Dancer With Bruised Knees [Import]

Kate & Anna McGarrigle | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 13, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Warner Bros UK
• ASIN: B000026G7I
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,882 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Dancer With Bruised Knees

2. Southern Boys

3. No Biscuit Blues

4. First Born

5. Blanche Comme la Neige

6. Perrine Était Servante

7. Be My Baby

8. Walking Song

9. Naufragée du Tendre (Shipwrecked)

10. Hommage Á Grungie

11. Kitty Come Home

12. Come a Long Way

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Love This Disc, August 15, 2000

By 

Hapworth (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancer With Bruised Knees (Audio CD)

In theory I shouldn't like this album. Although I try to listen to anything I can get my hands on, the majority of my listening time is taken up by punk and post-punk music. Thus, this quiet domestic album recorded by two Canadian sisters who sometimes sing in English and sometimes sing in French should turn me off.

The complete opposite is true, however. I love this record and find it both sophisticated and simple. The songs are beautiful, the lyrics resonant but not pretentious (Dancer With Bruised Knees is a good example--what a fantastic title! ). Dancer came out in 1977, a rather strange offering amidst the tepid pop that dominated the airwaves and the cutting edge New Wave/Punk that dominated the underground. Dancer, with its down-home production and all-around musical bliss, was instantly praised by critics from Rolling Stone to the Village Voice.

There's much to admire here. The title track is wonderfully metaphoric. Walking Song stands on its own as a simple (but nevertheless heartfelt) poem about relationships. No Buscuit Blues is simply flat-out fun. Shipwrecked and Be My Baby are both quite hooky. My favorite, though, is First Born, an homage to mothers singing about the singular pleasures of parenting that special first-born baby boy. Yep, when a song like this can get a confirmed bachelor like me humming, well, that's praise in itself. (I typically detest banal songs about the joys of parenthood--though I'm sure this has something to do with the fact that I don't have any children :-) But First Born's harmonies and heartfelt lyrics win me over every time.

I strongly recommend this fine album.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of my all time favorite albums, September 7, 2003

By 

Doggy Bird "doggybird" (Glen Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancer With Bruised Knees (Audio CD)

I love this album so much that when I went to live in France and didn't bring any music, I was forced to go out and purchase a copy in France for about four times the price I paid at home. Today I own yet another copy on CD, and when I listen to it, it sounds as fresh and authentic as it did the very first time I heard it almost thirty years ago. Amazing talent--also true of their "French Record" and self-titled album. And of course, with time they've also provided for our future, by giving us Rufus Wainwright, whose music is as astonishing in its own unique way as was the McGarrigles. BUY THIS ALBUM--I've never played it for anyone who didn't LOVE it--I can't imagine a regret!!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Won't disappoint if you enjoyed the first, May 15, 2002

By 

M. A. Fraser "baroque pop fan" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dancer With Bruised Knees (Audio CD)

I've loved Kate and Anna's work for decades, but I'm afraid to say there are diminishing returns on the later work. However, this one (their second I believe) is classy. Exquisite lyrics, melodies and phrasing. To my ears a nicer production than the first one.

That sweet humming intro at the start of Dancer with Bruised Knees is an all-time favourite, and the scathing lyrics and superlative arrangement of Southern Boys can stand alongside anything else you'll ever hear in folk music.