Big Shot in the Dark

Timbuk 3 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 27, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000008LLH
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,309 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Stuff, April 1, 2009

By 

Ted Rossin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Shot in the Dark (Audio CD)

A buddy of mine loanded me the CD back when this first came out. I put it on cassette tape and enjoyed it. Since then, my tape deck sits unused. I found the tape in my car a few years ago and fell in love with this all over again. Now I've converted the tape to MP3 files and am still diggin it!

4.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, under appreciated album, January 17, 2007

By 

M. Severance (VT, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Shot in the Dark (Audio CD)

The songwriting is wonderful. I came across a promo copy and neglected it for years; when I finally gave it some attention, I was amazed. I've since lost that copy, so I've just bought another. It seems to be out of print. It's a shame that no one seemed to notice this great album.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some of the songs are full of ideas, July 7, 2004

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Shot in the Dark (Audio CD)

This might be too grim to be funny. "God Made an Angel" has some more already in the first verse, "Each one less perfect Than the one before." The second verse starts with:

Malice in wonderland
Days of guns and roses.

These songs from 1989 and 1990 have printed lyrics in the CD liner notes that show in depth knowledge of the intellectual issues of the times:

Lately she's been hanging out with that
Cross-dressin counter-culture guru casanova.

The third song, "Two Medicines," on laughter and tears, places the final critique of anyone who takes this too seriously on a tombstone:

His final years were such a waste
That when he died his dear wife placed
Upon his grave this epitaph:
His life was so funny he forgot to laugh.

I like the tension in "The Border Crossing." Most of the songs on this CD seem based in the blues, and it is rare for such a song to exude such innocence while admitting:

I know I'm quite a mess
If I were a smuggler

I'd have much more finesse
Yes if I were a smuggler
I'd breeze across this border
My clothes a bit conservative
My papers all in order.

The best criticism on the CD is the line "You had it right the first time" in the song "Big Shot in the Dark." The line "Back when money was the root of all evil" is also so good it is used twice; first, "Back before you finally grew up," and finally, "Now you just can't seem to get enough." This song makes being an adult about the last thing that anyone would want to be.

You used to feel like a babe in the woods
Livin out of your little gunny sack
You used to be a cry in the wilderness
Now you're just another lumberjack

You had it right the first time.

The song "Dis...land (was made for You & Me)" has verses that end with "I'm going to Disneyland," "We're all going to Disneyland," so of course "And then we'll all be together in Disneyland." The serious side of this song is about some attempt to prove that nothing is sacred, but we will still be together in our kind of heaven. This is not the most famous song that ever used the line "I'm going to Disneyland."

There are a lot of lines worth liking in "The Little Things," especially:

One never knows
What one may be missin
If you talk to the flowers
But you never listen.