From nine to five I have to spend my time at work. My job is very boring, I’m an office clerk. The only thing that helps me pass the time away is knowing I’ll be back at Echo Beach some day.

Quick HIt

“Echo Beach” by Martha and the Muffins (1980)

“Echo Beach” was blaring on a jukebox at a Friday night get-together in the ‘lounge’ what seems like an eternity ago. A guy I was talking to knew I collected music and was asking me if he should buy the new Martha and Muffins album. “Was this the way to develop a good record collection?” he asked.

In 1977, inspired by the punk & new wave movement and bored with safe seventies music, friends David Millar and Mark Game (both guitarists) decided starting a band. Practicing in ’77, musicians came and went but eventually Martha Johnson (keyboards) and Ken Finkle (bass) joined. Tim Game (drums) joined soon after.

You don't want to hurt me, but see how deep the bullet lies. Unaware, I'm tearing you asunder. Ooh, there is thunder in our hearts.

Quick Hit

“Running Up That Hill”, Kate Bush (1985)

Very much an original, you tend to either love or hate Kate Bush. Theatrical and bold, she has always gone her own way.  From her excellent ‘Hounds of Love’ LP this song peaked at number 3 in the U.K. and was her first to chart in the U.S. since 1978.

Originally Kate a piano player by training titled this song “A Deal With God”, but EMI thought it would not get radio play in ‘religious’ countries so it was changed. According to Kate she said there would be a greater understanding if men and woman could swap places for a while to really understand the others point of view. Her first thought was the devil, but then she thought, why not God because then it would be much more powerful.

In your eyes the light the heat In your eyes I am complete In your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches

From the Sappy Song Department

“In Your Eyes”, Peter Gabriel, (1986)

I remember wearing the cassette tape out of this album in my knock-off ‘walkman’ tape player. I played the crap out of the “So” album. I loved “Red Rain”, “Sledgehammer”, “Don’t Give Up”, and “Mercy Street”. The one that struck me the deepest was “In Your Eyes”.  I played this tape walking, doing my laundry, washing my dishes, driving my car, in a plane, on a train. I believe I liked it Sam-I-Am!

Peter Gabriel, (already hugely famous in Genesis¹), left the band to pursue his own projects in 1975. His wife had a very difficult pregnancy and he opted to stay home with his subsequently sick daughter and wife. The rest of the band resented it, but that was the end of Genesis. The song “Salisbury Hill”, his first solo single is about leaving Genesis. It seems to me that Gabriel made the right call.

Gabriel used to recite dream-like stories before songs on stage with Genesis. His work is deeply emotional and symbolic, even spiritual. The sound darkly engineered at times – he worked with Robert Fripp, who was highly experimental with the production of sound. Add some Afro-World percussion and the soulful Senegalese Youssou N'Dour, and you have a monumental, unforgettable song.

You got your hair combed back, sunglasses on baby........

“The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley (1984)

Pick of the Week 

So I am pining for warmer weather and I am pawing through my albums. What will make me feel like it will actually be summer here again........hmmm........

After leaving one of the most successful bands in history, former “Eagle” Don Henley, put out his first solo album “I Can’t Stand Still”. When it first came out I thought this is one of the best solo albums I have ever heard by someone that left a very successful group – and he proceeded to get better Sure you have Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins all doing very well from Genesis, but generally it is quite an exception I have found.

I tried to learn “Johnny Can’t Read” on the piano that long summer and drove my family crazy. I just somehow related to these quirky tunes. “Dirty Laundry” also got pretty good radio play that summer.

Henley has a very broad spectrum of insightful emotional experiences in his songs and is not surprisingly a very adept song-smith. He of course had a lot of practice with the Eagles and has been exposed to some of the best, but you don’t necessarily get this good just by osmosis. He builds clever story lines and description that are reminiscent at times of Paul Simon’s song writing – although tends to have a perspective that is more social commentary than specific individual experience.  My favourite Don Henley lyric is from a song called “If Dirt Were Dollars” where he says “...she looked at me, uncomprehending me, like cows in a passing train...” Musically the songs pay a lot of attention to the expression of percussion as Don of course was the drummer in the Eagles.  

The album itself was not to be Don’s best by any means, as he went on to do a number of better works. 1984’s “Building the Perfect Beast” spawned “The Boys of Summer”, “Sunset Grill” and “All She Wants to Do is Dance”. His most mature effort, “End of the Innocence”  (1989) , gave us “New York Minute”, “Last Worthless Evening”, “Heart of the Matter” and the title song itself.

Henley became a serious advocate for recording artists rights in the early ‘90’s after his serious legal issues with Geffen (remember that name?) Records would not let him out of his agreement with them.

So a long pause and we got the 2000 effort “Inside Job”, which is a solid album, but had no real chart success.  

I have always liked and recently relistened to all these albums. My favourite Henley songs are still “Johnny Can’t Read” of course, but also “Talking to the Moon” (I Can’t Stand Still), “If Dirt Were Dollars” “I Will Not Quietly” (The End of the Innocence), “Miss Ghost” and “Annabel” (Inside Job).  

“... and I can tell you my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have gone.”