Search - Harry Chapin :: Heads & Tales / Sniper & Other Love Songs

Great for serious fans, overkill for others

David A. Bede | Singapore | 11/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At long last, someone has done some serious digging into the far reaches of the late, great Harry Chapin's catalog. I'm glad to see it happen and I hope it continues with the remainder of his work, but I can't say this collection quite qualifies for buried-treasure status. Of course, other hardcore Chapin fans won't need me to tell them it's worth the expense to finally hear the long-lost half of the fabled Double Album That Wasn't. (Elektra balked at letting Chapin follow the success of "Taxi" with a 2 LP set, hence the lost tracks unearthed here.) On the other hand, if you only own "Greatest Stories Live" or "The Gold Medal Collection" and are thinking about a second purchase, this probably isn't your best choice until you become more familiar with Chapin's work as a whole.



Chapin's first solo album, "Heads and Tales," has always been my favorite, with its beautiful melodies and passionate lyrics about isolation and lost love. (That admittedly vague description literally fits every song on the album.) This collection includes "Heads and Tales" in its entirety, with the unfortunate exception of the opening track, "Could You Put Your Light On, Please?" Only an alternate version of that is included here, featuring a poppier, acoustic opening which segues into the original version towards the end of the song. It's an interesting variation, but it just isn't as good as the beautiful original, which could easily have fit on the disc along with the rest of the album. That omission is, in my opinion, the biggest strike against this edition.



"Sniper and Other Love Songs" is quite a bit less accessible than its predecessor, which might be why it was one of the last Chapin albums to be reissued on CD. But the repeated listenings it takes to enjoy the album are well worth it. I've met a lot of fans who consider it Harry's best effort. It is certainly his darkest, tackling subjects like self-mutilation, abortion, underage sex and, most notably, murder. The title track, a nine minute epic about Texas mass-murderer Charles Whitman, is perhaps Chapin's most ambitious work ever. He takes on the point of view of several different characters in Whitman's life and the tragedy he inflicted, changing the time signature and instrumentation with each change of narrator, and ending it all in a raw climax. Don't be surprised if you have to listen to this one several times before you appreciate it as a whole.



While nothing else on the album is quite that hard hitting, most of the other songs are topical on some level. The uncharacteristically opaque "Barefoot Boy" is (I think) a gorgeously sad call to arms for the then-nascent environmentalist movement, in the form of a portrait of a country boy trying in vain to escape the growing city. A much longer, previously unreleased arrangement of this one is included here in addition to the version from the original album. "Woman Child" is a frank look at a very young woman in over her head, from the perspective of the older man who put her there. (Chapin prided himself on never being afraid to take on the personas of the nastier characters in his songs!) "Burning Herself" is more sympathetic, but just as uncomfortable, in its tale of a woman addicted to doing just that. Elsewhere, there are echoes of the less-intense "Heads and Tales." "And the Baby Never Cries" and "A Better Place to Be" are classic Chapin story-songs of people unlucky in love and life, while "Sunday Morning Sunshine" and "Circle" inject some much-needed lightheartedness into the picture.



And the newly released songs? Most of them were worth waiting for. "City Suite" (the lyrics make it clear that this was almost certainly the intended spelling of the title) is brilliant. It's yet another of several reworkings of one of Chapin's earliest songs, "Someone Keeps Calling My Name," and in my opinion it's better than either of the songs he released under that title. "Big Big City" and "Pigeon Run" do a great job of capturing some of the absurdities of city life. "Dirty Old Man" barely qualifies as the same song as the throwaway track found on "The Gold Medal Collection" - here he tackles a similar subject with respect rather than silliness. "Halfway to Heaven" and "Simple Song" are early recordings of later-released songs (the latter was rechristened "I Wanna Learn A Love Song"), and I wasn't so impressed with them. As with most such alternate takes, they're interesting to those who are familiar with the later versions, but Chapin just hadn't nailed them yet.



It's a lot and it's not perfect, but if you're like most Harry Chapin fans, that's probably just what you want. For those of us who are already hooked, this was long overdue!"

Harry Chapin's first two story song albums plus bonus tracks

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 08/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What we have here are the first two albums produced by Harry Chapin. While "Heads and Tales" does contain the exquisite "Taxi," that really is the only above average song to be found on this 1972 album. Even though this is obviously an early effort, you will still find the core elements that would be developed so wonderfully in later albums: the lengthy story songs ("Dogtown"), the focus on the downs of relationships ("Sometime, Somewhere Wife"), the angst of human existence ("Everybody's Lonely") and the self-awareness of the singer-songwriter ("Same Sad Singer").



Of course it was "Taxi" that brought Harry to the attention of the public despite its 6:44 length, with its simple guitar, haunting cello, and falsetto solo by Big John Wallace, telling the story of a chance meeting several years between two old lovers. However, since Taxi is to be found on a couple of other CDs, this particular one is primarily going to be of interest to the devote Harry Chapin fan, which, come to think of it, is really the only type out there, even after all these years following his tragic death.



"Sniper & Other Love Songs" is much stronger than "Heads & Tales," but I would not say it is a great album. What it is would be an album with a couple of really great songs. I used "Sniper" in class for years to show how one song could use different musical themes to change mood. The idea of a song clearly inspired by the Texas Tower sniper strikes everyone as very strange at first, but what they usually end up thinking after actually listening to the song a few times is how good Chapin could be as a storyteller. This is driven home even more so by "A Better Place to Be," which is arguably more poignant than "Taxi" and almost as beautiful melodically.



I could even make the case that even with all the epic story songs that were to come, from "Taxi" to "Bummer" to "The Mayor of Candor Lied," the two best ones are on this album ("There Was Only One Choice" is so autobiographical that it stands on its own). Add to this "Circle," Harry's favorite final encore piece, and "Sunday Morning Sunshine," and this album rates above average no matter what you think about the other tracks. Those four songs alone justify having this album, which is probably the most neglected Chapin album of them all.



Individually I would have rated these two albums at four star each, but with all these bonus tracks it justifies going up to the full five. The full versin of "Barefoot Boy" alone just about justifies that addition, but there are a couple of "new" songs we get to here for the first time and treasure. Sigh. Harry, you were a good man and you are sorely missed.

"

Great combo pack

Corey Thomas | 07/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a double album, consisting of his debut album "Heads and Tales", and the extended, "City Suite" cut of "Sniper and Other Love Songs", with seven cuts songs and an extended cut of "Barefoot Boy", that is both beautiful and haunting. Even if you already have one of the albums (or both of them), I still recommend this set as a completion of how an album was intended to be heard."