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Bob Geldof - THE VEGETARIANS OF LOVE - 1990
Track Listing 1.
A Gospel Song Bob
Geldof - Nob Music / Intersong Music Produced
by Rupert Hine Mercury
(CD, UK) Trying to review an album which is not at all new to me... By
Corinna Wodrich,
April 2002 Two
hours ago I switched on the computer, intending to write
something about one of Bob's older albums, when the phone rang.
As weird things tend to happen, it was Claudia, one of the
original Hamburg 4, who I had not spoken to in ages. I had
expected to meet her at Bob's recent Hamburg gig, but she never
came. Now she called, wanting to know if I had been there and
asking me to tell her something about the gig. Isn't that
strange? Well,
this is not really what I meant to tell you but I just couldn't
help letting you know about this most weird coincidence. What
I meant to do was to write a review about Bob's album The
Vegetarians Of Love. A while ago Ian (of the bobgeldof.info)
sent me an e-mail, saying he liked what I wrote about Bob's
latest album (Sex, Age & Death) and asking me if I might
be interested in reviewing Bob's older albums, too? I said, I
was indeed interested, knowing all the time how strange it is
to review an album which has been sitting in my shelves for more
than a decade (!) and which has been played over and over since.
Strange, but very tempting, too. So right now I'll press the play button on my stereo and then let's see what comes to my mind when I listen to the songs once again.
The
Gospel Know
introduces all the musicians and all the instruments of this
album. It's a slow song, very calm and gentle. Not quite the
opener that makes you dive across the room, thinking something
like, 'Wow, I haven't heard this album in ages! Thank God I
found it today, it's fantastic! More like, OK, that's a nice
song. Let's see what is following.' Love
Or Something!
Rat
Trap: It tells you walk - dont walk - walk - dont walk - Talk -
dont talk - talk - dont talk Love
Or Something: She drifts away (talk, talk, baby whaddya say. She
walks away (walk, walk baby why dont you stay) I
wouldn't know what those two songs have in common, except for
being written by the same musical genius, but nonetheless I
noticed. Did you? Apart from that I just love listening to Bob
speaking French at the end of the song. It sounds a great mix of
funny and sexy, I think! The
Great Song Of Indifference For
those who don't know the story of this song, as far as I know
the band where just playing around in the studio when one or all
of them came up with this catchy, diddly melody. At that time
there were no lyrics to the song whatsoever and Bob just sang
what came to his mind on the spur of the moment. 'Are we
rolling?' Yes, the tape machine is
rolling, so here we go. Take it slow, to begin with but make
sure the song builds itself up and up and up. And as soon as
accordion and violin kick in, we got them all square dancing! (Even
I'm stumping my feet, writing this now!) This
song is so very Irish, it sounds like it must been around for
ages. When I first heard it, I think I was convinced that this
was the cover version of a traditional Irish folk song.
Listening to the lyrics, I thought, 'Nah, maybe it's not "I
don't mind if the Third World fries, it's hotter there, I'm not
surprised. Baby I can whatch whole nations die and I don't mind
at all".
not quite what starving Ireland in the late 1800s was concerned
about So maybe an old tune with new lyrics? Neither. As it
turned out The Great Song
Of Indifference is (was
in 1990!) a brand new song that just blended in perfectly
with anything Irish. I
love the way the band cracks up laughing at the end of the song.
It really brings across the spirit and mood the band must have
been in, in that particular day in the studio. As
Bob told us on his recent tour this whole album was recorded in
a couple of weeks. After putting out Deep
In The Heart Of Nowhere he wanted a total change. He hired a
number musician he'd never met before and book a cheap studio
for two weeks, entering the studio with not much of a concept.
'If the project failed I wasn't wasting much money, because the
studio was cheap and the time we spent there was limited. If the
project worked out: Great! The album would still be cheap but
good, too, Bob said. I'm sure he must have been very satisfied
with the outcome of this session. Thinking
Voyager 2 Type Things. Isn't
that a great title for a song? Just about anything could be
lurking behind a title like that. I'm much too young to really
know what Voyager 2
was about and I must admit that I don't know who Brendan
Behan was either, so to me a title like that is like an
unopened book. And
in a way - so is the song. A simple melody, repeating itself
over and over again, lulling, meditative, trancey almost.
This is the breath - this
is the kiss - this is the moment that we come alive. To me
the song is like waking up on a lazy Sunday morning, slowly
crossing the line from dream to reality, always slipping back
into slumber-land, feeling very happy, content and at easy with
the day that lies ahead. Big
Romantic Stuff
on
the other side is like a little later on that same Sunday.
Breakfast eaten, kitchen cleaned, the sun is just coming round
this side of the house and I might be thinking about what to do
and where to go on a day like today. (You did not
expect me to write anything but a totally subjective review, did
you?!) The
song's got this gentle swing that just makes me think, 'Well,
after all, isn't this world quite beautiful?! Shell never give
it up - She's gonna hold on to that Big Romantic Stuff - And
accordions and violins take her back in time - When the only
explanation was a kiss and love and life.
