Vertimus

To me it sounds a lot more like ‘13 Beaches’ and nothing at all like Flipside. Musically, a lot of it is in the ‘Hope’ vein. To me, it sounds like a mix of ‘13B’ and ‘Hope.’

It’s probably a technical issue preventing them from being posted at midnight.

Someone else already beat you to that.

I would almost add Leonard Cohen to that songwriting list, but until his middle period, EVERYTHING he wrote was brilliant, and LDR doesn’t have that kind of unparalleled songwriting history, though her catalogue is still unbelievably great. LDR definitely has her own unique POV and identity, there’s no one else like her. She should continue being herself and writing from her own POV, that’s her greatest gift to the world.

No, he wasn’t like that, so we have to hear the title song to understand why she picked him specifically as a symbol. Maybe there is no symbolic value and his name merely sounded better than Andy Warhol or Pablo Picasso. Since the real Norman Rockwell is and was associated with an idealized, tradition image of America, that fact, to me, seems the greatest reason why she chose him, but we still don’t know what her take on him is on the title track and entire record.

These songs are placing LDR in the Bob Dylan/Joni Mitchell/Tori Amos category of songwriting.

You’re a ‘good man’ and individual.

I agree.

The mixing of metaphors is brilliant, and the literal and the figurative.

I am so glad to her ‘siren’ voice on TG, the ‘wasted’ and ‘facing’ vocal parts, which is what entrances me most about her, along with her songwriting. Siren voice also heard on ‘24’ and ‘13 Beaches,’ among others.

It’s very sad, sadder than ‘Hope.’I could see how some could find it even depressing. But despite the fade out ending, it’s cathartic, and that keeps it from being depressing to me.

Well that’s all certainly fair, thank you. I can see the irony in ‘lit’ from that perspective; by lit she essentially means licked, defeated, broken, finished. I see can’t help see it as her ‘Major Tom’ with the narrator looking back on loss a la ‘Old Money,’ but on a grander, global scale.

Accept as they are, and change to what you like once downloaded. I do it all the time. I will probably change the TG title to ‘The Greatest Loss’ tomorrow morning when I get the iTunes version.

What is the ‘culture’ line? It’s ‘lit’ or ‘licked’ or something else?

Does the fact that Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys drowned in 1983 at 39 play any role? He also made that depressing album, ‘Pacific Ocean Blue,’ which I don’t care for personally.

Maybe in TG she’s ‘the last girl on Earth’ again, but this she’s somehow gotten herself to Mars.

I agree, and Cacciatore’s scenario in his post above would be even better.

Full agree. There’s a “ground control to Major Tom” theme suggested in this song, so that it could be or almost be interpreted as being sung by someone from Earth watching the world be destroyed from a distant planet (like Mars) via a ‘live stream.’ Why does the narrator miss LA, NYC, rock n’ roll? Where is she that she misses them and can’t access them? Losing Earth certainly would be the greatest loss of all. Apologies for the double post.

Full agree. There’s a “ground control to Major Tom” theme suggested in this song, so that it could be or almost be interpreted as being sung by someone from Earth watching the world be destroyed from a distant planet (like Mars) via a ‘live stream.’ Why does the narrator miss LA, NYC, rock n’ roll? Where is she that she misses them and can’t access them? Losing Earth certainly would be the greatest loss of all.

Those who are reading TG as a sign-off to her career or at least this phase of it, remember she did something similar on HM with ‘Swan Song.’

It’s got to be that and it’s got to be his skin tone/race.

Calling everyone a racist is just standard currency now. Ignore it. Don’t let it bother you. She has a strong, consistent record of working with Black artists as equals and her dancers are Hispanic. No one can undo that.

Did it get leaked? If you have to pay for it officially, as most or all of us did here, then it didn’t get leaked. Maybe the release via Google Play jumped the gun, but it’s not clear yet that that’s what happened.

I think the full melody is going to take time to emerge, at least for me.