Seductive Reasoning

Terre Roche, Maggie Roche | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 29, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collectors Series
• ASIN: B000002Z5B
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #532,742 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Underneath the Moon

2. Down the Dream

3. Wigglin' Man

4. West Virginia

5. If You Empty Out All Your Pockets You Could Not Make Change

6. Telephone Bill

7. Malachy's

8. Burden of Proof

9. The Mountain People

10. Jill of All Trades

Editorial Reviews

When a 35 year-old record sounds like it could have been made yesterday, it tells you two things. First, the music it contains is by definition timeless. And, two, it s a pretty good bet that when it first came out, that record was ahead of its time. Such is the case with the first album from the Roche family. Maggie and Terre Roche were fresh from singing backup on Paul Simon's 1973 album There Goes Rhymin' Simon when they went into the studio to record Seductive Reasoning with the same Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and production team (the Yardbirds' Paul Samwell-Smith and, on one track, Simon himself) that had made Rhymin' Simon. Yet, for all its star power, the real focus of the album was Maggie Roche s impressionistic, intensely personal songwriting and the beautiful, stunning harmonies struck by the two sisters. Which has a lot to do with why this 1975 release never made a commercial splash. If radio was simply not ready for Seductive Reasoning s brash blend of folk, country and pop styles the same blend that today characterizes so many "alternative" acts--it certainly was not ready for a female songwriter who avoided hippie platitudes and bucolic yearnings in favor of stream-of-consciousness urban streetscapes and post-feminist attitudes towards love and sex, all leavened by a sweet vulnerability. Indeed, Seductive Reasoning lives up to its title it hits you both in the heart and in the head.

This new Real Gone reissue marks the first time in over a decade the album has been available on CD, and features the original front cover album artwork along with track-by-track commentary by Maggie Roche and pictures from her archive. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE MOST BEAUTIFUL NOTE SUNG BY A HUMAN ON A RECORDING, July 3, 2003

By 

"lokisings" (Enfield, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seductive Reasoning (Audio CD)

is contained on this brief breath of spring air. maggie Roche was writing songs that, had she sustained the power of this record and the first ROCHES record would have made her more of a legend than she is today. Combining puns with sharply etched detail, subtle psychological study and nerd humor, SEDUCTIVE REASONING breaks all the rules and comes out winning!

"West Virginia," a portrait of a suyicide in shorthand, tells a life-story in 3 or so minutes, and like life is unresolved, filled with gaps, and yet somehow COMPLETE. Terre Roche, on the last note of this song (the word "see" held out for an eternity)and everywhere she sings, was for one brief moment the most GORGEOUS singer of her generation. Only Sandy Denny, Tim Buckley, Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Linda Thompson or one or two others have ever come close to her sparrow-flight singing on this record. What "West Virginia" does for a life at its end, "Down the Dream" does for two lives intertwined by love and racial bigotry.

Maggie's disturbingly deep voice packs a whallop of its own, whether on the (still) funny Paul Simon produced "If You Emptied Out All Your Pockets" or the poignant (and it really is poignant) "Jill of All Trades." "Malachy's," "Underneath the Moon" and "Telephone Bill" sound like mountain streams having a hot date.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 30 minutes of non-stop delight, September 15, 2000

By 

Eric Krupin (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seductive Reasoning (Audio CD)

Anyone who likes the Roches, female harmonizing, melodies that demand you sing along, or clever/poignant lyrics should make locating this record their life's mission. How good is it? It's the only music I've purchased as an LP, a cassette, and a CD. GET THIS BACK IN PRINT!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a time capsule from the 70's, June 2, 2005

By 

Peter Baklava (Charles City, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seductive Reasoning (Audio CD)

If you were young in the 1970's and feel (like I do) a somewhat conflicted streak of nostalgia for that decade, then this is the album for you. One listen will bring memories back, of all the hitchhiking, the natural foods restaurants, the constant search for some kind of lost Arcadian dream--and the hangover from the 70's, the unfulfilled wishes and unrealized hopes.

This is the first Roche sisters effort (before Suzzy joined) and it was produced by Paul Simon, in part-- also by Paul Samwell-Smith (who produced Cat Stevens) among others. It has more of a beat and a bounce than the subsequent Roches' albums; it's loosey-goosey but it doesn't have the kind of vaudeville kitsch that the sisters put on many of their releases. Maggie and Terre sing these eclectic songs as if they'd lived them--and, given the times, they probably did.

The two Roches stretch out comfortably on these songs, and they both shine. Maggie uses the full range of her remarkable voice, and solos on one of her most poignant songs, "Jill of All Trades." Terre's soprano is featured on "West Virginia".

All of the songs are full of verve and humor, particularly "Wiggling Man", "Telephone Bill", "If You Emptied Out All Your Pockets..." There are many priceless bits of wisdom among the lyrics, and there is a "country rock" sound to the album that the Roches have never revisited.

So this is my advice: find this album somehow, and listen to it. Have a glass of wine, and if you want to read something, "Fast Lanes" by Jayne Anne Phillips would go sensationally well with this music. All together, that should quench your "jones for the 70's" very nicely.

Update Feb 2012: It's great to see this album resurrected again in a cd release. Needless to say, I still cherish it as my favorite of all Roche Sisters albums ( nothing against Suzzy, BTW). I still have my vinyl copy. There really is no other album remotely like it.