Parachute (1970)

Artist: The Pretty Things
Release Year: 1970

Rating: 10/10

Track Listing: 1) Scene One; 2) The Good Mr. Square; 3) She Was Tall, She Was High; 4) In the Square; 5) The Letter; 6) Rain; 7) Miss Fae Regrets; 8) Cries from the Midnight Circus; 9) Grass; 10) Sickle Clowns; 11) She’s a Lover; 12) What’s the Use; 13) Parachute.

Sometimes you find an album that you love for reasons you can’t explain.  Sure, you’ll try to explain your love for it, but those reasons still float just outside your own understanding; yet, in trying to chase those reasons down, the album only ascends to further greatness.  You’ll try to describe your feelings to others, but chances are that no one will see what you see, and that’s a bitter pill.  When I first heard this album about 15 years ago, it was like listening to the sound of my own consciousness, of a pure distilled Self that had fallen by the wayside in the miserable beige monotony of adult life. 

Again, why that is, is hard to pin down.  This album is not particularly bright or sunny; in fact, it’s rather dark, a kaleidoscope of betrayal, debauchery, infidelity, anger, and murder.  Even the ostensibly sunshine-and-rainbows songs like “She Was Tall, She Was High” and “She’s a Lover” are tinged with sadness, and both turn out to be illusions in the end, deflating in tragedy and heartbreak.  But oh, what beautiful tragedies these are, and how warm and bright it all feels regardless, when the album is over.    

There’s no way the psych-folk opening suite of the first six songs was not meant as a copy of the medley from Abbey Road.  Each one is a minute or two long, moving through distinct but related scenes, telling the story of a young love that ends in rejection.  I also can’t help comparing the groove of “Rain” and its stellar drumming to the Beatles single of the same name – go on and tell me there’s no similarity there!  But a 30 second intro, then a 20 second verse, followed by a 60 second coda that only builds in intensity alongside the furious drum work?  That’s an original idea!

Elsewhere, there are several fiery rockers with a bluesy bent: the urgent, frenetic “Miss Fae Regrets”, the lecherous “Midnight Circus”, and the stuttering and bitter “Sickle Clowns”.  Bassist Wally Waller might be the unsung hero of the second one: just listen to that sinister, pulsating intro and imagine whatever kind of degeneracy might be going on under that tent.  Then later, when the distorted scatting kicks in, we’re too far gone to realize that the groove doesn’t change much throughout the six minutes – we just get front-row seats when “cries of murder splash on the walls”, and although I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to be outraged at here, I won’t deny that it works.  “Sickle Clowns” is pretty similar in sound and theme, but this time there’s more guitar madness to spice things up, so both are winners.

I think it’s the ballads, though, that do the most for me.  “Grass” is immaculate, and so much more moving than anything else I’ve heard from 95% of artists out there, perfectly portraying that immense, helpless longing for someone or something that has moved on from you and will not return.  In fact, it’s done so well that when the ecstatic “She’s a Lover” shows up a few songs later, we know better than to believe it – and sure enough, the poor protagonist is the last to realize his delusion in the crestfallen “What’s the Use”.  How can I not praise such dramatic irony after something like that?

Finally, there’s the ethereal title track to wrap things up with a cryptic stanza about…something.  I don’t know what, but I assume it has something to do with a message that will outlast civilization.  Typical Sixties, but I guess back then it seemed like we actually had a chance in hell.  Unless this thing is supposed to be a dirge for the progressive momentum that had mostly withered by then?  Sure sounds like an end-credits theme, so maybe that's it.

Again, I can’t explain my great love of this album without seeming like I’m overselling it to everyone who reads this.  Structurally, thematically, musically, and so forth, it’s nothing far removed from what others were doing at the time or even before, yet something in there just clicks for me on a deep spiritual level that remains inscrutable.  Maybe it’s best left for the ages.