With a Little Help from My Friends
Suzanne Cloud
Encounter Records
Send US$21 to Dreambox Media, PO Box 8132, Philadelphia, PA 19101-8132 USA.
Review by Norm Dixon
"If you're a female singer in jazz, you're stuck with the standards, the pretty love songs. The same stuff over and over again — my man's gone, I'm so lonely, my man's back. Why can't we make a statement? Why not something a little controversial?"
Suzanne Cloud doesn't beat around the bush. Her songs aim squarely at political and cultural conservatism.
Her lyrics have a clever, inventive and humorous edge more often associated with folk singers, but she delivers them with some very swinging vocals, backed by 20 of Philadelphia's — her home town — best jazz musicians. Neither messages nor music are sacrificed.
Cloud and drummer sidekick Jim Miller line up their targets and let fly barbs of satire and outrage. Callous, right-wing exploitative talkback radio hosts are ridiculed and exposed in "Talk Radio". "Bolivia", written by pianist Cedar Walton, takes a swipe at First World tourists who trek through the Third World oblivious to the poverty and repression sponsored by their own governments.
"Watch the Skies" incredulously ponders the bizarre obsessions of the X-Files/Roswell/Star trek/Hale-Bopp era in the US, suggesting that distorted hopes for a better world by a deeply dissatisfied people are what fuels this mass psychosis.
In the bluesy and acerbic "Collagen Lips", Cloud makes fun of the insecurity industries: "Collagen lips, silicon boobs/ Lipo-sucked my hips and thighs/ Mint green contacts in my eyes/ Lashes dyed, my tummy's tucked/ Plastic pins hold up my butt/ Fixed all the flaws that never were there/ I'll never age/ My waist won't bend/ Because I'm your Barbie, baby, and you're my Ken."
"Hey Kenny, Gee", is a viciously sarcastic attack on the awful music served up by ratings-driven radio, with poor old Kenny G's pre-digested "smooth jazz" bearing the brunt. To such unappetising pap, Cloud recommends three courses of the genius of Thelonius Monk in her homage, "A Lullaby, Dear Monk".
The most hard-hitting track must be "Below the Beltway", which whacks the dishonest and corrupt antics of reactionary US pollies: "Anomic pundits back the lies/ While I'm relaxing on my yacht/ All my constituents'll pay through the nose/ But I won't get caught/ A hundred thousand from a friend/ Another million for my vote/ The economics aren't seen very much/ 'Cause everyone accepts some help to get elected/ See, politics is status quo/ And ideology doesn't mean very much/ 'Cause everyone expects some help to get elected."
Cloud slyly overlays her lyrics with sound bites from the likes of Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, Californian Governor Pete Wilson and a couple of dozen other representatives who have all pocketed funds from the right-wing National Rifle Association.
Needless to say, With a Little Help From My Friends has not been released on a major label and is not available in the record chains. It is available in Australia only via mail order. But it is more than worth the trouble.