The Moon in Your Perfume Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Magic can be a terrible thing. I recently started listening to Steve Forbert after hearing his signature song, Romeo's Tune, on the radio: Meet me in the middle of the day, let me hear you say, everything's OK... I had been hearing his name, and his newer tunes, on public radio for a while without ever connecting him to the big hit. I must've heard Romeo a hundred times since it came out, but it came at me obliquely this time, and it sounded as fresh and intense as anything I'd heard in the past couple of years. It was bright and cheerful and it demanded to be heard. The fact that Forbert had singer/songwriter cred made it sound even better--a guy with artiste on his CV can write something as gorgeous and hook-y as that?

Listening to his stuff a bit more closely, I think ol' Steve is a victim of magic. Musical magic: I remember a documentary about Abba a few years ago where Ray Davies summed up the band's appeal perfectly--there was a little bit of magic in all of their songs. Romeo is that kind of song. Mostly it's in the effortless, bright piano hook: If there had been jazz in Eden, that's what it would've sounded like. The lyrics, too, are just perfect. They sound as rushed and natural as regular conversation; the "poetic" lines are gorgeous and the "filler" is so simple and good-natured you just have to smile:

...Meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything's all right
Let me smell the moon in your perfume

Oh, gods and years will rise and fall
And there's always something more
Lost in talk, I waste my time
And it's all been said before
While further down behind the masquerade
The tears are there
I don't ask for all that much
I just want someone to care...

In short, it's a magical song. But the rest of his stuff just doesn't take wing like this one. I'm sure it's lovely in its own right, but standing alongside Romeo, it sounds like typical singer/songwriter plodding, and it's never a seller's market for that kind of material.

Granted, I'm judging him on a couple of quick listens to a couple of albums, and I could very well change my mind. But for now that's where things stand.

An interesting comparison, I think, is Harry Nilsson, who I thought of immediately when I heard Romeo. It doesn't sound like a Nilsson song, necessarily, but it's got the same naive springtime vibe that a lot of Nilsson's stuff does. At any rate, Forbert got tagged as the Next Dylan early on; as far as I know, nobody ever thought Nilsson was anything but a fine crafter of Top 40 tunes. But look at what happened inside of those confines. Forbert reaches for the crown and falls on his face. Nilsson, with no expectations but creating marketable pop, came up with some truly wild, experimental sounds, and some of the gutsiest lyrics around.

There's a larger point in there, somewhere, but I think the cafeteria will be open soon...

@ 10:56:00 AM,

1 Comments:

At 9:21 AM, Blogger BeK said...

Did I read that correctly? You heard him on public radio? You okay?

As for the song--it's yet another 70s...

=Ahem!= I mean, I'm glad you enjoy it.

 

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