ewe2
19-02-2006, 06:14 AM
It's a small world and you must agree
It's not a very big house for a large family
People moving out or making home improvements,
But the basic problem never seems to go away:
It's a small world
-- Small World
One day at the end of the '80's I stood in the legendary Paradise Studios in Sydney. It rather resembled a construction site, being rebuilt and featuring a large library of nudie pics plastered everywhere. Screaming Jets were recording their appropriately seminal album here, but for me this studio had another attraction: this is where Time and Tide was recorded way back in 1982.
Split Enz being an odd band, it was naturally an odd album, but it was also a commercially successful album and it might have taken them all the way to the US or at least the UK. But it never did, for Tim Finn was already writing the songs for his first solo album which would fatally stall a band that had seemed unstoppable since the release of True Colours. It is an album which balances the introverted concerns of the elder Finn with the strong writing of the younger, and vitally supported by a third co-writer, bassplayer Nigel Griggs. Some went so far as to nickname it "Tim and Tide" as an alternate theme for the album but the irony was in the quotation it comes from: time and tide wait for no man.
Tim Finn had been writing semi-autobiography for quite some time, but truth behind his angst was explicit for the first time in Dirty Creature where he characterized it as a Maori water monster to an unusually funky rhythm which is the debut of Noel Crombies rhythm section partnership with Griggs. Nigel helps out on on Giant Heartbeat, a man vs nature groove from Neil Finn which zooms into Sandy Allen which rather loosely fits the albums theme, being about a past encounter with a giantess. Never Ceases To Amaze Me manages to combine man, nature, and some poignant reflections from Tim:
Loneliness is a locked-up heart away
But you make an effort and ignore the risk
Never ceases to amaze me...
Then the Finns and Griggs combine for Lost for Words, a loopy Griggs bassline centering a quite traditional (for the Enz) piece about miscommunication. The beautiful Small World closed the first side, an unusually topical departure for the Enz, discussing the habit of the French in that time to blow up South Pacific atolls with nuclear bombs among other enviromental concerns.
A typically cheerful Neil song Take A Walk precedes the wonderful Eddie Rayner instrumental Pioneer which segues into an apparently nautical romp Six Months In A Leaky Boat. But its real meaning (six months of depression) was revealed in Haul Away, Tim's rundown of his life to date. Log Cabin Fever echoes the claustrophobic atmosphere of depression, clearly an uncomfortable subject matter for Neil. Finally Make Sense of It wraps up the album in a group composition reiterating the feelings of wonder and incompleteness that float through the album:
If you shed a tear when the nightmare breaks
Just remember dreams go in opposites...
Such a strong artistic statement from a band more known for its catchy pop surprised everyone, even as it hinted at the basic hurdle the band faced to success: Tim himself. Six Months is probably as much a signature tune for the Enz as any, but Tim's solo concerns restricted the album's tour (which appeared to me to be a morose affair anyway), and all the momentum was lost. It was the death-knell and within two years, despite two more albums they'd broken up. Bands are fragile things, more fragile than flesh and blood, and such tensions often lead to implosion. To be fair to Tim, he'd been in this for a decade already, and even his famous ambition was no longer workable within the confines of the Enz.
And apart from Hugh Padgham's beautifully intricate and evocative production and some inspired work particularly by Rayner and Griggs, it remains the fascination of this album that it combines the strength of a band at its very height and the seeds of its own destruction. It's the great What If, that was only really answered by Woodface almost a decade later.
It's not a very big house for a large family
People moving out or making home improvements,
But the basic problem never seems to go away:
It's a small world
-- Small World
One day at the end of the '80's I stood in the legendary Paradise Studios in Sydney. It rather resembled a construction site, being rebuilt and featuring a large library of nudie pics plastered everywhere. Screaming Jets were recording their appropriately seminal album here, but for me this studio had another attraction: this is where Time and Tide was recorded way back in 1982.
Split Enz being an odd band, it was naturally an odd album, but it was also a commercially successful album and it might have taken them all the way to the US or at least the UK. But it never did, for Tim Finn was already writing the songs for his first solo album which would fatally stall a band that had seemed unstoppable since the release of True Colours. It is an album which balances the introverted concerns of the elder Finn with the strong writing of the younger, and vitally supported by a third co-writer, bassplayer Nigel Griggs. Some went so far as to nickname it "Tim and Tide" as an alternate theme for the album but the irony was in the quotation it comes from: time and tide wait for no man.
Tim Finn had been writing semi-autobiography for quite some time, but truth behind his angst was explicit for the first time in Dirty Creature where he characterized it as a Maori water monster to an unusually funky rhythm which is the debut of Noel Crombies rhythm section partnership with Griggs. Nigel helps out on on Giant Heartbeat, a man vs nature groove from Neil Finn which zooms into Sandy Allen which rather loosely fits the albums theme, being about a past encounter with a giantess. Never Ceases To Amaze Me manages to combine man, nature, and some poignant reflections from Tim:
Loneliness is a locked-up heart away
But you make an effort and ignore the risk
Never ceases to amaze me...
Then the Finns and Griggs combine for Lost for Words, a loopy Griggs bassline centering a quite traditional (for the Enz) piece about miscommunication. The beautiful Small World closed the first side, an unusually topical departure for the Enz, discussing the habit of the French in that time to blow up South Pacific atolls with nuclear bombs among other enviromental concerns.
A typically cheerful Neil song Take A Walk precedes the wonderful Eddie Rayner instrumental Pioneer which segues into an apparently nautical romp Six Months In A Leaky Boat. But its real meaning (six months of depression) was revealed in Haul Away, Tim's rundown of his life to date. Log Cabin Fever echoes the claustrophobic atmosphere of depression, clearly an uncomfortable subject matter for Neil. Finally Make Sense of It wraps up the album in a group composition reiterating the feelings of wonder and incompleteness that float through the album:
If you shed a tear when the nightmare breaks
Just remember dreams go in opposites...
Such a strong artistic statement from a band more known for its catchy pop surprised everyone, even as it hinted at the basic hurdle the band faced to success: Tim himself. Six Months is probably as much a signature tune for the Enz as any, but Tim's solo concerns restricted the album's tour (which appeared to me to be a morose affair anyway), and all the momentum was lost. It was the death-knell and within two years, despite two more albums they'd broken up. Bands are fragile things, more fragile than flesh and blood, and such tensions often lead to implosion. To be fair to Tim, he'd been in this for a decade already, and even his famous ambition was no longer workable within the confines of the Enz.
And apart from Hugh Padgham's beautifully intricate and evocative production and some inspired work particularly by Rayner and Griggs, it remains the fascination of this album that it combines the strength of a band at its very height and the seeds of its own destruction. It's the great What If, that was only really answered by Woodface almost a decade later.