John Cale: Honi Soit

John Cale: Honi Soit

1981

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Dead or Alive  2. Strange Times in Casablanca  3. Fighter Pilot  4. Wilson Joliet  5. Streets of Laredo  6. Honi Soit (La Première Leçon de Français)  7. Riverbank  8. Russian Roulette  9. Magic & Lies


Apparently, this was John Cale's only charting album...

 "Heeyyy...This is Casey Kasem...As a young man in Wales, our next artist worked at a gas station pumping gasoline for customers. One day, a jewel-encrusted Cadillac pulled up. A mysterious figure rolled down the tinted windows, a woman on each arm,  and asked the young man fill up the tank...Ultra-Premium...After all nothing was too good for Elvis Presley. The kid filled up the car and as the Cadillac drove away,  the young man told himself that one day he would be the one driving the fancy car filled with beautiful women...And the name of that young man? None other than John Cale...And at number #154 on the charts this week is his album "Honi Soit" featuring the hot new hit "Wilson Joilet" which drops the N-Bomb a wonderful 7 times...HONI SOIT?!?! WHAT THE FUCK IS HONI SOIT? SOME STUPID IRISH NAMES THAT DON'T MEAN FUCKEDYSQUAT!!!!!"

I have no idea what caused this particular John Cale album to hit the charts...It's as idiosyncratic as any other John Cale album I own...Featuring head-scratchers like "Streets of Laredo" which plods in and out of time while John lays out a doomy cowboy tale that dissolves into ghostly guitar jangle and a wildly erratic clock..."Strange Times in Casablanca" has a swooshing sound that swallows up the entire track at various intervals...Everything here is similarly bent or dissolving...With John's earnest vocals being the only constant in the meltdown...

Still, unlike a lot of avant garde stuff that can be unlistenable or alienating, John usually has a clear melody or direction in mind and when stuff starts to get a bit too weird, he'll bust out an aching ballad like "Riverbank" that hits you right in the heart...Or the french horn pop-rocker"Dead or Alive" that lures you into the trap in the first place...The whole thing even ends with "Magic & Lies" sounding like bleak musical theater...

It's just a solid record, diverse and full of nice melodies, new ideas and bizarre touches...Lots of war and death. Lots of tenderness and heartache. Lots of top-secret double agents and smoky, French cafes. What more could you want from a John Cale record, really? Weird, dark fun...

Here's "Russian Roulette" by John Cale...Enjoy...