"The face of an angel, but the mind of a man"
Ah, but he is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Can I ever express enough just how marvelous he is?
I didn't think so. (I also don't think that at this point I need to tell any of you who the "he" in question is.)
I avoided making this entry when Muse sent me the "Children of Rarn" CD (which is a wonder all in itself), but now that I have "The Beginning of Doves," it seems I'll have to make it after all.
The further back I go into his career, the more I love his work. (The further forward I go, the more I love him.) One would think the earlier material would be the weaker, especially as "Doves" starts with his earliest recorded demos--after all, how good of a song can one write when one is a teenager? But in Marc's case, the results are startling. Not fully polished yet perhaps, and sometimes obviously an attempt to imitate others' sound, but also beautifully fresh, endearingly enthusiastic, and youthfully imaginative. Such wide-eyed optimism, such childlike confidence!
It's interesting when I compare his career to Bowie's--they both hit their commercial peak in 1972 (I'm not considering "Tonight" here), but otherwise they seemed to be moving in opposite directions. Marc's commercial stuff is great fun--as pop songs, they're top of their line--but I think I prefer his early work. Not that it's not poppy itself--Marc was always pop--but after '72, commercial interest (not necessarily tied to money) turned his head a bit.
Right, back to Bowie though--Bowie's pre-1969 stuff is really quite so-so. The 1968 songs are sweet and cute in a quaint way, but that's it. Some of them are very charming indeed, still, much of their charm stems from the fact that they're so unskilled, and the anticipatory knowledge of what is to come.
The 1967 songs are unremarkable at best.
The 1966 ones I listen to only because it's Bowie. And even then, simply as curiosities.
Yet Marc… this album, it's a collection of singles and demos from '66-'67, and I was more than pleasantly surprised by their quality. At first, that is, I was pleasantly surprised. After several listens, I forgot all about being surprised, because I was too busy being amazed. Not a bad song on here, no matter how amateurish. (Well, maybe there's one mediocre one.) Beautiful, vibrant, full of lively spirit and fairy tale dreaminess. One of my very favorite CDs of his now, in fact. And it provides an intriguing link between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and T. Rex sounds, being at times an amalgam of the two.
I knew that he started off with an interest in rock n' roll (and blues, etc), and went hippie-folk-acoustic out of necessity as much as anything else--but upon getting this record, I still expected it to sound more like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Instead, it starts off very classic rock n' roll, Chuck Berry and such--but already with Marc's unmistakable warbly vocals (at their very warbliest), and already with his poetic imagery in the lyrics.
"The Lilac Hand of Menthol Dan"--that one is absolute genius.
However, I love this album for more than purely its musical merit, whatever it may be. (I must admit that this is generally the case when it comes to Marc for me--I'm nothing if not biased.) I've said plenty of times before how personally affecting I find most of his work. And for me… ah, he functions in lieu of a personal therapist. Any time I feel upset, I'm bound to find something in his catalogue that serves as solace and comfort. When I was stressed during exams, "Life's a Gas," with its existentialist refrain of "But it really doesn't matter at all, no it really doesn't matter at all" was my guiding light. :P Or as another song said, "our lives are merely trees of possibilities" and all that. Simplistic, I admit--no great philosophy here--but the simplicity is the point. That's what makes it so sincere, and so touching. To bring up Bowie again--his Rock n' Roll Suicide might be the "ultimate exercise in group therapy," but it's so carefully thought-through that to me, it loses the immediacy of personal contact. I prefer the almost infantile artlessness of "A Daye Laye" and its "don't ever worry 'cos I'm your friend."
And recently, as I complained here, I was feeling unhappy because of not fitting in, feeling the outsider, and doubting my sanity… and after I wrote that entry, I put in “Doves” to listen to it again-and immediately the songs, “Misfit,” “I’m weird” and “Lunacy’s back” caught my attention. I tell you, Marc makes the best psychic friend ever. :) Those songs were just what I needed to hear, and immediately cheered me up.
