When I played this last week, I was disappointed. The group’s next record, named ‘Traffic,’ was much better. This album only had one song with guitars playing chords, drums, and vocals singing into a mic (without dubbing and distortion). It features harpsicord and sitar, fine instruments both but too precious for rock and roll, in my opinion. I think the seeds of progressive rock were planted here. And the songs weren’t any good.
I didn’t rush to post that opinion, which worked out very well. After bingeing on the best hits of the 1960s over the weekend (remembering the Shangri-Las after the death of Mary Weiss, their lead singer), I awoke with Coloured Rain running through my head. It is staying there despite my best efforts to move on. It’s a great little tune.
Before the Information Age, I knew Dave Mason was in the band early and left abruptly. He is on the cover of ‘Traffic’ and nowhere to be seen on Mr. Fantasy, so I thought ‘Traffic’ came first. The songs on ‘Traffic’ seem less sophisticated; for example, ‘here’s a little song you can all join in with, it’s very simple and I hope it’s new’ seems like juvenilia. I was wrong to think ‘Traffic’ came first.
Another error to confess to: I thought Dear Mr. Fantasy (the song) was about how hard it was to be a touring rock star, like Bob Seger’s Turn the Page. ‘You are the one who can make us all laugh, but doing that you break out in tears.’ I haven’t found anyone else who thinks so.
converselyspeaking 