Customer Reviews

Now We Are Six

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think I might just be the only Steeleye fan who prefers the *short* verson of Thomas the Rhymer on this version of the CD. I`ve also got the BGO Records version of Now We Are Six, so I`m very familiar with the `album` version of the song. Personally, the album version doesn`t work for me, the way it slows right down, it drags a bit for me, whereas the short version, although maybe a tad TOO short, has a much nicer `feel` to it(it`s a different recording, as well as being shorter). The album version is the `common` version, the one the band always perform at gigs, and there are other versions of it on other CDs(The Journey, Rare Collection, bonus track on Park Record`s Sails of Silver) - so, for me, the short version has a uniqueness about it that the album version lacks. Anyway, enough of Thomas the Rhymer. ---- This album would qualify as vintage Steeleye if it wasn`t for the inclusion of drivel(IMHO) like Twinkle Twinkle, Now We Are Six, and To Know Him is to Love Him, a song that is completely incongruous and irrelevant to the album.
By the way, the `St. Eleye Primary School Junior Choir` thing is a band `joke`, and one which they should have kept off the album. I dunno, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time?! It is actually Maddy Prior and the others singing. Have another listen. It had me fooled too, at first, until someone pointed it out to me. St. Eleye = Steeleye. And the `Miss Knight` on piano forte accompaniment is none other than MR. Peter Knight.

The original album, which I have as vinyl and which is available through amazon.com as an import, contains a REALLY GOOD version of Thomas the Rhymer. This album contains a horrible travesty of the same song. For $... more, you can get an album that you'll treasure forever. I was extremely disappointed with this CD, and would not recommend to anyone that they buy it. Check out the reviews for the import version. They rave about the import, and tell folks to throw away the American version of the album if they have it. I could not agree more.

Steeleye's sixth album continues on the path of the previous ones, with mostly positive results.

The album begins with the magnificent "Thomas The Rhymer," an exquisite blend of traditional British folk and a thumping rock beat. Many years later, it still excites.

Many other fines songs may also be found here. "Drink Down The Moon," "Two Magicians" "Seven Hundred Elves," "Edwin" and "The Mooncoin Jig" all come to mind. In fact, the only thing that scars this album are two tracks sung with a boys choir, and a very odd and out of place cover of "To Know Him Is To Love Him" with David Bowie on saxophone. Chalk one up for CD technology that these three may be programed out.

Steeleye Span's previous effort, Parcel of Rogues is one truly amazing folk rock album, to me, it's a classic. After that album came out, a prog rock group by the name of Gnidrolog had just broken up, after releasing two albums, Lady Lake and In Spite of Henry's Toenail. That band featured drummer Nigel Pegrum, and he joined Steeleye Span. That gave the band a full-time drummer for the first time, and was put in to good use with Now We Are Six. The band was now starting to use more rock-oriented material, like "Thomas the Rhymer" and the ever wonderful "Seven Hundred Elves". Their version of the Teddy Bears' (the band Phil Spector was in) 1958 hit "To Know Him is to Love Him", the one with David Bowie playing sax, seems totally out of place on a Steeleye Span album, sounding more like New York circa 1958 than Merry Olde England circa 1558. Many Steeleye Span fans were obviously distressed over the inclusion of such a song. But luckily there's several great medieval sounding cuts to keep the old fans happy. Like "Two Magicians", "Edwin", and "The Mooncoin Jig". Why on Earth did they include a version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"? After all it's a song everyone has learned to hate since Kindergarten. This version features kids from the St. Eleye Primary School singing that song and played exactly in the style you remember at school, with a teacher playing the piano and getting the kids to sing. I can live without that (and it seems everyone else too). Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull fame is production consultant, and his involvement with this album is a big reason how he got Maddy Prior to sing backup on Tull's "Too Old To Rock and Roll: Too Young To Die" a couple of years later, not to mention a big reason for the very medieval sound of Songs From the Wood. To me, I find Now We Are Six a bit uneven, but I still find it better than their largely flat-sounding followup, Commoner's Crown. Still, if you're new to Steeleye Span, try any of their albums from Hark! The Village Wait to Parcel of Rogues first.

