Heretic Pride is an enigma. On one hand, it is home to the song Heretic Pride, Sax Rohmer #1 and Lovecraft in Brooklyn. On the other hand, it’s home to quite a few songs I can’t seem to remember exist. Then, I think to myself “Damn. Heretic Pride is the perfect album! I love every song!”, only to actually listen to the album and realize this isn’t true. I just have constant and recurring amnesia about the songs I dislike.
Folk is big these days. At least it was there for a bit. Between the Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons, it seemed the world was ready to step away from the auto-tuning and enjoy music that’s more than 65% real. I hope that’s still going on. I don’t follow the world closely enough to know anymore.
If folk is big, then the Armadillos should be big too.
This is an important album in the library of any Zevonite. It’s the end of an era, a beautiful final album by an amazing musician with the help of many brilliant, talented and famous friends. It’s truly a lovely album. I just don’t like it that much.
Heresy and blasphemy, should the High Priest of Zevon hear of it, my life is forfeit.
Now this is an album. My ratings for individual songs are all over the board. From one to five stars, one song will cause me to erupt into impromptu dance and another will send me spinning into a rage. And yet it seems like once a month I think that I ought to listen to Graceland again.
Paul Simon’s lyrics are freaking gorgeous. Many of his songs are pure poetry. But add music and instantly I’m bored. I think it’s the generic 1980s music accompanying so many of the songs. Take, for example, “I Know What I Know”. The music is boring. It’s straight up tired. The Gaza Sisters add interest, and draw me back into the song, but then they go away and I’m lost again. Half the music on this album just sounds like a pre-programmed track on a keyboard.
I bought the album for this song. I love this song. I love the fake synthesized trumpets, I love the bass line, I love the music video.
The lyrics: consistently cryptic. After much sleuthing, here are several purported meanings of this song:
1) It’s about a man having a mid-life crisis. Seems pretty reasonable, though doesn’t explain that “body guard” quip.
2) It’s all about Paul Simon. The beginning is Paul Simon worrying about his music career. The middle is Paul Simon worrying about his freshly broken family. The end is Paul in South Africa, realizing life will go on. Still no explanation for that “body guard” line.
3) It’s all about Dante’s Inferno. This one’s my favorite. A genius on Songmeanings.com put this one forward. Alighieri shortened is Al, Beatrice (Dante’s lost love) is shortened to Betty. He goes through Hell and purgatory to find her, and ends up in heaven. Betty is is body guard, because, well, she’s dead. She can rock the afterlife world better than him. Who cares if this is or isn’t what Paul Simon’s thinking. It’s brilliant.
4) It’s about apartheid. Black man in Johannesburg, shit sucks. Still nothing about Betty as a bodyguard.
5) It’s about alcohol. Al, as in alcohol. Betty, as in the Betty Ford clinic. Amusing. Apparently Paul Simon met Chevy Chase at said Betty Ford Clinic. And since Chevy Chase was in the music video…
6) Of course I know the story of Paul Simon at a party where the host supposedly consistently (and accidentally) called Paul Simon and his wife by “Al” and “Betty”, but, well. that’s boring. And still doesn’t explain the verses.
This song is clearly dated. The synthesizers are overwhelming. But they’re played with such promise. They’re not tired old synthesizers, they’re bursting with emotion and energy. When there wasn’t a million feet of snow outside, I would belt this song as I biked to work in the morning. It was good.
This album is solid. There are some songs I’m not crazy about, but only one that I want to murder. That’s better than most albums.
Generally speaking, I like the less poppy stuff the best, which incidentally means I like the country sounding songs the best. I also prefer story telling songs over love songs. Regardless, Jewel is an amazing writer, and even the songs I don’t like post-recording I appreciate on paper.
I really think Jewel feels confined by the pop genre. Her best songs are ones where she ignores the rules. Rambling stories with intermittent choruses. I love music like that: Warren Zevon, The Mountain Goats, they don’t care if they drop a chorus, a verse or a bridge. Or all three. Jewel is at her best when she works the same way. And when she breaks out that twang.
She uses some words and imagery multiple times. I’m ignoring the normal words like articles, common nouns and common verbs. Most notably repeated words are: barbed wire, neon, disco, and vain. Two songs mention a man with his hands in his pockets, and two songs talk about problems seeming small while in an airplane.
But, seriously. The word neon comes up a lot in this album. It’s amusing.
If you do the math, this album gets an 80%, and the average song rating is a four. Not bad, Jewel. Not bad at all.
As for something to drink while savoring this album? That’s where things get tricky. Perhaps a rhubarb wine. Sophisticated yet slightly rural. Sweet and uncommon.
yeah, rhubarb wine.
This is my favorite from the album. Classic singer-songwriter style. Nothing feels forced. Do I even detect a bridge? And the tempo is perfect.
And the words. My god, how she pairs words. It’s perfect. Imagery everywhere.
five stars.
Only because Jewel sounds delicate does this song work. I’m still not crazy about it, though I remember once really liking it. I can’t remember why.
Three.five stars.
I don’t get this song. It’s semi-rythmic. The tempo seems off.
After several minutes of thinking, too, I suspect her use of the word ‘geppettos’ must refer to the Pinocchio toymaker, and she’s saying something about puppeteers. It seems a stretch, though. Even though I like the lyrics, like the meaning, even like most of her singing, the odd tempo loses me.
Three.five stars.
Another great Jewel song. And that shriek/yell in the middle was fantastic. The twang is back for this song, and I’m starting to think perhaps I should buy her country album that came out a few years back. Though the country market loved that album, which scares me. Four.five stars.
