and for the cover of "in between days"...
Rock - what are you listening to?
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
and for the cover of "in between days"...
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
I've been listening to David Ackles' American Gothic over the past weekend for what must be the umpteenth time, and like all the great albums that you listen to incessantly, there comes a point when you stop simply consuming and absorbing the music and it begins to take on a life of its own and begins to consume and absorb you. And, with a truly great artist like David Ackles, the tragic reality of the wholesale rejection of his music looms larger each and every time you hear his music, and each time you do so, it becomes so much more painful to hear. But still you come back to it. American Gothic represents the apotheosis of his songwriting craft, with songs to sit and study and carefully sift through its themes of love and loss and regret and squashed dreams. To me, it's the equal of albums of the stature of Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, Joni Mitchell's Blue and Leonard Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate, works which (rightly) have received critical adulation as well as commercial success. And yet, American Gothic never sold in sufficient quantities and, after one more album and broken by life's rejections, Ackles decided to give up his songwriting career.
American Gothic was an album that Ackles spent two years of his life perfecting and agonising over. Despite its intrinsic sense of being a very American album in its themes, Ackles recognised that, in order to attain a true perspective on your own country, you have to leave it. And so, from September 1971 to June 1972, Ackles lived and then recorded this album in England. His first two albums distanced themselves from his singer-songwriter contemporaries by the very singular way in which he drew upon Berthold Brecht, Kurt Weill and musical theatre for inspiration. American Gothic takes these influences and expands them in significant ways. It is the extraordinary variety of the musical arrangements which strikes you when you listen to this album. Even the simpler piano-led songs have wonderfully subtle woodwind obbligatos peeking out at you. Ackles was assisted in the orchestral arrangements by Robert Kirby (Who also was responsible for conducting the LSO on this album, and who, incidentally, was also responsible for arrangements on Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter). Whilst a contemporary like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen would utilise relatively static musical backgrounds, the arrangements on this album are constantly shifting in mood and echoing the lyrical content of the songs. It's also worth pointing out just how strong Ackles' voice is on this album. His rich baritone was an instrument of extraordinary range, alternating between the gentle and intimate sweetness of Love's Enough and the widescreen drama of Montana Song. It's impossible to imagine anybody else singing these songs.
Undoubtedly the most ambitious track is the ten minute Montana Song, which musically reminds me of Aaron Copland, and it is this musical backdrop which provides Ackles with a suitably epic canvas on which to craft a beautifully evocative narrative of a man tracing his roots, with nothing but his great-grandfather's bible in his hand. There is nothing in the man's physical surroundings which takes him back to his great-grandfather's time, but, rather, it is the wind blowing "through the dust of summer noons, over grass long dying" which "dusts his city soul clean" and allows him to sit and think awhile about the man "who felled the tree and cut the bough and made the land obey, who taught his sons as he knew how, but could not make them stay. Who watched until the darkness fell to know the boys were gone, and never loved the land so well from that day on." The simple graceful elegance of those lines is something to be marvelled at. A whole life of dreams and vanquished plans is put down so simply, so succinctly and in such an unforced way. Ackles does not waste any time with excess sentiment or maudlin emotion; it is his notable achievement that the profoundly moving theme of loss is subtly evoked without any sense of emotional manipulation on the writer's part.
