January 16, 2008
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4 comments:
It would be impossible to pick a favourite group because I love most every genre of music, but if I had to pick one, it would be Heep. Well I had heard Easy Livin' a few times on the radio and wanted to hear some more by them. I remember getting to the record shop and looking at the album it was from, Demons and Wizards .. well it was that period of time when there was all this talk of satanic influences and that sort of trash thinking were being aimed at just about every rock band there was. But still being a young teenager I guess I was having some doubt whether to get it. well right beside that was another Heep album, The Magicians Birthday. Blown away first by the album artwork, it looked like it was done by Dr. Seuss on acid! lol Well in the end I thought it to be the more safer of the two.. at least it didn't have demons in the title! lol ok I was a dim teenager... well first playing it I thought it was trash! I was almost agreeing with the oder generation of the time thinking it was just noise, but something in it just got a hold of me and I ended up listening again and again.. there was just something about the music and the lyrics too, the whole album seemed to be telling a story... what the hell it was I still couldn't tell you! lol but I was hooked from then, and it wasn't long after I said to hell with worrying of it being satanic and bought Demon's and Wizards. I must have played that thing until there were no groves left on it! Amazing. It seemed really to be more a story than just a collection of songs. I couldnt begin to explain what I got out of it, but in a nutshell it seemed to hold so many truths to the mysteries of life at the time.. the search for meaning of life and even a glimpse to what that meaning is.. well I took it to mean Love is the meaning of life and the search for it. Ok it was the early 70's.. what can I say! But seriously it touched a art of me I just felt a close belief in, from the first song, The Wizard, with lines like these:
"Why dont we listen to
The voices in our hearts
cause then I know we'd find
Were not so far apart
Everybodys got to be happy
Everyone should sing
For we know the joy of life
The peace that love can bring" to the last one on the album, "Paradise/The Spell", with this line that has alwasy stuck with me all my life. The last sonmg is sort of a confrontation of sorts between good/evil - light/darkness, the battle within one's self for the truth... (Ok I was probably high too then! ;) I did a lot of pondering in my youth )
"I will not be hurried down
or blackened by your lies.
I must go and find my dreams
and live in paradise."
Well the whole album to me was one of hope and promise to me more than any diabolical plan by Satan to take over my life :) Well judging from the blessings I have been given in life and with the amazing Love of My Beautiful Brit how can I deny it! I have found my dreams, she was there all along. Love is paradise! Ok besides all the subtle influences of the lyrics to my psyche, the progressive metal rock music itself kicks ass and crushes your bones! Rock on Heep... Hell if I had stayed in school i could have written a thesis on the underlying prophetic and gnostic lyrics of the bands early albums. After 1975 the original members were no more, and the band shifted to more of just a run of the mill metal band , although they still do tour and perform. Just not the same... Ken Hensley wrote a majority of the deeper lyrics , but the rest had their share in it too, it was really a group effort at the time and it shows in the music, the last album from the original members was Wonderworld. I think there were about 5 or 6 albums released during that time, unfortunately only Easy Livin' made the charts here.. a shame really as its a great happy song, but its just a pop song in reality, not reflective of the groups talent at all. Take a listen to Salisbury, if you can find it anywhere, a 16 plus minute piece of work with a 24 piece orchestra, and this was in 1971 or the song "Lady in Black" Well really a lot of great songs there, still undiscovered treasures, all of them, on this side of the pond.
I don't think they even had any other song of theirs ever make the charts here in the US at all, maybe Sweet Lorraine, but it was way down there.
Thanks Mike, sorry for a long ramble, just nice to see them being posted and still getting some recognition. Now I have to run off to YT and start my playlist going! ;)
I'd have to say I feel exactly the same about loving most every type of music.
I can't remember the first time I heard UH, but I esp. liked Sweet Freedom. There was "Stealin' " , almost a heavy metal cowboy ballad and the absolutely trippy side-to-side channel effects of "Seven Stars", and another power ballad "If I Had the Time".
While not my favorite song on the album, "Circus" has an odd blend of sweetness and cynicism as well as an aloof, arrogant superiority that I had then.
(part of that was from resenting growing up in a small town, part of it rebelling against "the establishment")
Walkin' around this concrete garden
Viewing all in vain
Thinking why a dream is driving everyone insane
Then something will come and make you feel
The master in control
Still you're pickin' up and screwing anyone
Who's gotta soul
I've been here far too long to remember
Sights and sounds from this town of clowns
Makin' up, dressin' up and walkin' around
Thinkin' that you're Greta Garbos
I'm sorry my dears but we only sat down
And laughed and laughed in sorrow
But it was you that opened the door, and
It's that we thank you for
Walkin' around this concrete garden
Viewing all in vain
Thinking why a dream is driving everyone insane
Everyone insane
Everyone insane
Everyone's insane
I liked their album covers, too.
Wow I did ramble a bit! lol
Still palying their songs quite often and still amazed at the talent these guys had, profound lyrics and pioneers really in hard rock. I think I must like being an ignoramus if it means liking Heep!
Saw a hit on this post, decided to make sure the video hadn't been taken down. A-OK for now.
Listened to a few other Heep tunes while I was at YouTube and laughed at this comment:
"Drivin' down the back roads, bottle of Boones Farm, a dooby, and Heep Jammin' on the stereo...... good times."
I didn't write that, but it must have been one of my buddies.
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