Even dead, he looks out for his fans. It is telling that his last words to an audience were “don’t cry.” Thus, to come back to my opening statement: He is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
I didn't think so. (I also don't think that at this point I need to tell any of you who the "he" in question is.)
I avoided making this entry when Muse sent me the "Children of Rarn" CD (which is a wonder all in itself), but now that I have "The Beginning of Doves," it seems I'll have to make it after all.
The further back I go into his career, the more I love his work. (The further forward I go, the more I love him.) One would think the earlier material would be the weaker, especially as "Doves" starts with his earliest recorded demos--after all, how good of a song can one write when one is a teenager? But in Marc's case, the results are startling. Not fully polished yet perhaps, and sometimes obviously an attempt to imitate others' sound, but also beautifully fresh, endearingly enthusiastic, and youthfully imaginative. Such wide-eyed optimism, such childlike confidence!
It's interesting when I compare his career to Bowie's--they both hit their commercial peak in 1972 (I'm not considering "Tonight" here), but otherwise they seemed to be moving in opposite directions. Marc's commercial stuff is great fun--as pop songs, they're top of their line--but I think I prefer his early work. Not that it's not poppy itself--Marc was always pop--but after '72, commercial interest (not necessarily tied to money) turned his head a bit.
Right, back to Bowie though--Bowie's pre-1969 stuff is really quite so-so. The 1968 songs are sweet and cute in a quaint way, but that's it. Some of them are very charming indeed, still, much of their charm stems from the fact that they're so unskilled, and the anticipatory knowledge of what is to come.
The 1967 songs are unremarkable at best.
The 1966 ones I listen to only because it's Bowie. And even then, simply as curiosities.
Yet Marc… this album, it's a collection of singles and demos from '66-'67, and I was more than pleasantly surprised by their quality. At first, that is, I was pleasantly surprised. After several listens, I forgot all about being surprised, because I was too busy being amazed. Not a bad song on here, no matter how amateurish. (Well, maybe there's one mediocre one.) Beautiful, vibrant, full of lively spirit and fairy tale dreaminess. One of my very favorite CDs of his now, in fact. And it provides an intriguing link between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and T. Rex sounds, being at times an amalgam of the two.
I knew that he started off with an interest in rock n' roll (and blues, etc), and went hippie-folk-acoustic out of necessity as much as anything else--but upon getting this record, I still expected it to sound more like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Instead, it starts off very classic rock n' roll, Chuck Berry and such--but already with Marc's unmistakable warbly vocals (at their very warbliest), and already with his poetic imagery in the lyrics.
"The Lilac Hand of Menthol Dan"--that one is absolute genius.
However, I love this album for more than purely its musical merit, whatever it may be. (I must admit that this is generally the case when it comes to Marc for me--I'm nothing if not biased.) I've said plenty of times before how personally affecting I find most of his work. And for me… ah, he functions in lieu of a personal therapist. Any time I feel upset, I'm bound to find something in his catalogue that serves as solace and comfort. When I was stressed during exams, "Life's a Gas," with its existentialist refrain of "But it really doesn't matter at all, no it really doesn't matter at all" was my guiding light. :P Or as another song said, "our lives are merely trees of possibilities" and all that. Simplistic, I admit--no great philosophy here--but the simplicity is the point. That's what makes it so sincere, and so touching. To bring up Bowie again--his Rock n' Roll Suicide might be the "ultimate exercise in group therapy," but it's so carefully thought-through that to me, it loses the immediacy of personal contact. I prefer the almost infantile artlessness of "A Daye Laye" and its "don't ever worry 'cos I'm your friend."
And recently, as I complained here, I was feeling unhappy because of not fitting in, feeling the outsider, and doubting my sanity… and after I wrote that entry, I put in “Doves” to listen to it again-and immediately the songs, “Misfit,” “I’m weird” and “Lunacy’s back” caught my attention. I tell you, Marc makes the best psychic friend ever. :) Those songs were just what I needed to hear, and immediately cheered me up.
Even dead, he looks out for his fans. It is telling that his last words to an audience were “don’t cry.” Thus, to come back to my opening statement: He is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!