No apologies for having Somewhere back again after waxing lyrical about a previous single, ‘Bridges’, back in May.
They are unashamedly 1970s prog rock merchants and I quickly appreciated in ‘Bridges’ the influence of bands like Yes and Genesis in that particular piece of work with the rider that it was at the same time “new, fresh, and very much of today.” One of their stated objectives is to avoid plagiarising those bands.
This second single, ‘Gomorrah never knows’, from their forthcoming album, reflects another Golden Era, namely that of the Beatnik writers and philosophers of the 1950s and 60s including Jack Kerouac, one of the leading lights of the Stream of Consciousness literary style in which a person’s thoughts and conscious reactions to events are perceived as a continuous flow.
That style persisted for a long time in some places including the Nordics. In Iceland, Halgrímmur Helgason’s ‘101 Reykjavik’ pays tribute to it as it presents a non-stop, dark first-person account of a sordid love triangle involving a slacker, his mother and her lesbian friend in the capital city’s trendiest district.
More ‘on the pull’ perhaps than Kerouac’s On the Road.
‘Gomorrah never knows’ is loosely based on Jack Kerouac’s experiences with the beatnik and hippy counterculture movements and you sense that same stream of consciousness even in what is mainly a instrumental piece.
I’ll explain the background to the song because otherwise it might confuse.
It refers to what happens when an artist lets go of their creation and releases it to the outside world. A writer delivers his story of a journey through a world in disarray for release and then goes into a long period of isolation from that world. Years later, upon his return to civilisation, he finds himself a hero, admired and adored as an author not only by his peers but also by his protagonists – the “unwashed and grey”. The Prodigal Son is back.
(I’m trying to think of examples. George Orwell I suppose if he was still alive, because he is revered today for his prescience in foreseeing and writing ‘1984’.)
Or better still, in Genesis’ ‘Can-Utility and the Coastliners’ – The waves surround the sinking throne/Singing “Crown him, crown him/”Those who love our majesty show themselves”/All bent their knee.
Anyway, feeling betrayed by his art, admiration having turned into adulation, he mutters what would be the story’s title had it been released under the present circumstances: ‘Gomorrah. Never. Knows’.
I have to admit I’m struggling to get a handle on the meaning. Had it been ‘Gomorrah. Never. Learns’, I might have found it easier, perhaps indicating that adoration will always be destructive as it will lead to narcissism.
Whatever the meaning, it is the sort of storyline that the old prog rockers would have loved. If you think of Genesis for example with their tales of King Canute struggling to push back the waves as above; the terrible revenge on humanity of Heracleum mantegazzianum, a malign perennial herbaceous plant; and the return to Earth via a musical box of an accidentally decapitated young boy as a sexually frustrated old man who tries to have his way with his female child killer in his remaining moments.
And I have to say that the spirit of Genesis is there in full force in the opening two and a half minutes of this 11 and a half minute epic, especially ‘Suppers Ready’. Genesis themselves would have been proud of it.
Then it morphs into a Yes showcase and it might be Wakeman warming up on the organ. And then as it heats up it’s ELP, with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on vocals, singing a Tull song over an Emerson riff before it explodes into a full blown ELP extravaganza with shades of Deep Purple added, then Genesis and Yes again, and so it goes on.
I hope no-one thinks this is just lazy writing on my part because I guarantee you will hear these bands and recognise their styles repeatedly throughout ‘Gomorrah never knows’.
It’s as comfortable as a pair of slippers warming before the fire.
But Somewhere go well beyond merely channeling them. Take for example the three minute outro, which is a delicate, quite gorgeous piano-led piece that bears no relation to any of those bands, topped off with a brilliantly half-spoken vocal soliloquy by Daniel Östersjö, an old friend of NMC from whom we haven’t heard for a while, and who somehow manages to bond Ian Anderson, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins into one.
Judging from this short performance he would have been in big, big demand amongst that 1970s prog fraternity.
Take it from me, Somewhere are going places. If there is such a thing as a prog revival they are leading it.
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