Kansas's second album, Song for America, was recorded and released not long after their first. They had to make a living with their music, so songs for the second album were essentially written on the road. The songs on this album are also a lot more polished than the songs from the first, which was, for the most part, a lot more raw because the songs were each recorded in one take.
The album starts off with Down the Road, a song in the same vein as Can I Tell You, a blazing straight-ahead rocker. This is a song about a man who tries to get rich quick but ends up getting involved with the wrong crowd. Now he wants to "get out of town" without being killed by a loan shark. It's a real fun song despite the somewhat heavy lyrics. Near the middle of the song the band erupts into a sort of hoedown-esque solo, with the violin playing more of a fiddle style and some folks clapping their hands while Robby Steinhardt's hands fly across the violin. This is by far the shortest song on the album.
Next we come to Song for America. The topic of the song is just as the title suggests: it's an ode to America. The liner notes of the remastered edition mentions that Livgren wrote the song while he was in an airplane, looking down at the country and musing over "our relatively young nation and how unique we are." Before the song finishes, however, it returns to the themes established in the Death of Mother Nature Suite and laments the damage that humans have done to this majestic land. At just over 10 minutes long, this song isn't even the longest on the record. The music is just as majestic as you expect a song about the beauty and grandeur of America to be. This was also the only single on the album and they really took a meat cleaver to it. They condensed a 10 minute song down to just three minutes. It's more egregious than the radio single version of Meat Loaf's I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That). To anyone familiar with the full album version, the radio edit is pretty jarring. Just about everyone knows Carry On Wayward Son, but Song for America was really Kansas' first signature song.
After that we have Lamplight Symphony. As great as Song for America is, this is probably my favorite song on the album. It tells a tale of an old man whose wife recently died. He pines away for her, wishing he could bring her back. But suddenly the ghost of his wife appears to comfort him and tell him that one day soon they'll be reunited. This song is more mystical than the previous one and the music is more mystical to match, with sustained strings and organ to add an air of mystery to the verses, and a portion where the bass leads the movement of the song to express the fearful wonder of seeing his dead wife appear. Then the music fades as the apparition does, leaving him alone to ponder the message his wife brought.
Coming up next we have Lonely Street, a bluesy song in 11/8 time, which moves to 12/8 for the choruses. The lyrics are a bit heavier than even Down the Road. In this case, the protagonist is a man who walks up and down a street, looking for a man who robbed and raped his girlfriend/wife, and the shady characters he meets on his journey. The verses being in 11/8 is pretty unique. I don't listen to enough blues to know if there are other songs in this time signature, but it definitely adds a bit of interest to the song.
The second-to-last song is The Devil Game. They raise allusions to the Christian concept of the devil, referring to him as Lucifer and Satan, which are some of his names in Christianity. But as to whether or not they are referring to the literal devil is anyone's guess. It could simply be a song warning against being bad, because those who live an evil life will fall in the end. This is another raucous rocker that isn't extremely lengthy but still clocks in at over five minutes long.
Finally, we have Incomudro-Hymn to the Atman. A hymn is a song, usually religions, that expresses adoration to something or someone. "Atman" is a term in Hinduism which essentially refers to the immortal soul. I haven't been able to find a meaning for "incomudro", so perhaps it is a word that Livgren made up while coming up with a title for this song. In his autobiography Seeds of Change, Livgren says this song sums up the syncretistic approach he took to religion, combining elements of Hinduism with Zen Buddhism. This is Kansas' longest track they've ever recorded. A couple of noteworthy things: First, Phil Ehart has a drum solo near the middle of the song, and during a violin solo, the song takes on a "waltzy" feel, where the song is played in a feel of one large beat per measure, but instead of being in 3/4, as waltzes usually are, this was in 4/4 but played as if in one beat per minute. Non-musicians probably won't care much about that but I thought it was pretty interesting.
This album, as a whole, sounds better than their first, which was a lot more rushed although still excellently performed. Despite how great this album is, it would still be a couple more albums before they found worldwide fame. But with this album, they really solidified their staying power.
Album: Song for America (1975)
Band: Kansas
Phil Ehart -- drums, glockenspiel, moog drum, gong
Dave Hope -- bass guitar
Kerry Livgren -- lead and rhythm guitars, piano, ARP and moog synthesizers, ARP strings
Robby Steinhardt -- lead vocal, vocals, violin
Steve Walsh -- organ, piano, scat and lead vocals, ARP and moog synthesizers
Rich Williams -- acoustic and electric guitars, lead and rhythm guitars
Track list:
1. Down the Road (3:44) -- Walsh, Livgren (handclaps by Food Alright and the Wines)
2. *Song for America (10:03) -- Livgren
3. Lamplight Symphony (8:14) -- Livgren
4. Lonely Street (5:43) -- Walsh, Hope, Williams, Ehart
5. The Devil Game (5:04) -- Walsh, Hope
6. Incomudro-Hymn to the Atman (12:13) -- Livgren
* denotes a single
No comments:
Post a Comment