rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Knocking On Heaven’s Door: Mike Scott in a Pagan Place

Life has been getting back to normal. The stress of the move and everything has finally settled into something resembling calm. The future’s even looking a little brighter now that I’m in a working band (more on which later). After my plunge into depression last month I found myself unable to write, at least not as prolifically as before, certainly not as coherently. I will one day write a good piece on Danelectro guitars. With the help of my friends Jackie and Jan, though, I continue to bounce back, to remember the things that are worthwhile. I remember how to love, what I love and who I love (Hi, Lynn!). It’s kind of been like coming out of a fog, mentally. I was going through some boxes the other day, still unpacking, and came across a cassette I had bought for 89 cents at the Goodwill about 7 years ago. It was ‘A Pagan Place’ by the Scottish band the Waterboys, led by the gifted singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Mike Scott, one of the brightest spots of the 1980's music scene.

The cassette was purchased to replace the vinyl version that I had either left or sold in New York before my trek to Colorado. In 1983 it was one of those records that never left the turntable for long. Much like my beloved Smiths, the Waterboys (essentially Scott, sax player Anthony Thistlethwaite and keyboardist Karl Wallinger, later of World Party) music soared in arcs of triumphant spirituality in an era of synth bleeps, hair bands and a mostly misinterpreted Bruce Springsteen. Dark days, indeed. ‘A Pagan Place’ was their 2^nd album, their 1^st being a self titled ep where Scott played all the instruments. This record contained the amazing track about Patti Smith ‘Girl Called Johnny", all banging pianos and street cat swagger. The ep is wonderful, buy it. But ‘A Pagan Place’ is, to my mind, the definitive Waterboys record and one of the best records of the 80's, if not all time.

From the acoustic guitar strums that gallop like holy horses opening the 1^st track ‘A Church Not Made With Hands’, a snare drum quietly rolls up, unfolds like a red carpet shooting the intro through with hard guitars and Gabriel’s trumpet. Scott’s voice enters. Urgent, bursting at the seams with unrestrained passion, starting the record off at a pitch most bands can’t reach in their entire catalog. Passion was the band’s greatest strength and I’m not talking about the Springsteenian veins in the neck bulging jingoistic prole baiting pose of solidarity in the ethereal spirit of rock and roll, no, I’m talking about a spirit possessed by and channeling the voice of god in an Old Testament, the angel of the lord spoke unto Mary PASSION!

Throughout his career, Mike Scott has drawn upon a deep spirituality to express his thought and concerns about life, and the message I receive from his music is that life is holy just as it exists, that we are all god and that god is good. This healing and inspiring energy is most evident within the grooves of ‘A Pagan Place’. On a track called ‘The Big Music’ Scott sings of catching glimpses of the eternal, the divine. ‘I have hear’, he sings, ‘the big music’. He sings these words amidst a big music, indeed. The band swells around his yearning vocals as one indefinable instrument, billowing under him, projecting his words upward, like the prayers they are. The background singers float in on clouds, admonishing ‘You’ll never get there, you’ll never get there, you’ll never get there...’ cresting like a wave that Scott rides atop, singing in a voice of certainty: ‘BUT I WILL!’ You can hear the holy smile in his voice and you can’t bet against him.

My favorite cut on the album is ‘Red Army Blues’, with it’s detailed, literate depiction of a young man lost in the folly of war. From identifying himself with the perceived enemy ("I saw my first American, he looked a lot like me. He had the same kind of farmer’s face, Said he came from someplace called Hodsbury, Tennesee.") Lyrics this precise, this human don’t fall out the turnip truck everyday. The song continues to chronicle the pain and waste and failed idealism of the common soldier "....on that great Siberian road that goes for miles and miles and miles and miles." Finally betrayed by the forces he sought to defend our soldier is left with the realization that "... only one thing remains, the brute will to survive." Flags fail, the human spirit endures and without forward motion, all is lost.

Heavy stuff for a pop record of it’s, or any time, and for some reason the masses didn’t take to the Waterboys in any manner resembling the fame their work deserved. There have been rumors of troubles on their opening slot tour with U2 in 1984. Stories of the Waterboys upstaging U2 and, as a result, being bounced from the tour; a move that stalled the Waterboy’s momentum at a crucial stage of their development. We’ll never know exactly what happened, but Scott and his band never regained the buzz that had been created by initial response to ‘A Pagan Place’.

They followed ‘Place’ with ‘This Is The Sea’, a great album containing the closest thing they had to a hit, ‘The Whole of the Moon’, as well as the hymn-like title cut. But as fine as this album was, it lacked the manic grace and urgency of ‘A Pagan Place’, barely grazing the heights that record hit on every song. Since then, Scott has released CD’s with an ever revolving group of musicians under the Waterboys rubric. Fine, fine music that stresses his Celtic background in a more mannered traditionalism, all bohdrans and penny whistles, pleasant and ultimately safe. But there was a time when Mike Scott and his Waterboys, armed with barbed wire guitar and rolling piano, soaring saxophones and a voice like a streetwise angel played holy rock and roll, the sound that shakes city walls and soothes lost souls. Do yourself a favor and find a copy of ‘A Pagan Place’ and listen to the sound of life, ascendant.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 15:35 | link | comments

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