I'd like to start off 2012 proper with a review of an album that quite literally saved my sanity at a time when I was in danger of losing it. Ever spent a month sick in bed, with no TV, no computer, no entertainment of any kind? You had damn well better have something good to listen to, is all I can say. Luckily, I had this...
The man who --- Travis --- 1999 (Independente)
Say what you like, I've always had a soft spot for this album. I identify it with a time when I was very sick, unable to get out of bed in fact, just prior to the turning of the millennium (could there be a more appropriate foreshadowing of how my life was about to go for the next ten years, with my sister being diagnosed in 2001 with MS and my having to take voluntary redundancy from my job of almost thirty years to look after her in 2009?), and two albums kept me going, being all I had to listen to.
I was not at home, but recuperating at my aunt's house (ours being too cold, not having at the time any central heating and winter well into its stride) and had more or less been rushed there on Christmas Eve, suffering from what was close to pneumonia. With little time to gather anything I had grabbed my "boombox" and a few CDs --- two in fact --- and these where what sustained me throughout what became almost a month of illness and inaction. One was Vangelis' excellent “Oceanic”, which I reviewed already, and the other was this album.
I had only bought it on the basis of having heard the two singles, and with itunes still only at this point a mad gleam in Steve Jobs' eye, and the YouTube creators still pulling a paycheque from Paypal, there was little else to do if you wanted to hear new music than actually buy the album, take the chance and hope it turned out okay. Of course, many times it did not, and at first I wasn't sure about “The man who”, but I soon grew to love it. Or perhaps it grew on me through enforced repeated listening, but I prefer to think the former.
It starts on “Writing to reach you”, real post-Britpop feel with jangly guitars and a pretty morose vocal from Fran Healy, the kind of song that would make Coldplay sound all warm and fuzzy! It's a good opener though, and you'll find that as the album goes on most of it is low-key, melancholy and a little drab, but this really only adds to the charm of the thing. Great guitars from Healy and Andy Dunlop, and a very melodic song with a yearning message and a sense of desperation mixed with hope, perhaps false:
”I'm writing to reach you/ I'm not gonna reach you.”
“The fear” is a slower, more bluesy type track, still low-key and with a certain element of the Doors in its subtle melody, Healy's vocal still restrained and quite low, the guitars much lighter in the mix this time, with a lot of effects and feedback as the song fades out, then another sad song in “As you are”, Healy this time raising his voice a little more --- although it should be understood, even when he's singing quietly you never have a problem hearing him or making out what it is he's saying. Well, not much anyway. There's a certain sense of optimism about this song, with the melody a little more uplifting than the previous two, the guitars perhaps not joyous but at least not thinking about slitting their fretboards.
Yeah, the album in general is not one for depressives (or is, depending on how you want to look at it), and you don't listen to it to be cheered up, but as I say, back then as 1999 became 2000 and I cursed the new millennium and the old from my sickbed, this album kept me relatively sane and I'll always owe it that debt of gratitude. As a result of having only the two CDs to listen to, also, I found I tended to have to listen to both all the way through, whereas in normal circumstances I might not have had the patience to get to know all the tracks on this. Usually I would skip past tracks I didn't like, or that didn't hit the right chord with me straight away, but with my limited repertoire I had little choice but to let the whole thing wash over and sink into me.
At any rate, the wait for a more upbeat track is rewarded with the arrival of the single “Driftwood”. With its big guitar sound and humming drums, the lyric is still downbeat, but it feels like more of a happy song, with its idea which can be interpreted as hopeful, good advice. It became the first real hit Travis had, and brought them to the attention of the main record-buying public --- I know it's where I first heard of them. Great song. Things go right back down, in terms of mood, then, for “The last laugh of the laughter”, with Fran Healy again crooning in a low voice with a very country-style song, kind of reminds me of the Irish never-weres, the Stars of Heaven (yeah I know, but I'll be reviewing them soon: just have to get this USB turntable set up), very laidback until the drums cut loose and the guitar gets going a little. One thing about Travis is that you often find, certainly with this album, that you need to turn it up as otherwise it can be hard to hear what Healy is singing.