Waiting for the Moving Van is just exquisite and deeply heartbreaking. The first two verses give you the initial impression that you're simply listening to a story about a couple moving house. I never fail to find extraordinary the sublime transition/descent from the verse to the chorus: "I had plans for so many things I am trying not to think of while I can, waiting for the moving van to come" and "Now there's lots of time, and nothing left to fix except the things I am trying not to think of while I can, waiting for the moving van to come" (and the way Ackles subtly modulates his vocal tempo to match this transition just leaves me breathless). The third verse forms a bridge to the closing verse during which he pauses to reflect on happier times, but the lines "We had some happy times. Ten years is so much time, You'd think we both could find a way" indicate the darkness to come. At the close of that verse, you expect Ackles to descend into the refrain but he proceeds directly to the final verse where he tells us that he is standing on the front porch waiting by himself. He has broken up with his wife and he is trying to come to terms with the departure of his wife and his children. "It took some getting used to, but I like it on my own. I just wish they'd get here soon - I have so much work to do: plans to make, and a whole new life to think about". The repetition of the words "while I can" are significant and indicate a state of mind ready to implode. He is desperately working on maintaining a cheerful public facade, but he knows how close he is to an emotional collapse. I may be over-interpreting this, but when I listen to this song, I can't help but think about Ackles wrapping up his songwriting career a few years later. Emotionally devastated by the commercial rejections of his albums, Ackles decided to sacrifice his dreams and concentrate on providing for his family. Considering the amount of time that Ackles invested in American Gothic, it seems unlikely to me that, on some subconscious level, the concept of failure and rejection never entered his thoughts and would not have been assimilated into his writing. I've never forgotten his widow's words following the man's death:
"He was saddened by the many vagaries and woeful conditions with life that we all have to encounter. In some cases, they affected him more deeply than others, like with most people. But it was hard for him to just kind of put them away and go on. They kind of ruminated within him and contributed to this sometimes overwhelming sadness about the condition of our planet. Having said that, he was a deeply religious and spiritual man. Not in the sense of evangelical or born-again, but a privately spiritual man who did in fact take part in a community of the church, had a daily ritual of prayer. He was constantly searching for meaning of things that we all have to deal with, and like all of us, didn't really come up with any answers."
She knew just what her late husband had sacrificed for her and for her children and just how stoically he bore the pain in his heart all his life. When I think about that, what comes to my mind so very forcefully is the chilling line with which Ackles finishes off - almost brusquely - the title track from American Gothic: "They suffer least who suffer what they choose", which may well have been a maxim for the man, symbolic of the kind of terrible truths which nobody wants to hear. And yet, when I think about the man's great dreams, I think about the protagonist from Another Friday Night who slaves away at meaningless menial work from Monday to Friday, but who prefers this backbreaking labour to the "two days free [where] all I see are the same old walls to climb". And Friday night is the time of the week he actively fears because that's "when there's time for thinking. I spend it drinking up my failure." During those Friday nights, he speculates: "Looking for my life, I thought I'd found it once or twice, but it turned out I was wrong." This song may well be about a man who may once have found his life's calling in his music but though constant rejections and disappointments, "it turned out I was wrong". In one of Ackles' most chllling lines, he tells of the times when men have advised him to "be content to spend your life for food and rent and give up trying" because "life's a dying jailer". That image of life being nothing but a dying jailer is unforgettably bleak in the context of Ackles' future especially when you consider the refrain of Another Friday Night: "But I hold on to my dreams, anyway, I'll never let them die. They keep me going through the bad times while I dream of the good times coming by." The dying jailer of his life has imprisoned him in his visions of impossible dreams which he will never see flourish, yet he continues to hang on to his anguished hopes because the alternative is too much to countenance. Is this what Ackles' wife saw in her husband from day to day, a man desperately trying to remain cheerful but inwardly bearing the scars of a bitter disappointment? It's a chilling thought, and it makes me think of Tim Buckley's achingly personal letter which he wrote to his friend Lee Underwood in 1974 detailing the abject sense of self-betrayal he felt during the time since Starailor, when he lived a life of what Underwood termed "controlled schizophrenia", during which he was "nice to his loyal, well-meaning musicians; he was nice to his producers; he was nice to his managerial and record company people (until he had contracts with neither); he was nice to the press. He was nice to everybody who counted." But behind this public facade was an excruciating sense of isolation and self-disgust and a betrayal of his artistic powers. These were two wildly creative men who had articulated their deepest emotions so finely and so acutely on what would prove to be their masterpieces (Starsailor and American Gothic, respectively) only to find a world of public indifference. The sense of pride they must have felt in bringing to life what was bristling and seething in their hearts so perfectly was cruelly and crushingly followed by a series of devastating rejections. The music endures, but, the more you hear it, the more you sense the underlying pain at the heart of these great works.