Crucified
Me I
wouldn't be surprised if this is another song that just
happened. The whole song is based around Bob playing the guitar
- and he does it very well indeed -singing most intensively. As
long as I know (of) Bob, his lyrics have always been a mystery
to me. I can call myself lucky to know
some of the stories
behind some of the songs but often I don't really understand
what he's going on about. A
while ago I was reading Nick Cave's book And
The Ass Saw The Angle. I hated the story because it was so
gross and gory but I adored the style the book was written in. I
read somewhere that Nick Cave spent ages writing this book. He
was in Berlin at that time, squatting with a friend. His bed was
on a kind of loft and while writing this book, he dragged a
lorry-load of reference books up there. He spent ages in
archives and libraries, collecting ancient dictionaries and
anything that would include words not used in today's English.
Consequently I never understood what I was reading, but the
sound of those words was so beautiful, I eventually started
reading the book to myself aloud. I read the whole book aloud to
myself and adored it, not really minding anymore if what I was
reading made any sense or not. I just wanted to hear
the sound of the words. **[For those of you interested in
this, I've quoted my favourite paragraph from this book at the
bottom of this page.] Bob's
lyrics sometimes do the same to me. I'm sure I could work out
the contents to some of the songs, but, does it really matter?
Aren't the words to a song sometimes merely like another instrument,
another facet to a musical concept? Decide for yourselves. The
Chains Of Pain
This
never meant much to me. The song's too clean. There's nothing
special about it. A nice
melody, some nice idea,
but at the end of the day, nothing but nice.
To me this song is what is called an album
track, a song to either fill a CD which isn't quite long
enough otherwise or a song to build a bridge that makes it easy
to take you from one major song to another. The
lyrics to the song are rather political but when trying to bring
across a strong point of view, I think, the song should be a
little stronger, too. A
Rose At Night
and No Small Wonder Are
the slow and gentle couple of songs on the album. Very relaxing,
songs to lean back to and enjoy. A
Rose At Night being
a sad love song, while No
Small Wonder tells the story of
any-old-day-in-the-life-of-Bob-Geldof. The lyrics to No
Small Wonder are great:
Down
by the Sri Chimnoy Mile Past
the Peace Pagoda It's
good You
can have a personal religious experience And
get healthy at the same time Which
obviously is important for a busy man like me I
set the alarm clock ready for another day at work Another
day in life's great adventure It's
no small wonder I think this is a song that everybody must be able to relate to. Haven't we all got our own little routines which might mean nothing but - as a whole - make up ourselves and our lives and everything that we are and stand for? My local might not be the Fulham ABC but the Elbe-Wochenblatt but at the end of the day, they are the same, aren't they?
Let It Go is
a bit of a reminder of all the songs you've just heard on the
album. It's reminding you of the strong Irish roots, audible
throughout the whole album and the cheery, easy-going attitude
of most of the songs. A
song that gives all those great musicians - who I hardly
mentioned in this strange review - the chance to let themselves
go and play for the sheer pleasure of playing. Still, I wouldn't
mind if the song was a bit faster - to my ears it's somehow
dragging it's feet a little. The
End of the World Last but not least A very 'small' song to close the CD - just Bob playing guitar and singing. But with some remarkable backing vocals. Sadly the booklet of this CD does not tell you who's playing / singing on which song but in the whole list there's only two people who've been singing backing vocals: Rupert Hine (the producer) and Kevin Godley (of Godley & Creme). Listening to the backing vocals of this song, Imm sure it must be Rupert Hi - but then again, Bob once told me a rather astonishing story about Kevin Godley's visit to his dentist - maybe the song was recorded just minutes later? Whoever it is who's singing here - it's fab! How absurd to write a song about the end of the world, when no-one know what it's going to be like. But one thing for sure: It is going to be absurd! **The
air had turned tactile and tinted red - it stuffed the valley
thickly and there was an electricness about it that crackled
inside mah head like paper. It kinda oozed - this air - oozed
into mah lungs, soupy and reeking of evilness. And ah could see
it - ah could see it rolling across every crag and crack, every
knurl and knoll, every ridge, every ditch, every hill and hole,
through groves of cottonwoods, each knotted chine, the knitted
boles of the killing vine, each impressed dent and darksome
hollow, over glen, gully, gulch, gorge, gill, glade, gallow - even
this very fen, and ah expect this bog - yes, this suck, this
darkling quag. There in the very blood of the air ah could sense
the most hell-born forecast, hear the murky rhymes beneath its
breath-bombinations, hexes and muttered spells - hear the beat
of its breath - the first tremors, distant and faint, but
coming, coming - feel its plodding pulse, now fuller still, its
pounding! This special evil - Coming! Drumming! - and this
special air tense to receive it. Taken
from: Nick
Cave: And The Ass Saw The Angel - 1989 |