I always wondered, the man who what? What was the title of the album supposed to be? And now I know, thanks to Wiki. It's apparently a reference to a book called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”. So now you know too. Feel better? No? Thought not. Another big hit single is up next, turning up the power and getting the tempo and volume much higher, “Turn” is one of my favourite tracks on the album, perhaps
the favourite. The lyrical content is, as ever, morose and sad, but the guitar sound is pretty huge, Neil Primrose bashes out the beat on the drumstool, and even Healy raises his voice to more than a mutter, putting a lot of passion into the song, and it's no surprise it was a top ten hit.
Their huge hit is up next, and everyone knows “Why does it always rain on me”, and the story of how, when they walked onstage at Glastonbury to play the song, the sky, which had been clear for hours previous, suddenly began to pour rain down on them. Couldn't have organised a better press release, Fran! Opening on what sounds like violin, the song is one of their most upbeat, in terms of tempo, but again the lyric is sad, depressed, melancholy, as if you couldn't tell from the title! A real anthem for depressed teens who always believe the world is against them, and that everything is always someone else's fault. It's a great song though, one of the boppiest on the album, and it established them forever as a major act.
Healy writes every song on this album, bar one, where on “Luv” he's joined by someone called Adam Seymour. Harmonica fits perfectly into this song, giving it a real feeling of loneliness and isolation, acoustic and electric guitar joining in beautiful harmony, Healy's understated vocal fitting the song like a glove. “She's so strange” is another acoustic number, with some nice backing vocals, but probably my least favourite on the album. The song always sounds like it doesn't know what it wants to be, a ballad or a more uptempo pop song, and never really breaks out into either, remaining frustratingly in the middle.
The closer, officially, is called “Slide show”, though there is a hidden track, and in fairness it's better than the one that precedes it. “Slide show” opens with the sound of slamming car doors and keys in locks, then goes into a semi-uptempo acoustic guitar riff, with some mournful violin coming in along the way to add to the atmosphere of the song, then it's joined by electric guitar as the track gets a little more insistent, before dropping back to the acoustic for the ending. But as I say I prefer the hidden track, which seems to go under the name of “Blue flashing light”, and for me, it's this track that closes the album.
It's the unsettling tale of domestic violence, as a girl is abused by her drunken father:
”Talk to your daddy in that tone of voice/ There's a belt hanging over the door!” Eventually she is pushed too far and burns down the house, hence the flashing blue light of the fire tender outside her home. The song is fast, frantic even, almost Nick Cave-like in its intensity, with strummed electric guitar accompanying Healy's bitter voice as he relates the thoughts of the girl, whose friends
”Never call you/ Never call you/ No they never ever/ Never bloody ever/ Ever call you!”
As a hidden track, this is wasted. It shows a spark of genius and real passion that is lacking in a fairly laidback album, and you only discover it, like most hidden tracks, if you leave the CD to play to the end. There's about three minutes of blank space between “Slide show” and this, so most people, if they didn't know the track was there, might be inclined to just shut off the CD, which is a pity, as they'd miss a great song and seeing a whole different side of Travis.
In essence though, “The man who” is a very low-key, melancholy album. It's gentle and it's fragile, and the songs on it are almost exclusively about human relations and stories. Occasionally it gets going but these moments are few and far between. However, it's the pauses, as it were, between the tracks where you really get what Travis are all about, like reading between the lines. If you can understand that, come to the deep realisation my fevered mind did as I lay in my sickbed that December in 1999, you'll appreciate and enjoy this album as it was meant to be.
TRACKLISTING
1. Writing to reach you
2. The fear
3. As you are
4. Driftwood
5. The last laugh of the laughter
6. Turn
7. Why does it always rain on me
8. Luv
9. She's so strange
10. Slide show (incorporating “hidden track” “Blue flashing light”)