Search - Emma Townshend :: Winterland

Superior Crafting of songs and mood

SuperAmanda | London | 06/02/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I read that Pete's daughter Emma Townshend had released her first disc I was really intrigued and almost at once I was playing the disc round the clock. My friend also liked the music a great deal, especially "I Dream of Being Well" aka "Groundswell" which summed it all up. Winterland holds a very special place in my music collection.

Emma's disc starts out with a sweet Emily Dickinson poem "Better than Music" set to a easy, breezy ukulele and than segues into the ultimate stalker song (appropriate for some cyber space nut)

"The Last Time I saw Sadie."



"You know how it is,

She's too much in The Sun

Something made me a little Hinckley

And now am saving bits of paper

For my psycho bedroom

I'll pick a writ with her

My goddess

Listening to jealousy

Put on her records

Sit in the darkness

Listening to jealousy"



("Makes you a hunter even when your vegetarian makes you a burglar even if you're honest") , "Ghost Kitchen" and "My Angel Of Vertigo." "Walk At Night" always reminded me of Arthur C Clarke's "A Walk In The Dark" where the main character walks a lonely patrol on a distant moon, fearing and enraged by that fear. He could have stayed where it was safe but instead he has to go out at night. He tells himself that he is not being logical and that it's simply nerves yet the alien with jaws awaits him when he sadly is almost home.

This leads into the very romantic "The Ambition of My Heart"

"The ambition of my heart

Reveals itself to be

The desire to spend sometime

In your arms"



Such truth. "Groundswell" is a mini epic which includes lyrics from the gospel spiritual "By The Rivers of Babylon" (also a reworked hit for Boney M) It was at that time in my life that I was discovering Paul Robeson and I thought of him lying there in state after his death. Not very cheerful images I know but these were sad days.

But although Emma's disc has a spooky T-Rex feel, it's mostly optimistic music.

"Five Aside Football" is the great single and it will be a hit someday. It just says it all about leaving your carefree youth behind:



"I guess somewhere I signed something

forgot to read the little writing

Because when i got where i wanted to be

That place flashed by like lightning

Dream is going big time

James a Tailor

Five a side Football

Think of all the money we're making"



The last three songs, "Wish Finger", "How Gardens Grow" and "The Ladder" are very beautiful, lyrical and all are much brighter and sunnier than the songs at the start of the disc but oddly it somehow rounds out in the end like a song cycle (dare I say rock opera?) "The Ladder" talks about flying over the city like 'The Light Princess.'

I'm glad I remembered that six months when all I played was this disc, Pete, The Who, Entwistle and Paul Robeson music. According to Wikipedia, Emma is a Professor of Economics at Oxford, may she deign to record more music someday as it is very memorable what she's done so far. I recalled most of the lyrics off the top of my head.



This is a wonderful disc and deserves to be rediscovered by listeners and critics alike."