Search - Bob Franke :: Heart of a Flower

Leave the Heart of the Flower in the middle of your CD stack

06/25/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...so that you can listen to it over and over. Bob Franke has a bluesy feel to many of his songs, but I'll listen to any style he cares to write in, as long as the thought that plays so large a part of his songs is there. His instrumentation may not knock you off your feet, but it's not going to make you scream in pain--he's rather more than competent at accompanying himself. Now I hear you asking, if this album gets 5 stars from her, why did she lead off like that? Well, of the albums I have heard from Bob Franke--and I have heard more than Amazon carries right now (some being out of production)!--this is my favorite. I listen to his songs for the words, so maybe I'm NOT the person to talk about his instrumentation. He's got several songs on this album that particularly hit me in a way I'd like to pass on to you. "I arose to her beauty" grabbed me the first time I heard it. It's about love discovered, gained, and lost in carelessness, and its loss regretted. It's bittersweet. "Hard love" is about discovering the love you believed was absent. "Mariposa" is an answer to the parable of the grasshopper and the ants. Bob said he's always felt like he might just be the grasshopper, and that made him uncomfortable. In two verses & one chorus, it shows that beauty and existing have their own place in the working world, and that not-toiling-endlessly is not always the *wrong* thing to be doing. It lit up something inside of me, making me feel that I don't have to be doing *paying* work to justify my existence, and that perhaps it's okay for me to be doing what I'm doing now. Often with me, it takes a song to get to the center of my brain and get me on the right path, and this was the song for me now. "Turn back, O Man" is what he calls a "feminist Gospel song". Even if you don't like gospel music, or aren't Christian, you'll enjoy this. On this album, other parable-songs that spring from Bob's theological! and spiritual side are: "Eye of the Serpent", "Waiting for Nineveh to Burn". His feelings about justice show up in "Krystallnacht Is Coming", a song written after California (but not this voter) passed Prop. 187. "Trouble in this World" is a good chorus song, useful for getting the audience to sing along, and it's a good song of encouragement to those going through hard times."Helicopter Simulator" is a song about dealing with mid-life crisis--and Bob bought the leather jacket, but not the motorcycle or the divorce. This is one of the obligatory silly-content songs on this album, with "Christine '65" being the other one--a Beatles style song for his sweetie, which came out of a songwriting workshop he taught.This song, my favoirte of all the album, "The Silence of parting", made its way into my sig. for a while. Like many others on this album, it came out of a songwriting workshop where he was the teacher, and was asked what HIS assignment was. You may substitute quite a few other concepts for hearing/making music in the following lines, and still find it true:For the one who hears music is moved to the core,And the one who makes music is changed ever more.But to leave here in friendship, it cannot be wrong,For the silence of parting is but a rest in our song. Let this album change you ever more."

I love this CD

06/26/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard of Bob Franke and the song Hard Love from the book by Ellen Wittlinger (read it!) called Hard Love. Hard Love remains my favourite song of all time for about three years now. Bob Franke is a genius. (Not as genius as me, of course.)
His lyrics are very powerful."