Now we are Six is kind of a cheesy album, especially with "Twinkle, Twinkle". I think they just wanted to fill up extra time with that song. This is the first album with Nigel Pegrum, the controversial drummer. He thus makes the band six people, this being their sixth album as well. Ian Anderson of Tull produces it, and he did a good job.

"Thomas the Rhymer"is good, (It reminds me of some eighties rock band)and I'll have you know I know quite a bit about my good friend Thomas. He was a fictional poet who was a leading poet on faeries. Apparently, he expirienced them in daily life. Also a great song, "Drink Down the Moon", with a sad mellody sang by Maddy Prior, in my opinion the best prog. rock vocalist of all time, extends over six minutes, but hey- they needed the time. "The Mooncoin Jig", a happy number that starts off with, "One, Two, Three", said by Pete Knight, featured mandolin player on the song. "Seven Hundred Elves" is a prog rock classic, with long vocal solos sung by Maddy. My mom says it's drug music, but she's wrong.

To many die-hard Steeleye fans, Now We Are Six marked a turn for the worse in their music. With their decision to start using "modern" instruments such as electric guitars and synthesizers, and to use murky sound and dark subject matter in their choice of songs, Steeleye Span created an album that was not nearly as pleasing as their previous attempts. Happily, this import version makes some much-needed improvements. The sound quality is noticably better, which helps to make the songs easier to appreciate. But the real gem is the extended, six-minute plus version of Thomas the Rhymer - while the original American version is a throwaway bouncy pop tune, the import version contains extra lyrics which Maddy Prior delivers with delightful charm and delicacy. This track alone makes it worth the revisit. Throw your domestic copy of Six away and purchase this one!

Yeah, there's no way to deny it: "To Know Him Is to Love Him" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" are serious double-you tee eff moments (though it's hard for me to believe people actually fell for the notion that they were performed by elementary school students--I mean, "St. Eleye?" Come on). I know some people would also put the title track in this category, but I can't really agree with that--consisting of several Old English-style riddles put to music, I find it nice and evocative. But those other two--um, no. Extremely missable by any standard.

But never mind them--look at what this album DOES do right. The opener "Thomas the Rhymer" is always fun, with a nice, adventurous arrangement. And it's really funny to me to picture Thomas bowing down and going "Hail, Queen of Heaven!" while the faerie queen's going, um, dude. No. It's true that the story doesn't really GO much of anywhere, but the song is still very much worthwhile.

"Drink Down the Moon" is also pretty great; it's a slow, melancholic song with sort of mysterious lyrics, that towards the end takes a left turn by segueing into the rollicking--and totally delightful--"The Cuckoo," which features one of my favorite bits of innuendo in any Span song: "It is thorn and it is prickle, it is compassed all around/It is thorn and it is prickle and it isn't easy found/She said young man you blunder and he said it isn't true/And then left her with the makings of a young cuckoo."

Then there the ever-popular "Two Magicians." This song is especially good when you realize what the band's done with it. What I take to be the original version, as performed by Martin Carthy, is a sort of queasy song of sexual conquest--but the Span version is much "nicer"--sweet, even; the male magician comes across as being much less predatory, and the whole thing has more the feel of an elaborate flirtation than an aggressive pursuit.

