Customer Reviews

Never Home

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I discovered Freedy through "This Perfect World" which I bought after hearing "Bad Reputation" (still as good a single as pop-chart radio has played in the last ten years). That album was a revelation - tuneful, literate lyrics, songs that engaged you and made you think, and melodies that stuck in your head for weeks. "Never Home" doesn't reach that level, but if you like Freedy (and not everyone does, I realize) you won't be disappointed in this effort. Freedy's gift for catchy melodies is in full evidence here, but, for me, the joy is in listening to the stories these songs are telling. Like a book of Raymond Carver short stories, his cast of quirky characters includes shoplifters, arsonists, aging hippies, UFO abductees and kids having an unwanted baby. You don't catch all this stuff right away, but, like a good book, the stories unfold the more you get into it. At the same time, there are a couple of achingly beautiful love songs in "Western Skies" and "You Get Me Lost". If you're unfamiliar with Freedy, I recommend "This Perfect World" as the first one to buy. However, if you have, and like, that great album, this is a very satisfying follow up that won't disappoint.

While it may not have a single song as strong as "Trying to Tell You I Don't Know" or "Bad Reputation", all in all this is probably my favorite Freedy Johnston CD - and that's saying something. It wasn't my favorite at first but repeated listenings continued to reveal subtleties and nuances that flesh out the songs. An exceptional effort by one of the giant talents of the time.

Who else would think to write a song about a girl who's beginning to realize her boyfriend's a pyromaniac?

"Western Skies". Just listen to it. It's the closest you'll get to hearing a short story put to music. Character development, passion, longing, sadness... all in one song! Freedie never ceases to amaze!!!

Freedy Johnston fills Never Home, his follow-up to the flawless This Perfect World, with a host of intelligent, detailed stories about memorable characters.

Johnston kicks off the album with "On The Way Out," a driving slice of rock. The song tells the story of a shoplifter whose cleverness appears to be wasted on a store clerk who couldn't care less. A version of this song appeared the year before on the soundtrack to the movie Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. I liked the rougher production of the earlier version, but the version on Never Home features stronger drumming.

Johnston's gift is painting pictures with his lyrics, and he doesn't disappoint on this album. "Western Sky" is a beautiful, rather offbeat tale of a man petrified of flying after his father died in a plane crash; you can not only feel his pain, but chuckle at the thought of how his fear might make a family trip to Disneyland an enormous hassle. "Gone To See The Fire" is told from the point of view of a girl who is starting to make some disturbing discoveries about her boyfriend. Sure, she's horrified, but she's also just plain irritated about being lied to. "If It's True" movingly examines a young man wrestling with the notion of becoming a father: "If I won't believe my own advice / I could never fool a child / And they don't forgive you once they see you've tried." And "Seventies Girl" deals with how the ghosts of the past aren't so easily dismissed.

I wouldn't mind if the album rocked a little more. "On The Way Out" really whets my appetite for some big, loud guitars, but Johnston only cuts loose one more time for the rest of the album, on "One More Thing To Break." This is a very minor complaint, though. It's still a wonderful collection of songs.

To me, this CD is another one of his mellow works. I have listened to it dozens of times. Of all of Freedy's work, this one took the longest to grow on me. Perfect World blew me away immediately like no other CD, comparing it to that I give it 4 enthusiastic stars. It is more on the lines of Blue Days , slow and hipnotic. It does have a couple of rockers that pale to the slower tunes that I favor. A must have for any Johnston fan.

Johnston simply oozes talent and Never Home is a bid to break into the mainstream. It's a little formulaic but still works the magic of simple stories set to uplifting music...more upbeat than This Perfect World and Rainy Days, Black Nights, but it's the ballad Western Sky that is the standout - rich, evocative, tragic - like country music without the annoying twang. Like Ron Sexsmith, Wilco, Tracy Chapman, Matthew Sweet, Natalie Merchant et al? Get into Freedy NOW!

I love this whole album but I have to say that the sixth song here, "You Get Me Lost" ranks with The Beatles' "In My Life" and Nick Drake's "Northern Sky" as one of the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard. The rest of the album is further evidence that we have another master in our midst.

Freedy Johnston / Never Home: The opening track, "On The Way Out", became a hit for Freedy and that helped to introduce more people to this Great album. This one gets Five Stars.

The CD, Never Home by Freedy Johnston was released in 1997. It took me a long time to realize how far ahead of me these songs have been. While considering how rock and roll has become an interpretive community, You Get Me Lost is the way relationships start in a world in which any personal encounter is like:

Talking in my sleep
I don't know how
you get me lost
I have found
you get me lost
and I don't care
Where we're going
You lead me to forget
what I was about to say
I'm turned around
you get me lost

The song Something's Out There has more:

I'm decided, you're unsure
Something's trying at the door
I think you're going to believe me
Something's out there. . . .
I'm coming back as someone else
and you never can tell (copyright 1997).

Long Time Freedy fan here, This Perfect World was a masterpiece but DON'T make the mistake of comparing this album to it. A truely great album like that requires 3 things. Talent, Skill, (one is mostly born-with and the other can to a large extent be learned), and INSPIRATION. Even "the greats" need that spark, that external "catalyst" that set's a great work in motion. This one to me sounds like a very talented very skilled songwriter, (with the exception of 5 out of 11), kinda running on autopilot. The GOOD news is, he's so talented and SKILLED he can pull off a pretty damn listenable effort on almost craft alone.
It kicks off with bang! "On The Way Out" ROCKS, Great song, but immediately falters, searching for.... direction... inspiration... track 2 and 3 almost get off the ground but for me, didn't hold up to repeated listenings. Track 4, filler. Track 5, on "He Wasn't Murdered" he finally breaks out another big gun. I disagree with at least one other reviewer who complained that the rockers on this album paled in comparision with the mellower tracks. Granted there's a lot fewer OF THEM, but these two tracks, (1 and 5) are the rockers and absolutely among this album's highlights. The other stand out tracks for me were,
6. You Get Me Lost
7. Hotel Seventeen and
10. If It's True
I took a LONG time to "digest" this album and those were the ones that ended up still shining and the end of the road.
A lot of people seemd to like 70's Girl, and Western Sky, which I found, very plesent ear-candy for sure, (great lyrics) but over repeated listenings for me became "sing-song-ey" fluff. I need to be engaged by the lyrics and the music both. 1 out of 2 ain't enough. They had no "hook" or the hook they had didn't "hook" ME... Basically what you've got here is one half a great album. If I'd been his producer/label I'd have told him to come back when he had at least 3 more songs as good as, as INSPIRED AS, the ones mentioned above. If you're a Freedy fan already you won't be sorry you added this to your collection. If not, this might not be the best place to start.