American Gothic was an album that Ackles spent two years of his life perfecting and agonising over. Despite its intrinsic sense of being a very American album in its themes, Ackles recognised that, in order to attain a true perspective on your own country, you have to leave it. And so, from September 1971 to June 1972, Ackles lived and then recorded this album in England. His first two albums distanced themselves from his singer-songwriter contemporaries by the very singular way in which he drew upon Berthold Brecht, Kurt Weill and musical theatre for inspiration. American Gothic takes these influences and expands them in significant ways. It is the extraordinary variety of the musical arrangements which strikes you when you listen to this album. Even the simpler piano-led songs have wonderfully subtle woodwind obbligatos peeking out at you. Ackles was assisted in the orchestral arrangements by Robert Kirby (Who also was responsible for conducting the LSO on this album, and who, incidentally, was also responsible for arrangements on Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter). Whilst a contemporary like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen would utilise relatively static musical backgrounds, the arrangements on this album are constantly shifting in mood and echoing the lyrical content of the songs. It's also worth pointing out just how strong Ackles' voice is on this album. His rich baritone was an instrument of extraordinary range, alternating between the gentle and intimate sweetness of Love's Enough and the widescreen drama of Montana Song. It's impossible to imagine anybody else singing these songs.
Undoubtedly the most ambitious track is the ten minute Montana Song, which musically reminds me of Aaron Copland, and it is this musical backdrop which provides Ackles with a suitably epic canvas on which to craft a beautifully evocative narrative of a man tracing his roots, with nothing but his great-grandfather's bible in his hand. There is nothing in the man's physical surroundings which takes him back to his great-grandfather's time, but, rather, it is the wind blowing "through the dust of summer noons, over grass long dying" which "dusts his city soul clean" and allows him to sit and think awhile about the man "who felled the tree and cut the bough and made the land obey, who taught his sons as he knew how, but could not make them stay. Who watched until the darkness fell to know the boys were gone, and never loved the land so well from that day on." The simple graceful elegance of those lines is something to be marvelled at. A whole life of dreams and vanquished plans is put down so simply, so succinctly and in such an unforced way. Ackles does not waste any time with excess sentiment or maudlin emotion; it is his notable achievement that the profoundly moving theme of loss is subtly evoked without any sense of emotional manipulation on the writer's part.
Waiting for the Moving Van is just exquisite and deeply heartbreaking. The first two verses give you the initial impression that you're simply listening to a story about a couple moving house. I never fail to find extraordinary the sublime transition/descent from the verse to the chorus: "I had plans for so many things I am trying not to think of while I can, waiting for the moving van to come" and "Now there's lots of time, and nothing left to fix except the things I am trying not to think of while I can, waiting for the moving van to come" (and the way Ackles subtly modulates his vocal tempo to match this transition just leaves me breathless). The third verse forms a bridge to the closing verse during which he pauses to reflect on happier times, but the lines "We had some happy times. Ten years is so much time, You'd think we both could find a way" indicate the darkness to come. At the close of that verse, you expect Ackles to descend into the refrain but he proceeds directly to the final verse where he tells us that he is standing on the front porch waiting by himself. He has broken up with his wife and he is trying to come to terms with the departure of his wife and his children. "It took some getting used to, but I like it on my own. I just wish they'd get here soon - I have so much work to do: plans to make, and a whole new life to think about". The repetition of the words "while I can" are significant and indicate a state of mind ready to implode. He is desperately working on maintaining a cheerful public facade, but he knows how close he is to an emotional collapse. I may be over-interpreting this, but when I listen to this song, I can't help but think about Ackles wrapping up his songwriting career a few years later. Emotionally devastated by the commercial rejections of his albums, Ackles decided to sacrifice his dreams and concentrate on providing for his family. Considering the amount of time that Ackles invested in American Gothic, it seems unlikely to me that, on some subconscious level, the concept of failure and rejection never entered his thoughts and would not have been assimilated into his writing. I've never forgotten his widow's words following the man's death:
"He was saddened by the many vagaries and woeful conditions with life that we all have to encounter. In some cases, they affected him more deeply than others, like with most people. But it was hard for him to just kind of put them away and go on. They kind of ruminated within him and contributed to this sometimes overwhelming sadness about the condition of our planet. Having said that, he was a deeply religious and spiritual man. Not in the sense of evangelical or born-again, but a privately spiritual man who did in fact take part in a community of the church, had a daily ritual of prayer. He was constantly searching for meaning of things that we all have to deal with, and like all of us, didn't really come up with any answers."
