byrdsongs, lxiii

Lady of the North is autobiographical, allegorical/symbolic, and heartbreaking. The pastoral verses depicting peace, love and contentment are each time answered with others expressing the anguish and dread that, for Clark, always seemed to be just around the corner. I can relate to this.  Some of us have a hard time experiencing unadulterated happiness because we know it's fleeting, and the pain of losing it is worse than not having it at all. I’m only half kidding when I tell friends and loved ones that I don’t do ‘in the moment.’  …There’s a weird disconnect on much of No Other between the raw and abject sadness of its emotional tone and the slickness of the production value. Depression isn’t supposed to sound so polished and corporate. This is what I meant yesterday when I said that No Other is a strange album. The songs are good but the record as a whole is…I don’t know…there’s something a bit off about it. It doesn’t cohere somehow. It’s far more worthy of your attention than anything McGuinn, Hillman or Crosby did in the mid to late 70s, but it’s still flawed in a way I can’t completely articulate. Part of it is that it’s a rock album and Gene Clark is a pop guy. He’s at his best when he’s doing three-minute love songs with great hooks, multipart harmonies and tambourines. He’s in his element when the music is light and deft, even if it’s sad ‘n blue. Keep it simple, keep it compact, don’t ramble. Verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-verse-done. The music on No Other is the opposite of this. A few of the songs are over six bloody minutes long!  That’s not what we’re looking for with Gene Clark.  …I may be overestimating the extent to which it was possible for Clark - coming from where he came from - to have made a pop record in the mid 70s. Even Paul McCartney, Mr. Pop, was making turgid rock records at the time. Band on the Run is a fun album, very catchy, but it’s definitely hard and even heavy.  …The movement from mid 60s pop to mid 70s rock only seems like devolution now, with several decades hindsight. At the time it sounded and felt like progression and growth. I can remember a time, as a little kid, when I definitely preferred the White Album to With the Beatles. So it may not be entirely fair for me to complain that No Other is all rock, no pop. Even still, the sadness I feel when I hear it is not only a reaction to the music’s content but also to its awkwardly navigated form. The record's downbeat strangeness comes from Clark's poignant effort to find his way amidst world that's passed him by...