Passing over the previously-mentioned "Now We Are Six," we come to "Seven Hundred Elves," which I'm kind of dubious about. You'd think a duel between humans and elves would be super-fun, but ultimately, I really don't think it's very compelling, and it's not at all clear whether the farmer is actually supposed to be sympathetic or not. Was the band aiming to make the song into some sort of oblique environmental anthem? Regardless, it doesn't do much for me. "Long-A-Growing"--performed by Carthy, Pentangle, and others under the rather more poetic title "The Trees They Do Grow High," is better, but it's not a favorite, either--I'd have to say I like Pentangle's take on it best. "The Mooncoin Jig" is an okay-not-fantastic instrumental. Fortunately, then we come to the gleefully-macabre murder ballad that is "Edwin," which is one of the band's all-time classics. Seriously great singing, and it's difficult not to smile in particular at the almost gratuitously grim final lines: "And Emma broken-hearted was to Bedlam forced to go/Her shrieks were for young Edwin/That plowed the lowlands low." Whee! Sing a merry song!

Then, unfortunately, we're back to "To Know Him" and "Twinkle"--but who cares? With "Drink Down the Moon, "Two Magicians," and "Edwin," this album contains three of the band's best songs, and other than the two closers, the others ain't half bad either. This may not be the ideal first Span purchase (Below the Salt), but it's a typically-solid entry in the band's seventies catalogue. Recommended.

In truth, this album is the epitome of the elves-and-druids prog-folk that folks made fun of back in the day... Bouncy hard-rock electric bass lines crisscross with sprightly mandolins and a full drum set and electric guitars. It's not subtle musicmaking, nor was it intended to be... Instead, it's a call to playtime, a resolutely silly recess from the dire and hard-edged heavy rock of the times. Whether one saw this as a breath of fresh air or a poofy distraction depended, I suppose, on temprament or a high tolerance for dorky behavior. For my money, the formula was still working... Although the band wasn't quite able to regain the heights of the "Parcel of Rogues" album, Maddy Prior's voice is heavenly, and the songs all hold together, despite the goofy overtones. Definitely worth checking out.

The title "Now We're Six" refers to the fact that Steeleye Span on this album had expanded the line-up with drummer Nigel Pegrum, bringing the number of members of the group to six.

The somewhat silly children's song "Now We're Six" which is featured on the album is hardly reason for choosing this particular title.

It is obvious that the expansion with a drummer gave the group the opportunity to even more determinedly to continue to along rocking direction which was been taken with the two previous albums "Below the Salt" and "Parcel of Rogues." Especially on the albums strongest track "Thomas the Rhymer" this new potential comes to expression. Unfortunately, the choice of songs for this album is very uneven, and in fact only "Thomas the Rhymer," "Long a Growing" and to a minor extend "Drink Down the Moon" continue the high standards of their previous albums. The instrumental "Mooncoin Jig" is of course fine, but otherwise the rest of the album come silly or slightly uninspired.

The two children's songs "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Now We're Six" seem misplaced. The same applies to the old pop hit "To Know Him is to Love Him".

"Edwin" and "Seven Hundred Elves" are basically good and interesting stories, melodically just not very strong. It should be noted that the original album version of "Thomas the Rhymer" is the same edited version as on the single. A longer and even stronger version has been released released on some compilations.

With Nigel Pegrum added permanently as drummer, the group rocks out for the first time, and from the thumping tom-toms and snare on the opening track, "Thomas the Rhymer," and Bob Johnson's power chords, it's clear that this is a record with balls. Actually, Now We Are Six is still a folk-rock album, albeit with a beat. This was the first Steeleye Span album that many Americans heard and it's a pretty good place to start -- in fact, it might've been the group's very best album, if not for the presence of drivel such as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "To Know Him Is to Love Him" (the latter featuring David Bowie on sax), which still leaves 33 very solid minutes of great music to savor.

For all of their rocking natures, "Drink Down the Moon" and "Two Magicians" (which can be heard in its more traditional form on Martin Carthy's first album) capture the mystery and lustiness, respectively, of their hundreds-of-years-old source material magnificently; "Long-a-Growing" is one of Maddy Prior's finest vocal performances; and "The Mooncoin Jig" -- which is alive with richly textured guitar and mandolin -- is one of the greatest instrumental folk-rock tracks ever recorded, vibrant enough to get even the clumsiest up and dancing.