Another Green World

Produced by Brian Eno and Rhett Davies, 1975.

Ahh, Another Green World. So much has already been said about this album, undeniably the most famous of Eno's rock albums, that I find it difficult to add anything about it, contextually. It's a strange one because it is over fifty percent ambient and instrumental, and the "rock" pieces are generally mellow and good-natured. Gone, seemingly, is the morbid "scaramouche" of Here Come the Warm Jets; here Eno sings (when he sings) about kindness, fascination, and the futility of language.

At first glance, songs like "I'll Come Running" and "Everything Merges With The Night" seem like the closest to love songs Brian can wrest out of his black little soul; but rationalism prevails. They're pretty tunes, transcendently so, but far be it from Eno to write about something so trite and one-dimensional as love.

THE SONGS:

1. "Sky Saw"
   In the film Dogs in Space the opening tones of this song ring out whenever one of the punk characters is seducing some girl. I can kind of understand this -- the chilly sensuality of Robert Fripp's incredibly treated "sky saw guitar" gets me pretty riled up. The first evidence that Eno has taken a new direction, with far richer bass, drum, synth, and vocal interaction. Yes, that really is THE Phil Collins on drums -- remember back when he was a musician? And John Cale joins in late with the viola, kind of slicing through things like a sharper scalpel to Fripp's serrated knife. The vocals take a back seat here, a paradigm both in form and content for the rest of the album; they don't happen till two-thirds of the way through the song, and they are sparse -- four lines of double-tracked harmony (or perhaps more). Most notably, very few people notice that there are words being chanted/bleated in the background. Eric Tamm very kindly provides them for us, for they are not present in the More Dark Than Shark lyric sheets:

      	mau mau starter ching ching dada
   	daughter daughter dumpling data
   	pack and pick the ping pong starter
   	carter carter go get carter (etc.)
      

   ...Supposedly. I still can't hear what is being said, which is Eno's intention. You are supposed to forget lyrical meaning as being important, and if anything, concentrate soley on them as sounds, as different instrumental elements. (See "1/2" of Music For Airports.)

2. "Over Fire Island"
   A real showcase of the fretless basswork of the peerless Percy Jones, and some real beautiful, restrained, arty work from Phil Collins, all taps and sly asides on the cymbals. Eric Tamm goes to town with Music theory here, which I won't go into; I don't know it. Basically, it's short, and it's clever, and it gets you in the mood.
3. "St. Elmo's Fire"
   Oh, such a crowd-pleaser, and for such good reason. Eno tells you not to listen to his lyrics, then he writes such a lyrical gem as this one. Most of the people who have crushes on Eno cite this song as one of the reasons why. My friend Celeste (who is free of Eno crushes) is nonetheless enamored of the line "And we saw St. Elmo's Fire/Splitting ions in the ether". It really is beautiful. Eno plays a lot on this song; it's very tonal, letting the vocal carry the melody. This could easily have been an instrumental without losing any of the impact -- but jeepers, it's cute. It has a lovely guitar solo, too.
4. "In Dark Trees"
   "Nothing happens, but there is always a lot to hear." (Tamm, pg. 124) I could not have said it better myself. Eno plays all the instruments here, and his restrained guitar playing, meticulous, as if worried that something might show through, is very nice. The melodic line he plays veers just short of making a Big Emotional Statement; almost as if he is playing slightly out of tune. No fulfillment is to be sought here. This is Buddha music, purely contemplative.
5. "The Big Ship"
   I can tell that he made this song with a little drum machine and synthesizer. It's a lot more melodically pure than "In Dark Trees"; he plays some true majors and minors here, sounds like to me (please don't hit me too hard if I'm wrong). The guitar is nicely treated here, too. He understands a great truth used to effect by bands like Sonic Youth, Ride, and My Bloody Valentine; with enough effects and treatments, your simple guitar riffs sound majestic, special, monumental.
6. "I'll Come Running"
   Another sentimental favorite -- really Eno's only love song, and very few can argue that it pretty much is, as platonic or as masochistic as it may seem to the cynical. It's poppy, it's goofy, it's sweet, it's ripe for karaoke. The re-recorded version of this song, from the Dali's Car album, goes a bit further into this pain and submission thing, to a hilarious degree; Eno sure knows how to have fun with himself...
7. "Another Green World"
   More instrumental than ambient, the song is a lovely showcase for the soaring tones of Robert Fripp's guitar and the kind of unison playing that Eno refers to as "the perfect replica of a Jackson Pollack" -- that is, something that seems effortless, and the perfect copy of that, and the grand tension that arises in the observer when experiencing the two at once. Tiny -- only a few seconds long -- but perfect, it could have gone on for an hour that way without losing any of its impact.
8. "Sombre Reptiles"
   One of my favorite songs on this album! Really very much like Music For Films... a real "imaginary landscape"... I picture driving in a car, it's dusk, you're just leaving a big city and a few drops of rain spatter the windshield. You are the passenger, in the back seat, your head's at a funny angle, but you don't move for fear of spoiling the moment. (perhaps I should say something about the quality of the music, but I can't -- here the impression is more important -- the fact that such an inner landscape is possible, even inevitable, is all that I feel I need to express.)
9. "Little Fishes"
   Another tiny gem. Tamm goes on at length about the structure and texture of the work (pp. 126-7), so I won't repeat him too much. Indeed this is music that draws its inspiration from the organic, the chaotic, breaking away from the rigidity of song form or rhythm. In this very fluidity comes a static form -- again, this could go on for hours.
10. "Golden Hours"
    Am I getting repetitive when I say that this is yet another great song? Eno sings again, another fine offhanded lyric that sounds deliberated over for weeks. Contains one of my favorite lines, too -- "Perhaps my brains are old and scrambled." A far cry from the cocksure young freak of the first two albums, but it also fits in -- Eno's never been one to trumpet his joy about school's out, a great pair of blue jeans, etc. A song about being tired, confused, and immobilized. The beat threatens to pick up when it's nearly done, but it's just a tease. Put your head back onto the pillow.
11. "Becalmed"
    Foreground or background? Doesn't matter... close listening is rewarded with rich vibrating timbre, and having it on behind makes lovely music for dinner, resting, or watching nature videos. A real attack on rock and roll, in the eyes of some reviewers. There was not enough to go on -- no vox, almost no recognizable instruments, no goal for the music to reach. It simply sits there and creates spaces. Drove people batty.
12. "Zawinul/Lava"
    Simply gorgeous... The result of group improvisation in the studio, everyone works hard at restraining themselves, and the result is very pure and clear. Five guys play eight instruments and Eno treats them, and a beautiful wordless story develops. Over before you know it's begun.
13. "Everything Merges With the Night"
    So who is this "Rosalie" character? Quite the lucky one... This song is plainly erotic, if in the most rarified way -- Eno's sensuality seems to be universal, he turns his back on no delicious experience but integrates it all into a single vision, a single expression of delight. Tamm describes this song as being like "Jimi Hendrix in slow motion" (pg 121) and upon close listening, I can completely follow this logic. A very nice song to listen to with someone you dig, or when you feel agitated. It's difficult to listen to this song without unwinding and ceasing to worry.
14. "Spirits Drifting"
    This song is also onMusic for Films, and is another of the "almost ambient but not quite" pieces on here. If it were twenty minutes long, perhaps it would be ambient. Right now, it's just moody, introverted, like the night falling and the moon coming out from behind the trees.

The lyrics and the album cover, off site at EnoWeb