She knew just what her late husband had sacrificed for her and for her children and just how stoically he bore the pain in his heart all his life. When I think about that, what comes to my mind so very forcefully is the chilling line with which Ackles finishes off - almost brusquely - the title track from American Gothic: "They suffer least who suffer what they choose", which may well have been a maxim for the man, symbolic of the kind of terrible truths which nobody wants to hear. And yet, when I think about the man's great dreams, I think about the protagonist from Another Friday Night who slaves away at meaningless menial work from Monday to Friday, but who prefers this backbreaking labour to the "two days free [where] all I see are the same old walls to climb". And Friday night is the time of the week he actively fears because that's "when there's time for thinking. I spend it drinking up my failure." During those Friday nights, he speculates: "Looking for my life, I thought I'd found it once or twice, but it turned out I was wrong." This song may well be about a man who may once have found his life's calling in his music but though constant rejections and disappointments, "it turned out I was wrong". In one of Ackles' most chllling lines, he tells of the times when men have advised him to "be content to spend your life for food and rent and give up trying" because "life's a dying jailer". That image of life being nothing but a dying jailer is unforgettably bleak in the context of Ackles' future especially when you consider the refrain of Another Friday Night: "But I hold on to my dreams, anyway, I'll never let them die. They keep me going through the bad times while I dream of the good times coming by." The dying jailer of his life has imprisoned him in his visions of impossible dreams which he will never see flourish, yet he continues to hang on to his anguished hopes because the alternative is too much to countenance. Is this what Ackles' wife saw in her husband from day to day, a man desperately trying to remain cheerful but inwardly bearing the scars of a bitter disappointment? It's a chilling thought, and it makes me think of Tim Buckley's achingly personal letter which he wrote to his friend Lee Underwood in 1974 detailing the abject sense of self-betrayal he felt during the time since Starailor, when he lived a life of what Underwood termed "controlled schizophrenia", during which he was "nice to his loyal, well-meaning musicians; he was nice to his producers; he was nice to his managerial and record company people (until he had contracts with neither); he was nice to the press. He was nice to everybody who counted." But behind this public facade was an excruciating sense of isolation and self-disgust and a betrayal of his artistic powers. These were two wildly creative men who had articulated their deepest emotions so finely and so acutely on what would prove to be their masterpieces (Starsailor and American Gothic, respectively) only to find a world of public indifference. The sense of pride they must have felt in bringing to life what was bristling and seething in their hearts so perfectly was cruelly and crushingly followed by a series of devastating rejections. The music endures, but, the more you hear it, the more you sense the underlying pain at the heart of these great works.
Last edited by mcq on Tue May 08, 2012 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
Sitting here in bed on a mundane Tuesday morning threatened with yet more rain; the mundanity fast disappears after reading the above soliloquy on American Gothic and the great and sadly underrated David Ackles. A humble appreciation is in order for such wonderful writing Paul. We truly don't deserve your presence on this site....
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
Last edited by jadarin on Tue May 08, 2012 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
On the psychedelic spinner....
Last edited by cybot on Tue May 08, 2012 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
As ever, many thanks for your kind words, Dermot. They are deeply appreciated. I was listening to American Gothic continually over the weekend until I came to the point when I felt compelled to write something personal about this great music (otherwise I really wouldn't have slept so soundly last night).cybot wrote:Sitting here in bed on a mundane Tuesday morning threatened with yet more rain; the mundanity fast disappears after reading the above soliloquy on American Gothic and the great and sadly underrated David Ackles. A humble appreciation is in order for such wonderful writing Paul. We truly don't deserve your presence on this site....
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
You're more than welcome Paul....If ever we need someone to inspire us to listen to music with an open and appreciative mind then we haven't far to look :)mcq wrote:As ever, many thanks for your kind words, Dermot. They are deeply appreciated. I was listening to American Gothic continually over the weekend until I came to the point when I felt compelled to write something personal about this great music (otherwise I really wouldn't have slept so soundly last night).cybot wrote:Sitting here in bed on a mundane Tuesday morning threatened with yet more rain; the mundanity fast disappears after reading the above soliloquy on American Gothic and the great and sadly underrated David Ackles. A humble appreciation is in order for such wonderful writing Paul. We truly don't deserve your presence on this site....
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
More from the psychedelic archives....
Re: Rock - what are you listening to?
a blast from the past over lunch.....
Brass Bands are all very well in their place -
outdoors and several miles away....
outdoors and several miles away....