Over and Out Album chat.

  Thanks that's a help (once I finally got the samples to load ... Firefox isn't what it used to be ... ). At last I got to hear bits of songs I haven't heard yet.  I agree with the view that Lonesome Road is the best thing on the album, indeed it reminds me strongly of Take Me Away from NTL, the best song on that album and a fave of mine. I'm not sure you could put them on the same album without exciting comment ...

  Over and Out aargh. Reminder in the latest FTMO mag that Rick wrote this about a pilot who got lost ... I read a certain amount about (wartime mostly) pilots, and this sounds like Rick trying to get inside the head of a pilot who's lost, and failing. It's probably safer to think he's thinking about his own mortality, though FFEH sounds more like Rick. ("I could have a heart attack any time, so just keep driving ... ")

I like the rock tracks best, which isnt just me being a Quo fan as I've always liked some of their ballads. The rock tracks here have the drive which Rick helped to bring to Quo, his real talent, whereas some of the others are just syrupy.

I really quite like Lock Myself Away, I know it's kind of "fake 50s" but it's "fake 50s" in a good way, and the keyboard (for once) reallly brings something extra to it. I love the way the key and guitar riffs swap in and out.

This makes me think (not for the first time): If Rick had not joined Quo, he would probably have remained a cabaret singer, at a fairly local level, and made a good job of it. This does show his versatility. Francis if he had never been "Quo" might, maybe, have done what it seems he really wanted to do and followed the Country trail, but to my eye he's never seemed clear what he wanted out of it, or how to go about it. (For example, he's never written a song about a dead dog.) And Al, I don't know, because after all these years I still don't know what his real hopes were, musically. He did some real good stuff in Oz, but not world class.

Instead they met each other and WE GOT QUO. Thank you, fate.