This album is beautiful. I really love his voice on it too.
Yes, he's so Welsh!
― Thomas K Amphong (Tom D.), Sunday, 10 November 2013 14:47 (ten years ago) link
Best twee album ever
― nostormo, Sunday, 10 November 2013 18:50 (ten years ago) link
I'll never stop loving a line like "I suppose I'm glad I'm on this train - and it's long"
― StanM, Sunday, 10 November 2013 19:53 (ten years ago) link
It's not even near the best song on this album, but I really enjoy Macbeth as an outlier. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the songs, but it's so enjoyable nevertheless. Where's the love?
― softspool, Sunday, 12 January 2014 06:05 (ten years ago) link
the answer lies within the question
― nostormo, Sunday, 12 January 2014 08:47 (ten years ago) link
?love the where is
― softspool, Sunday, 12 January 2014 08:56 (ten years ago) link
there's not much love because "It's not even near the best song on this album" and "It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the songs"
― nostormo, Sunday, 12 January 2014 09:03 (ten years ago) link
yes! of course!
― softspool, Sunday, 12 January 2014 09:51 (ten years ago) link
except i was trying to elicit responses based on its difference from the rest of the tracks. for example: what do you think?
― softspool, Sunday, 12 January 2014 09:57 (ten years ago) link
It's a great glam rock boogie song and it does kinda disrupt the flow, I agree, but without it the album would be too short/slow/samey, perhaps?
― StanM, Sunday, 12 January 2014 10:10 (ten years ago) link
Wrote on "Macbeth" last year:
http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2013/07/john-cale-macbeth-1973.html
― timellison, Sunday, 12 January 2014 18:09 (ten years ago) link
hate Macbeth and Graham Greene
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Sunday, 12 January 2014 18:30 (ten years ago) link
Graham Greene has fun lyrics even if it's not JC's best song.
― mambo jumbo (La Lechera), Sunday, 12 January 2014 18:52 (ten years ago) link
I finally picked up a copy of this - the reissue with the demos and works-in-progress. I quite like peaking behind the curtain, I find it fascinating to hear how some artists conceptualize their songs hole and others take an amazing leap i the studio.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Monday, 13 January 2014 04:17 (ten years ago) link
I quite like peaking behind the curtain
triggering acid flashbacks here
― I got the glares, the mutterings, the snarls (President Keyes), Monday, 13 January 2014 14:22 (ten years ago) link
This album is so good I can't stand it
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 7 September 2018 02:51 (five years ago) link
The album bends the very fabric of space and time by running barely more than 30 minutes yet never feeling short.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 7 September 2018 03:14 (five years ago) link
The anaesthetic wearing off
― velko, Friday, 7 September 2018 04:22 (five years ago) link
he should do something special in Paris 2020
― StanM, Friday, 7 September 2018 04:59 (five years ago) link
haha that would be fun
love this album, such a vibe
― niels, Friday, 7 September 2018 06:14 (five years ago) link
I am a John Cale fan and I certainly like Paris 1919 a lot, I really do - but it's not my favourite, it often surprises me that it seems to have a revered status. I do find about half of it utterly brilliant, but that's a relatively short set. Title track, Endless Plain, Hanky Panky - gorgeous! But Graham Greene can get on my nerves, I'm not too fond of Macbeth and I find a couple of other tracks nice enough but not classics.The Islands triology albums are just as good as Paris, I think.
A Cale classic I can fully get behind is Music For A New Society - astonishing. Conversely, I have a very high opinion of Caribbean Sunset as well (really hoping for a CD re-release of that one). Words For The Dying is an odd favourite of mine too.
― Valentijn, Friday, 7 September 2018 07:13 (five years ago) link
Valentijn OTM on all points. Caribbean Sunset is indeed criminally underrated
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Friday, 7 September 2018 08:46 (five years ago) link
i love caribbean sunset too!
