LAZY DIAMOND STUDDED FLUNKIES

Hello, I Love You
Sure, it's a rinky-dink Kinks rip, but it's cute. This is another case where it's worth it to track down the original demo, though, which is just absurd.

Love Street
The second of the four "Love" songs on this album finds Jimbo in crooner mode. The spoken word section is not quite Are You Lonsesome Tonight? level hokum-- actually, maybe it is, in its little hippie way. When I was 15, I thought that they needed less of this la la la la la la la'ing-- now I realize they could have used more la la la la la la la'ing.

Not to Touch the Earth
The only remaining fragment of the aborted Celebration of the Lizard, which was supposed to make up one side of this album, and whose ultimate absence left them scrambling for songs. As fragments go, it's pretty strong, although it is again a set of random "dark" images that don't really cohere into anything meaningful.

Summer's Almost Gone
About that scramble for songs... Jim sounds lethally bored-- the only redeeming feature (and this is a stretch) is the way it winds up with "The winter's comin' on" leading into...

Wintertime Love
..."Love" song number three. Half the la's of Love Street, and less filling...

The Unknown Soldier
You mean war, and perhaps in particular the Vietnam War, is bad? You bold erotic politicians, you! The D-Day celebration noises on the fade out are a pretty cool move, the obviousness of the politics notwithstanding.

Spanish Caravan
In which the boys set off on a bold attempt to get through an entire album side with nary a song at their disposal. They don't do a half bad job of it. The guitar work here is quite pretty, and the way Jim draws out "Andalusia" shows that not all of his phrasing skills are in the bottle at this point.

My Wild Love
My experience is that the last of the "Love" songs works best as a stoned campfire singalong among a group of people who are vaguely familiar with the lyrics.

We Could Be So Good Together
This is Waiting for the Sun's version of Strange Days' My Eyes Have Seen You, which is a perfect illustration of the difference in quality between the two albums.

Yes, the River Knows
This is very affecting, and the return of the drowning motif links it back to Strange Days in a positive way. "I'm going but I need a little time" in this context certainly sounds like the words of a man who knew full well what he was doing to himself...

Five to One
It sounds menacing, but when you measure it against something like the following year's Gimme Shelter, you begin to realize that there's not much there there. "America's Rolling Stones" could make but vague and cryptic references to revolution, while all their leader really wanted to do was go "out in this car with these people and get fucked up." Which leads to The Soft Parade...