Familiar Songs

Tom Rapp | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 16, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Water
• ASIN: B0000D8L5G
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,942 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

When this founder of psych-folk heroes Pearls Before Swine left Reprise for Blue Thumb, Reprise wasn't eager to see him go, so they quickly put out this 1972 LP while he was still under contract: a collection of demos he made for new recordings of some of Pearls' best songs! He does Grace Street; Jeweler; Snow Queen; Sail Away , and more an essential acquisition for fans!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Oooh what a stinker.., February 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Familiar Songs (Audio CD)

I reluctantly write this review, because I love everything else Tom Rapp has put out. On this record however, beautiful songs from the past get butchered. All the mystique that made e.g.'The Use of Ashes' so special becomes undone in these remakes. It hurts most when 'Snow Queen', once so fragile, is put on a rocking horse. The best thing about 'Familiar Songs' is the cover art, which led one to hope for another purse of pearls. Unfortunately, the music sits like an alien hybrid in the jacket - this album should've been called 'Familiar Jacket'. Tom's liner notes explain a lot, and I'm very appreciative of his decision to give the 'go ahead' on the re-release of this tainted album: it's such a notoriously twisted affair it had to see the light of day again sooner or later. So, with all due respect: for completists only - and I'm one of them.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a classic, but contains a classic, March 25, 2004

By 

coop1821 "coop1821" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Familiar Songs (Audio CD)

As many reviews have noted, this is not a first-rate record and it was initially issued 30 years ago without Rapp's knowledge or permission. On the other hand, it is not truly awful and there are several fine performances here. Less folky and more soft-rock than some of Rapp's or Pearls Before Swine's other records, the album nonetheless contains as its true highlight a beautiful folk rendition of Sara Teasdale's poem "I Shall Not Care," introduced by the Shakespeare song "Full Fathom Five." The melody Rapp has composed for Teasdale's brief paean to unrequited love, revenge and self-pity is melancholic and beautiful, a very nice counterpoint to the somewhat savage nature of the poem's words: in short, the melody and words blend to form a perfect sense of the tenderness and anger that merge when one loves and is not loved in return. Like Rapp's "Hopelessly Romantic" [on his "comeback" record "Journal of the Plague Year"], "I Shall Not Care" showcases a marvelous mandolin solo for the second verse which helps raise the song from effective and affecting to masterful and classic. This flawed album is worth owning, if only for that track, otherwise unavailable, as the version of "I Shall Not Care" on PBS's "One Nation Underground" is a completely different musical setting.