The Verlaines have released nine albums and I hope to blog about all of them at some time in the future. I will be starting today with their most recent album, Untimely Meditations. Here is a list of their albums to date.
1. Hallelujah All The Way Home (1985)
2. Bird Dog (1987)
3. Some Disenchanted Evening (1989)
4. Ready To Fly (1991)
5. Way Out Where (1993)
6. Over the Moon (1996)
7. Pot Boiler (2007)
8. Corporate Moronic (2009)
9. Untimely Meditations (2012)
Having been part of The Verlaines inner circle for a very brief period I have always taken great interest in Downes’ work. The real sign of an artist for me is development over a long career and Downes has always changed, though non-fans may not detect this. As a huge fan myself it has never concerned me greatly that some others don’t seem to easily understand Downes’ music. Indeed, I suspect it has never been of much concern to Downes either. If he had ever entertained corporate type success it may have been a brief flirtation a long time ago, perhaps around the time of the aptly titled Ready to Fly (1991) album. Not long after the two Slash Record’s releases, Downes entered a ten-year period without releasing anything. One suspects such a drought must have hurt Downes, for he has always written his music out of a deep artistic necessity. When one considers that the first Verlaines’ album, Hallelujah All The Way Home (1985), is now officially over thirty years old, one begins to realise how long and hard Downes has worked.
Downes is one of the strongest lyric writers that New Zealand has ever produced in my opinion and even on Crisis after Crisis, released in 1982[1], his lyrics were different from the rest of the Dunedin pack. They were poetic, almost Shakespearian.
Girls I've written poetry for before cease to exist.
Your eyes just bleed before the sun; love's slashed her wrists.
So I write of a girl from who knows where, with dark brown skin and Dürer's hair.
Who knows what love, what hate, what lies beyond those saddened, violet eyes.
Untimely Meditations is the latest Verlaines’ album and it is a complex and dark affair. There is no surprise in that: death and romance have always been constant themes in Downes’ lyrics, even if often shrouded under heavy metaphor and allusion. However, now on Untimely Meditations, something has changed in the lyric department: the bed covers seem removed somehow. On James, Jimmy, Nuisance, Hemi, obviously referencing NZ poet James. K. Baxter in the title, Downes laments,
Hard drinking poets grow stern in heaven
And get there before they’re forty-seven.
Is Downes using the allegory of Baxter’s life to elicit possible sympathy for Baxter, or is he in fact talking directly about himself? The answer is never clearly given, consistent with the general lack of obvious self-pity in Downes’ oeuvre in general. One suspects that the light chains that once locked the younger Downes into more hidden confessions are now largely removed. Downes memorably told me many years ago that a fine line exists between truth and wankery in a song lyric. What he meant by that, I believe, is that continually harping on about your own pain in lyrical form is not sophisticated and it quickly becomes quite boring to the listener. Downes’ statement made me view songwriting in a completely different light.
In the black comedy, On the Patches, Downes again talks honestly about difficult subjects. He discusses the possible price of artistic dedication without some kind of chemical help.
Off the fags the booze is next
Our livers wrecked our minds are in a mess
But we’re learning to like ourselves again
The most important change for me on this album; however, is not in the more obviously personal lyrical content, it is in the new concept of orchestration present here. This was always hinted at in his earlier work, but now it has been fully realised to the extent that even the intricate lead guitar lines present on the album have been fully scored: fitted contrapuntally to mimic, harmonise, copy, or foreshadow the phrases of other instruments such as trumpets and trombones. In fact, it almost seems incorrect to call Tom Healy a lead guitar player on this album–there are almost no conventional guitar solos on this record at all. I believe he has read 90% of them from a music sheet.
The influence of the computer on this orchestration has been critical here. The Sibelius software, that Downes and many other New Zealand composers like John Psathas now use, has revolutionised the composer’s lot in many ways. It means that Downes can treat each pop song as a mini-symphony, planning every sonic utterance exactly, but most importantly it means he can listen back to his arrangements before recording them.
This has created a world that is unlike anything I have ever heard before. It retains the roots that have driven Downes from the beginning – essentially a fusion of Velvet Underground thrash with classical orchestration (when he could somehow afford the extra musicians). This unusual fusion, present on Bird Dog (1987) and Hallelujah All the Way Home (1985), proved instantly successful, and it stamped Downes’ albums as quite distinct from other Dunedin bands of the era.
Today, Downes has different and deeper resources than before, and he is doing exactly what would have been expected of him if he had had such resources in the past. He is turning his pop songs into deliberate mini-symphonies and is smashing the concept of what a rock band can actually be. His alternative rock and punk roots were always certain, but now I long to see where he will take his compositions as he fuses those roots with his classical education.
Surely, it must almost be time to hear a full album of his originals backed by a symphony orchestra? I await such an album with bated breath.
[1] A four sided E.P first released in 1982 by Flying Nun (DUN-1) which featured the music of The Verlaines, Sneaky Feelings, The Chills, and The Stones
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