VAN DYKE PARKS
SONGS CYCLED
(Bella Union, 2013)
Van Dyke Parks albums are like comets. Excepting a collaboration with Brian Wilson in 1995 (the quaintly offbeat Orange Crate Art), the last VDP offering – Tokyo Rose – flared over the horizon in 1989. So, let’s see, that’s 24 years ago. A quarter of a century between albums is unusual, even in the relaxed timetables of many of today’s recording artists, who may casually punt out an album every decade or so. 24 years. Rock stars are born and die in that time. If there is one thing that Van Dyke Parks isn’t though, it’s a rock star. From his perch in contemporary pop music – as producer, arranger, composer and lyricist – his solo output is stubbornly unfashionable, distinctly erratic and wilfully idiosyncratic. Van Dyke describes himself as a rusty nail, “just waiting to be hammered down by an intolerant bastard, with no room for what isn’t rockin’ or classically elite.”
Since releasing Song Cycle in 1968, Van Dyke has released just five solo albums (Discover America, Clang of the Yankee Reaper, Jump!, Tokyo Rose and a live collection, Moonlighting). The backlist nods at influences as wide ranging as calypso, parlour song, prewar vocal acts like the Mills Brothers, tango and twang, Ives and Sondheim – not to mention Brian Wilson of course, with whom Van Dyke created some of the Beach Boys most quixotic and contentious contributions to 60s pop.
On paper perhaps it shouldn’t work. Many probably say it doesn’t – citing the admittedly at times weedy vocals. But there is something deeply alluring about Van Dyke Parks and the way he ploughs such a rich seam of American popular musical history, trowelling up and knocking soil from roots. This is a man who once accompanied an elderly Albert Einstein as he played violin, and went on to arrange “Bare Necessities” for the Jungle Book soundtrack. It’s hard not to find something to like here.
Songs Cycled is a mixture of new recordings and revisits of tracks from earlier Van Dyke albums – in particular Song Cycle, after which of course this new collection is cheekily titled and which celebrates its 45th anniversary in 2013.
Musically, the opener, “Dreaming of Paris”, carries on pretty much where Tokyo Rose signed off – although the theme is not so much the “stolen goods” (as Van Dyke once told me) of that album, but apparently the American bombing of Baghdad. It sounds more like a road trip from Malibu though, with thoughts of France; all cabernet and accordion. From this sunshine starter, “Hold Back Time”, a rerecording of a track on Orange Crate Art, is a love song with an infectious Afro-Cuban rhythm, gorgeously lost in time.
The chirpy “Sassafrass”, written by the American performer and songwriter Billy Edd Wheeler in 1961, is reminiscent of Van Dyke’s Uncle Remus-themed album Jump!, from 1984.
“Black Gold” tells the story of the wreck of the Prestige oil tanker. When one of that ship’s tanks burst during a storm off the coast of northern Spain in November 2002, the resulting spill polluted thousands of miles of Atlantic coastline. The song whips up a dramatic tale over an appropriate backing of steel drums: “Black gold, an agony of ebony and steel”. As Van Dyke puts it, there is a “hint of an eco-politic” here. “I insist that the song-form is the most potent political tool available. I learned as much from Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, and yes, Bob Dylan.”
“Aquarium”, based on a Saint-Saëns piece, continues the maritime theme, and was recorded with the Esso Trinidad Steel Band back in 1971.
“Money is King” and “Wall Street” are two of a pair, beautifully arranged and although thematically rooted in the twenty-first century are musically reminiscent of the Discover America and Clang of the Yankee Reaper era from the early 70s. “The Parting Hand” is a nineteenth-century hymn, stirring and devotional, from the Sacred Heart school of choral music: totally out of step with modern popular music but, in the hands of Van Dyke Parks, utterly compelling.
“All Golden” is a rerecording from 1968’s Song Cycle. The set ends with the jaunty “Wedding in Madagascar”, “Missin’ Missippi” and an arrangement of “Amazing Grace”.
“There’s a maverick on the loose,” warns Van Dyke in the notes for this album, “with a highly personal set of tunes and instrumentals. All of them reveal an iconoclast tilting at windmills, railing at tyrants, barking at masters of war, and celebrating a shameless commitment to the very definition of ‘Americana’.”
But this is familiar ground for the (patient) Van Dyke Parks fan. Despite the lapse of time since Tokyo Rose, Songs Cycled is a seamless continuation of Van Dyke’s quirky take on Americana. “There’s nothing more precious than the song-form to revolutionize popular thoughts and practices that need a jolt of shock therapy,” he comments. “My first aim is to entertain the ear with beautiful sounds. I try to do that as an arranger. These pieces reveal my best effort.”
A wonderful album and one that will beguile and bewitch. Van Dyke is back.
Listen to “Hold Back Time”
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