"The Great Valerio" by Richard and Linda Thompson, classic or dud?

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As a metaphor for human fallibility and hero-worship: choice and lovely or leaden and overextended? As vocal performance: it's "recitative," but . . . too overwrought, too high in mix? or just perfectly crystalline? Coda courtesy of Satie's "La Balançoire" (played as a guitar / hammer dulcimer duet): dirgelike, charged with tension, or "moody" and overbearing?

This song (ahem) walks a thin wire. It's genius and yet there's something off-putting about it. Thompson is risking a lot with the folk inflections of the songs on this record (I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight) and the lyrics aspire to that combination of directness and opacity familiar from traditional ballads . How well does he succeed this record and this song?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 06:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Is he trying too hard?

The cascading solos in "When I Get to the Border" are wonderful. If nothing else this is an impeccably arranged record.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 06:12 (twenty-three years ago)

come on, that record is brilliant - he succeeds. Classic all the way. you WISH you wrote "When I Get To The Border" or "The Cavalry Cross" to say nothing of "Withered and Died," perhaps one of the most beautiful ballads ever written.

Thread should not exist.

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 06:31 (twenty-three years ago)

what roger said

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 07:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm all for it. GEEEENIUS all the way. "Withered and Died", "To the Border", "End of the Rainbow" . . . classics all the way.

Out of interest, has any aspiring hip-hop producer sampled Calvery Cross? Everytime I hear the drum beat and the humming, I imagine a East Coast muppet talking over it.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 09:52 (twenty-three years ago)

It works for me. I have to say, I don't get the "trying too hard" vibe from it (the song or the album).

Useless fact: if it wasn't for Guardian sports journalist Richard Williams the album wouldn't have been released. He worked for Island Records as an A&R man for a couple of years in the 70s and rescued IWTSTBLT after it had been shelved. (Why it was shelved in the first place I've no idea - a very strange decision.)

― James Ball (James Ball), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 10:45 (twenty-three years ago)

It's a good song - what more do you want? It ain't Wagner.

― Dadaismus, Tuesday, 25 March 2003 12:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic. I wish Richard would write more stuff like that (or "Dimming of the Day," one of the most beautiful songs in the English language).

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 14:11 (twenty-three years ago)

it's a great album overall - "end of the rainbow" is so fucked up and dark it's amazing. "hush now you little horror" or whatever he says.... wow....

― j fail (cenotaph), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 14:12 (twenty-three years ago)

"and your sister, she's no better than a whore..."

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 14:39 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah - wasn't that about or for his daughter?

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 14:56 (twenty-three years ago)

'thanks dad'

― jl, Tuesday, 25 March 2003 20:47 (twenty-three years ago)

i've never even heard this and i really hate the way that ilm has turned into "venerate the 'geniuses' without dissent" (cf. hendrix)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 20:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I would've placed this in the Unassailable Classics catgeory not so long ago, but listening to it now, Linda's vocals seem like a liability. And the lyrics are sometimes a bit, er, cheesy with their Chaucerian affectations. The LP embarrasses me a little bit, and I'm trying to put my finger on just way. Maybe it's just that in the light of Thompson's later (inferior) recordings, it reveals itself as less mysterious and more deliberate, fussy almost. Maybe it just no longer seems quite so austere to me. Hmm, I dunno.

Crosspost = kismet

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 20:54 (twenty-three years ago)

except there was dissent in the Hendrix thread.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 26 March 2003 00:44 (twenty-three years ago)

jess,in fairness,what are you talking about?
if someone wants to talk about a song they like,and no one else has anything bad to say about it,what's the problem?
if it will make you feel any better my dad used to always listen to richard thompson which has left me with a deep seated hatred of his music
but i didn't see you complaining about the venerate the geniuses aspects of all the kompakt threads you've posted on,to pick just one example

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 26 March 2003 15:43 (twenty-three years ago)

What jess is talking about is nonsense like "this thread shouldn't even exist", I think.

I know this from the Fatima Mansions cover, which I thought was chilling - how much of that is down to the song I can't know, of course.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 26 March 2003 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

"their Chaucerian affectations".

Crumbs, Amateurist I think it's YOU who's trying too hard. Ha ha

― Dadaismus, Wednesday, 26 March 2003 15:50 (twenty-three years ago)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 March 2003 16:51 (twenty-three years ago)

"crumbs"

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 26 March 2003 16:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes Jess - crumbs!

― Dadaismus, Wednesday, 26 March 2003 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

i like "first light" (album and--esp.--song) with the (relatively) bombastic el lay production. apparently that record is out of print, but i'm holding on to my copy, thanks.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 02:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i think i've come back around a bit w/r/t "i want to see the bright lights tonight," although i can't ever hear it with fresh ears again and i still find something a bit strained about it, at least around the edges. but it's still damned impressive.

a lot of thompson's solo stuff seems really uninspired and goofy (not in a good way) to me. like the bad stuff from "hokey pokey." the good stuff on "hokey pokey" includes "a heart needs a home," which is like a great rodgers and hammerstein ballad on 'ludes.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 02:08 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

hey, amateurist, have you seen this (lol ludes!)
aw, this is so moving, and in full-on Sufi mode (intro is tedious but over soon enough)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGhhAcjA-Ks

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 1 October 2006 03:34 (nineteen years ago)

That clip gave me chills!

I got RT's autograph on a one dollar bill

― Rat Nasty (ratnasty), Sunday, 1 October 2006 14:39 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

man that song is GOLD

still don't know about "the great valerio" though.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 26 October 2006 06:02 (nineteen years ago)

twelve years pass...

I could watch this for the rest of my life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqViJyweNV0

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 3 January 2019 15:34 (seven years ago)

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