The Turning Gate

Mr. Lemons is sweet, not sour

The Turning Gate's Best Album of 2006

Of all the albums I purchased in 2006, Glen Phillips‘ Mr. Lemons really stands out for me as one of the best albums of the year. Mr. Lemons covers a lot of emotional ground, an omnibus of the heart. The songs are full of love, hope and regret, joy and sadness, and beauty throughout. Phillips has crafted mesmerizing melodies, insightful lyrics, and some of the finest songs of his career.

Phillips is the former front man of Toad the Wet Sprocket, a band that achieved some mainstream success in the nineties. Since the Toad disbanded in 1998, Phillips has been performing as a solo musician. Mr. Lemons is his third full-length solo studio album.

Mr. Lemons kicks off with the single, “Everything But You”, a love song in which Phillips voices disassociation and disappointment in a dark and terrifying world, only finding light in the “you” of the song.

I don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do
Everything gets lost, everything but you
I’m not sure what it takes, fuzzy on the rules
Everything’s so dark, everything but you

I’ve forgotten how to pray, forgotten what was true
Everything feels bought, everything but you
The battle of the bands, the rattle of the news
Everything’s too much, everything but you

Break me on the wheel of fortune
Take me to the town for torture
All this entertainment’s no good
It just leaves me hungry for you

Phillips does not offer any definitive identify for this hope affirming figure. Very likely, he’s addressing God, but he could also be singing to some great love.

The music video for the song offers no answers, but it’s oddly humorous, and available for download in the Media section of GlenPhillips.com. It’s a good video, albeit quirky.

“Blindsight” follows on the heels of “Everything But You”, creating my favorite coupling of the album. These songs together make for a fantastic opening to a fantastic record. “Blind Sight” is sparse, delicate and beautiful, relying on gently plucked guitar to carry and vocals through the song. The lyrics during the chorus hint at a divine subject –

And I can’t see you now
But I still know you’re here
I can reach out
And feel you near
Blindsighted

- but lines like, “Let me hear you breathing / Feel your heart beating / I remember back when we were younger / You filled me up like water / It’s different now, but stronger,” reveal the subject to be mortal. “Blind Sight” is a love song for one departed.

There’s nothing ambiguous about “Thank You”, a song as straight forward as they come. Here, Phillips thanks God for making this world, giving life, and filling everything, everywhere with love.

“Last Sunset” proposes that we make the best of our time, for we never know when our time will end. Imbued with the serenity of lazy afternoons transitioning into evening, fading into dusk, the song is about savoring the moments as they come, because “We never know, it might be the last sunset we ever see.” But while songs about the brevity of life can very easily become morbid or dark, this one never does. Instead, it remains gentle and warming, addressing life, brief though it may be, in terms of beauty and tenderness. Here, death is not the end, but merely a part of natural process, just as a day ends and the next begins.

“Marigolds” finds Phillips sitting on the bed of a deceased loved one, voicing regrets and lost opportunities before they come to take her away. Bittersweet and moving, a dulcet whisper, “Marigolds” offers the album’s most poignant moments.

Of all the songs on Mr. Lemons, “Waiting” sounds the most like it could be a Toad the Wet Sprocket song, albeit tinged with bluegrass. Phillips made this song available online prior to the release of Mr. Lemons, and you can still download the MP3 from the Media section of his website.

“The Next Day” is about making daily resolutions to live a better life tomorrow than we’ve lived today, to learn from past mistakes and to make a better future. He also reminds of of the price we’ve paid to be where we are now: “Good God, look what we’ve lost / Built on a holocaust / Gave beads and blankets / For what was priceless”, reminding us that our country, The United States of America, was built upon the blood of the Native American people. “Every empire has its day,” Phillips warns. “Things are going to change.” But if there’s one thing we know about Phillips from his songs, he’s no pessimist. He doesn’t condemn, nor does he prophesies apocalypse. He merely challenges us to take an active role in improving our lives, personally and as a larger society.

The album has only one low point, being a cover version of Huey Lewis’ “I Want A New Drug”. It’s not a problem with Phillips’ rendition of the song; he updates the song in a way that does it much credit. The problem is the weakness of the source material. It just doesn’t hold up as well as the other songs on the album. Of course, one miss out of eleven makes for a damn good album. And that one miss isn’t terrible; it just isn’t as good as the rest. Sorry, Huey.

On the closing track, “A Joyful Noise”, Phillips sings about watching a friend suffer through an addiction. The scene is one of agony, but Phillips voices hope even in the face of such suffering:

You know we’re not leaving you
We’re not leaving you alone now

you will make a joyful noise
You will make a joyful noise
You will make a joyful noise

Hallelujah, hallelujah

You’re still there
Beneath the snow
Frozen
Waiting to be let go, let it go

You will make a joyful noise
Some day

“I think people are basically good but usually broken,” Phillips says on his blog. It’s a good philosophy on people, and one that his songs adhere to. And so there is hope, even in hopeless situations.

Two-thousand and six has largely been a year of mediocre releases, which only accentuates the value of an album like Mr. Lemons. Not only is it an album that stands head and shoulders over its contemporaries, but it’s an album likely to stand the test of time.

Resources:

Lyrics, downloads and the typical information can be had from Glen Phillips‘ official website.

You can sample a few tracks on Glen’s MySpace page.

Glen Phillips blogs at http://glenphillipsmusic.blogspot.com/.

Glen Phillips allows taping at his shows; a great many concert recordings are available at www.archive.org.

You can also by Phillips’ soundboard recordings of three 2006 shows (which are wonderful) as direct downloads from Nugs.net for $9.95 each.

Finally, be sure to visit Glen Phillips’ official online store to buy your own copy of Mr. Lemons, as well as Glen’s other albums and merchandise.

Send this article to a friend »

« Next Article | ... ... | Previous Article »