John Cale - Paris 1919 Poll

paris 1919

any of his other solo stuff as good as this?

Nothing I've heard is quite the same, Slow Dazzle is the only one I listen to as much, lots of people like Fear too.

I've only ever heard the remaster, so I think of A Burnt Out Affair as the closer. Graham Greene FTW though.

"Child's Christmas in Wales" for me, that melody is unbelievable

J0rdan: Fragments Of A Rainy Season = his best IMHO. Solo live/best of kinda thing.

I feel really bad about John Cale's wife sleeping with Kevin Ayers

Don't feel so bad, I think a lot of men's wives slept with Kevin Ayers in the 70s. Just ask Richard Branson.

This is one of my Top 10 favourite albums of all time.

The Island Years comp has some great stuff on it.

Why is there still no cd reissue of Helen of Troy? Totally crazy. I wanna know what Jonathan Richman with Phil Collins on drums sounds like.

"THE ENDLESS PLAIN..." because it will always remind me of driving into Alexanderplatz on a clear November night first time I went to Berlin. It was playing on the car stereo at the time. It fit perfectly with the view out the window.

xpost

"The Island Years" contains the entirety of "Fear", "Slow Dazzle", and "Helen of Troy"... so you should pick that up!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

title track

i'm listening to this now and wishing i voted for 'macbeth,' because of guitars.

I listened to this a few days ago and wished I'd voted for "Child's Christmas," if only for the opening piano riff following by the guitar.

regret

i also went w/ the title track, but it could have been anything

Andalucia or The Endless Plain of Fortune

Title track. No regrets.

god i love this album

any of his other solo stuff as good as this?

-- J0rdan S., Monday, March 24, 2008 7:52 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

Vintage Violence and Fear both rank with this one, though for different reasons. VV for the odd country vibe ("Charlemagne", plus "Gideon's Bible" has a signature killer chorus), Fear for the emotion ("You Know More Than I Know", the killer chorus award goes to "Buffalo Ballet"). Helen of Troy and Slow Dazzle are a step or two behind.

Voted "Paris" but flipped-flopped between that and "Hanky Panky."

any of his other solo stuff as good as this?

Only "Music For a New Society". Difficult to make albums as good as "Paris 1919"!

Half Past France

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow, the top five are pretty much exactly the order in which I would rank them.

Yeah, and by the same margin (tho I don't mean to denigrate the rest of the disc beyond the title track; the first five songs listed in the poll results are all top-shelf).

If I had to Pick Only One song ever, there's a good chance it would be the title track. It gets me every. single. time. While I'm generally a guitar kinda guy, there's something about certain piano riffs like this that make me weak in the knees, bring out the rare sentimental feeling in me. The other songs would be the Stones "We Love You", Bowie's "Oh You Pretty Things", These Immortal Souls "Marry Me (Lie)" and Nina Nastasia's "Treehouse Song".

"Half Past France" and "Hanky Panky" tie, but I mean I love Paris 1919. Too bad Little Feat didn't just become Cale's band, playing Cale's songs...altho Cale doing "Oh Atlanta" might've been fun.

as for the other stuff--I think Honi Soit is a good record; I love Fear and Slow Dazzle as much as I do 1919, and actually, Black Acetate was real good too.

it was my vote that pushed it over the top

Maybe I should give Black Acetate another try

Recording of Cale playing this album w/ orchestra this week http://proskynesis.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-cale-05032010-london.html
Haven't listened, so I dunno what the quality is like. Hope it's good!

that looks great!

yo it's not midnight yet over here, happy birthday john cale. thanks for the tunes

This is one of my favorite albums ever. Problem is, I can never find a record that does the trick (in a similar fashion) as this one. What other records have a vibe like this? Suggestions?

it's a good question -- dunno what the answer is though! I kinda think of Nick Drake's Bryter Later being sort of similar (and Cale played on it), but the sensibilty of the two songwriter's is wildly different.

Some of Peter Hammill's 70s solo albums maybe?

hm, i don't know those -- the van der graf generator guy?
I guess Scott Walker might sorta fit in.

Brian Eno's "Another Green World" - particularly Everything Merges With The Night

bill fay's first two albs - self-titled and TIME OF THE LAST PERSECUTION - share some of the same general tone

damn those bill fay records are great. good call.

