I think we’re heading into an area where there are going to be more and more albums that I’ve heard before or used to own (or, more likely, had a C90 cassette tape copy of). This is one, that I had (may still have) on vinyl but I don’t recall thinking very much of it. Coming back to it, it’s better than I remember.
Starting with the ragtime Gotta Get Up, and
including the jaunty Driving Along, the cover of Good Times Roll and the
bizarre calypso/round that is Coconut (“You put de lime in de coconut, you
drink em all up”), there’s a very show-tune feel to the album, at times
bringing to mind Randy Newman, in a good way.
Even The One Everyone Knows, which in this
case is the overwrought ballad Without You would fit in a show; I’m still not
entirely sure if Nilsson is overplaying it for bathos or not, I think not as
it’s just on the right side of emotional. Looking at it with modern eyes, maybe
the sentiments fall under abusive manipulation saying, in effect “if you leave
me I’ll kill myself”, which is considerably less romantic than the way it was
probably meant.
The showstopper though, for me, is the
extended track Jump Into The Fire, which is a pounding Afro-Cuban kind of beat
with drummer Jim Gordon and session bassist extraordinaire Herbie Flowers
giving a great rhythm break where Flowers downtunes his bass to a subterranean
thrumming that really excites.
As I recall, I originally picked this one
up at a second-hand record shop because I liked Without You, but listening to
it again that’s the least interesting track on here (probably because it’s been
played to death on the radio); I like the deceptive ease of the rest of the
songs.
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