Word: songs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Presence--Led Zeppelin, Swan Song. Instead of buying this album, take a handful of reds, turn the bass knob on your stereo all the way up, and call me in the morning...
...tension is quickly smoothed over, and the play ends poignantly as the coach plays a recording of the championship game. As the winning shot is described, the men break into their old school fight song--they are inextricably tied together by the single moment of glory in their lives. They must stick together. Only through a collective, self-deceptive retreat into the past can these men escape the specter of mediocrity. And they cling desperately to the Coach's exhortation--"Never forget that, never!"--hoping without really believing it that their success in a game of basketball has carried over...
...completely unlike anything the Stones have done before, and the departure from standard fare works remarkably well. Jagger sings in an exaggerated style, demonstrating a suprising vocal complexity and range. Clearly he is experimenting with this new-found idiom and enjoying it. However he runs into problems as the song goes on too long, and his loose, bluesy singing deteriorates into sloppy histrionics...
...next cut begins, Jagger reasserts full vocal control. "Fool to Cry" (available as a single) is a slow, haunting ballad heavily tinged with a soul orientation. An undulating string filled (string synthesizer) arrangement builds with the song as a lonely Jagger talks, cries and confesses. This, and the album's other ballad, "Memory Motel," a tough-tender song about life on the road, may be the most important works on the album, in signifying the direction the Stones are moving. These songs--intensely personal in their lyrics and musically straightforward--recall the autobiographical nature of early Jagger-Richard compositions, though...
...those more surrealistic fantasies still lurk in the Stones' repertoire, and as the final "Crazy Mama" testifies, they still can master the portrayal. "Crazy Mama" is a rambunctious rocker whose lyrics are garbled just enough so that you never know exactly what the song is about. But the tone is plenty menacing, as are the words and lyrics which can be made out. Such intriguing bits as: "Well you crazy mama/With your ball on a chain/And you sawed off shotgun/ Blood all on your brains, yeah," and "You can scandalize me/Scar all over my name/ You can steal my money...