Maybe Epic Soundtracks' RISE ABOVE?

John Martyn Bless the Weather?

I'm disappointed there's no option to vote for the picture on the cover. Andalucia's my favorite, though. Fact: if you are named Amanda, it's fun to pretend he's saying Amandalucia.

Slapp Happy's Acnalbasac Noom has the same laid-back uptight-intellectual vibe.

Maybe Epic Soundtracks' RISE ABOVE?
that's a good one, i love that record. Maybe not quite as lush/layered as Paris 1919, but I always though Epic and Cale's phrasing was kinda similar.

it might be sorta obv, but cale's discography has paris 1919-y songs scattered throughout

"riverbank", "the soul of carmen miranda", "china sea", "bamboo floor", "gideon's bible"..lots of stuff from 'vintage violence' actually

ooooh gideon's bible is my FAVORITE ALL TIME
not sure why

it might be sorta obv, but cale's discography has paris 1919-y songs scattered throughout
yeah, there are definitely a few songs (esp. on Vintage Violence and maybe a few on Music for a New Society), but I think what's special about Paris 1919 is that not even Cale is sure how he did it. I think I've read an interview where he admits that it's great, but he's not sure why or how it happened. I guess just the stars aligning or something.

Second the recommendation of Time of the Last Persecution by Bill Fay. A lot of interesting arrangements and instrumentation going on there. Compared to Paris 1919, tho, it is a decidedly bleaker/more dirge-y album.

I dunno, I think it can pretty much all be chalked up to the arrangements. yeah he was at some crazy songwriting peak, but imo he'd stay at that peak for 'fear' and 'slow dazzle'. I don't think the paris 1919 songs stand out when they're played w/ the rest of his material (like in 'fragments') - stripped of the fancy arrangements and they're still def among the best songs he's written but not in some mystical realm beyond his other good stuff.

xp

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

half Past France is my favorite on this but yeah there are a couple of out-of-place clunkers on it (Macbeth, Graham Greene)

macbeth rules wtf

those tracks are fun and i would like the album less without them, especially "graham"

chopping down the ppl
where they stand

Yes, Caribbean Sunset rulez!!! Hungry For Love is my jam!!!!!

he should do something special in Paris 2020

The Endless Plain Of Fortune is my pick these days... opening track forever, tho

Down in Transvaal
Where Crocodiles and men fight on

"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

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.

i like the way "macbeth" interrupts the mood — I kinda feel like every classic album should have one of those outliers.

Yes, Macbeth is awesome, it's like Glam Rock before Glam Rock existed.

"Randy Newman, but English"

I assume this is a deliberate mistake?

People I must tell you right now my favorite John Cale song is Ski Patrol.

Why? It's, like, not very good.

Yes, Macbeth is awesome, it's like Glam Rock before Glam Rock existed.

uh, glam rock definitely existed in 1973

Deliberate mistake.

Oh Tom D, Ski Patrol is such fun!

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.

I still stick with the older warner archives remastering of this, could not get comfortable with the bonus tracks remaster at all

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.

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

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.

there are, perhaps, a single-digit number of records i like more than this one

had no idea that lowell george and richie hayward played on this album

I like the slow songs on here the best

One vote for "Antarctica Starts Here"? That is insane.

The expanded, remastered CD sounds great (although some listeners prefer at least some of the original; it's good to have both). And I love hearing the demos, rehearsals, alt. takes, outtakes----nothing against the orchestration, but so good to be there with the basic group---Wilton Felder of the (then or recently Jazz) Crusaders on bass with George and Hayward of Little Feat, Cale playing the hell out of his keyboards and some other instruments.
10. Burned Out Affair (outtake)
11. Child's Christmas In Wales (alternate version)
12. Hanky Panky Nowhow (drone mix)
13. The Endless Plain Of Fortune (alternate version)
14. Andalucia (alternate version)
15. Macbeth (rehearsal)
16. Paris 1919 (string mix)
17. Graham Greene (rehearsal)
18. Half Past France (alternate version)
19. Antarctica Starts Here (rehearsal)
20. Paris 1919 (piano mix)
21. Macbeth (different instrumental backing track) - HIDDEN TRACK

Knew about the Little Feat fellows but had forgotten about Felder, if I ever knew he was on this.

This is one of the few perfect albums