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Friday, 7 September 2018 09:09 (five years ago) link
Oh, I listen to The Island Years set more than anything else.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 7 September 2018 13:39 (five years ago) link
I find a couple of other tracks nice enough but not classics.
half past france is a classic imo
this isn’t my favorite cale album either but it’s perfectly formed regardless imo
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Friday, 7 September 2018 13:54 (five years ago) link
half Past France is my favorite on this but yeah there are a couple of out-of-place clunkers on it (Macbeth, Graham Greene)
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:54 (five years ago) link
macbeth rules wtf
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:57 (five years ago) link
those tracks are fun and i would like the album less without them, especially "graham"
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:57 (five years ago) link
chopping down the pplwhere they stand
Yes, Caribbean Sunset rulez!!! Hungry For Love is my jam!!!!!
― kornrulez6969, Friday, 7 September 2018 15:46 (five years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 7 September 2018 19:53 (five years ago) link
The Endless Plain Of Fortune is my pick these days... opening track forever, tho
― brimstead, Friday, 7 September 2018 20:20 (five years ago) link
Down in TransvaalWhere Crocodiles and men fight on
― velko, Monday, 17 September 2018 06:51 (five years ago) link
"Graham Greene" might be my favourite John Cale lyric! He shoots for "Randy Newman, but English" and succeeds spectacularly, it's such a delicate yet savage song.
"Macbeth" isn't just out-of-place, it's also a bad song on an otherwise perfect album
― fgti is for (flamboyant goon tie included), Monday, 17 September 2018 19:03 (five years ago) link
this was being discussed on boring ass steve hoffman forums too. and ironically I'd been listening to it (and lots of Cale) a ton over the past few months. Certainly top-tier Cale IMO but really I like almost all of his output that isn't Words for the Dying.
― akm, Monday, 17 September 2018 20:21 (five years ago) link
i like the way "macbeth" interrupts the mood — I kinda feel like every classic album should have one of those outliers.
― tylerw, Monday, 17 September 2018 20:46 (five years ago) link
Yes, Macbeth is awesome, it's like Glam Rock before Glam Rock existed.
"Randy Newman, but English"
I assume this is a deliberate mistake?
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 00:12 (five years ago) link
People I must tell you right now my favorite John Cale song is Ski Patrol.
― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 00:20 (five years ago) link
Why? It's, like, not very good.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 00:40 (five years ago) link
uh, glam rock definitely existed in 1973
― Number None, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 06:30 (five years ago) link
Deliberate mistake.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 08:18 (five years ago) link
Oh Tom D, Ski Patrol is such fun!
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 08:26 (five years ago) link
Fair enough, sounds like a feeble throwaway to me, I suppose I have to give him credit for writing a song about such an unlikely subject.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 08:32 (five years ago) link
I still stick with the older warner archives remastering of this, could not get comfortable with the bonus tracks remaster at all
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 14:14 (five years ago) link
it is true that Macbeth breaks the autumnal quality therein, but man its hard for me to understand how anybody thinks its bad. That is one bumpin' ass beat by richie fuckin' hayward! He never did anything remotely like it again, did he?
in early 2013, I saw JC do the whole record at BAM, and it was pretty much a drag: the tunes were in different keys than the record (of course he can't sing like that anymore), wasn't played in sequence, it didn't seem like he was into it, and Macbeth in particular sounded weak.
― veronica moser, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 14:35 (five years ago) link
which is to say, cale never did anything like that again
didn't know about that earlier remaster, Ilike the new one but now I'm intrigued xxpost
― StanM, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 19:31 (five years ago) link
I mean I think it’s the first CD of it so maybe remasterIng is the wrong word to use. Neither version sounds great to me but older one is less bad. Would like to hear a good vinyl rip.
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 22:54 (five years ago) link
there are, perhaps, a single-digit number of records i like more than this one
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 23:01 (five years ago) link
had no idea that lowell george and richie hayward played on this album
― ACAB for cutie (voodoo chili), Monday, 8 June 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link