, Mormons.)
This is powerful stuff and must surely rank as one of the most realistic “wives and mothers” feminist anthems ever written…

9. Gulf Coast Highway (James Hooker/Danny Flowers/Nanci Griffith) [From “Little Love Affairs”]

This is a beautiful, poignant duet but, despite squinting at the liner notes, I can find no reference to the excellent male vocalist. Luckily, “Little Love Affairs” is in my collection, so I can name the singer as Mac McNally – and tell you that he and Nanci Griffith have done an excellent job here:

[She] “Gulf Coast Highway/He worked the rails/He worked the rice fields… …He worked the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico/The only thing we've ever owned/Is this old house here by the road/And when he dies he says he'll catch some blackbird's wing/Then he will fly away to Heaven, come some sweet blue bonnet spring”

[He] “She walked through Spring time/When I was home… …The Seasons change/The jobs would come/This old house felt so alone when the work took me away/And when she dies she says she’ll catch some blackbird’s wing…”

[They] “Highway 90, the jobs are gone/We tend our garden… …This is the only place on earth blue bonnets grow…/ …And when we die we say we’ll catch some blackbird’s wing/We will fly away together….”

This song conjures up wonderful images. If you have the good fortune to see Nanci Griffith perform it live, she will daintily mime reaching for that blackbird’s wing – at which point you will be hard pressed not to take flight with her, courtesy of some imaginary bird.

10. Love at the Five and Dime (Nanci Griffith) [From 
220;One Fair Summer Evening”)

The spoken introduction to this live recording is just wonderful:
“One of my greatest fascinations in life has always been a little store where you can go in and get a vanilla coke, and listen to the popcorn machine go “pop, pop, pop”, and then dig through the record bin and find the record for 69cents that you’d always wanted, all your life…”

It continues, getting better and better… -Take it from me, you need this CD in your collection, if only for the spoken humour… Which, in this instance, leads us into the old style Woolworth’s…

En route to High School, the young Nanci changed buses in Central Austin, near a Woolworth’s store… Where she always had just enough time to “…run into the Woolworth’s store, get myself a vanilla coke, dig through the record bin, wink at the boys and get back on the bus…”

“…Woolworth’s stores are the same everywhere in the world… …The first time we went to Europe, we landed in London and we were driving through Central London… and by golly, there was a Woolworth’s store…. …and I wanted them to stop the car and let me out so that I could go and fill up my suitcase with unnecessary plastic objects.”

“And if you’ve ever been in a BIG WOOLWORTH’S STORE, where there’s an elevator… and on, and wonderfully on…”

This woman is magic, - and the song’s good too:

“Rita was sixteen years, with hazel eyes and chestnut hair, she made the Woolworth’s counter shine/And Eddie was a sweet romancer, and a darn good dancer/And they waltzed the aisles of the Five and Dime/And they’d sing “Dance a little closer to me/Dance a little closer…/Hey it’s closing time, and love’s on sale tonight at this Five
and Dime…”

11 “I Knew Love” (Roger Brown) [From “Little Love Affairs”]

This is a pretty, sad little song, - but, be warned, it can be quite potent if you’re in reflective mood when the lyrics hit home:

“I knew love when it still meant forever/When a feeling shared didn’t always have to hurt/And a promise that was made would go unbroken/I knew love when it was more than just a word”
“I knew a time when hope was all you needed/And if you cared you found a way to make things work/When life was what two people shared together/I knew love when it was more than just a word…”
“…When I wouldn’t have to read this note that says you’re leaving/I knew love when it was more than just a word…”

12. “Sweet Dreams Will Come” (John Stewart) [From “Little Love Affairs”]

Irritatingly, this is another duet where no credit is given to the male vocalist, who is in fact the excellent singer/songwriter John Stewart. This track is magnificent, and swings along beautifully with challenging male/female vocals bouncing off of each other…

[He] “I’m sleeping less in LA, dreaming of days yet to come/
[She] I don’t care what you say, I know that those days will surely come”
[He]“I’m waking and I’m calling/
[She]I’m shaking and I’m falling/
[They]Oh, Little darling, I wonder when those sweet dreams will come”

“There’s a hole in the sky, made by my “Right Guard” last night/Oh, and then there’s you and I, assuring that everything’s alright/We are nursing and pretending, cursing then defending/Yet it’s never ending/Makes you wonder when those sweet dreams will come….”

“…I am looking for some love/I guess that’s why people buy
dogs…”

I love that throw-away line about the hole in the sky made by the Right Guard. In fact, I love the whole song and its sentiments…

One of these days we WILL get it right and the Sweet Dreams WILL come…

13. “Spin On A Red Brick Floor” (Nanci Griffith) [From, it says here, “Once in a Very Blue Moon” but let’s try “One Fair Summer Evening”]
Whatever… Nanci Griffith says (on the “One Fair Summer Evening Sleeve”), “I once wrote a song called SPIN ON A RED BRICK FLOOR about a dark cornered, brick floored music hall in Houston, Texas… …where folks come to hear, not to be seen”.
She dedicated the “One Fair Summer Evening” album to her mother, - so, what more can I say, save “Let’s go, to the driving beat”:

“… Well I could use a little spin on a red brick floor in that crazy old bar when Tim locks the door/Where the walls are gonna ring and the strings are gonna bend and it’s a buss on the cheek from all of my old lovers again…”
“…I’ve gone crazy on this road, with all of this travelling alone/But the asphalt is burning tonight…”
“The New England Spring’s been good to me…/…But how I miss my native tongue/’Cause New York City sort of brings out the stupid in me…”

14. I Don’t Want to Talk About Love (Nanci Griffith/James Hooker) [From “Storms”]
This is such a quiet little number that you’ll miss the pain in these lyrics, unless you’re listening carefully.
“I don’t want to talk about love/Cause I’ve heard it all before… and it talks too loud/You can hear it in a disco midnight… Shouting”
“It comes dressed in its summer clothes/When you are travelling through the heart of the winter&#
8217;s cold…”
“I don’t want to talk about changes/Changes come of their own free will/And if you want to talk about leaving/Well, you’ve always walked and you always will…”
“…Can’t you hear the voice of my heart/It calls your name in the middle of the night/It’s always been a quiet voice, when it’s breaking/I don’t want to talk about this love/This love was my saving grace/So, can’t I just say that I love you… And we’ll call it a day?”
If you are new to Nanci Griffith, I urge you to buy this MCA Compilation Album.
If you like what you hear, I suggest that you visit your local music store immediately and buy-up whatever Nanci Griffith CDs they have in stock… I
Lynn