Customer Reviews

Tongues & Tails

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

One of the most overlooked musical artists of the 90s in Sophie B. Hawkins. Tongues and Tails is one of the most unusual, original, confusing, complex, and ultimately enjoyable debut albums I have ever heard. The huge splash Hawkins made on the pop charts with the hit Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover (one of the most memorable songs of the decade) offered only hints of the murky wonders to be found in the ocean of music and sensuality arising from the soul of this remarkable performer. Some of these songs can be quite eye-opening at first, pulsing with an uncommon type of sensuality which fits Hawkins' self-described omnisexuality. As for the music, it seems almost cosmic in a way, reflecting all manner of sounds and styles from pop to R&B to a touch of folk music bearing a strong Bob Dylan influence, just to name a few. The sound, though, is clearly her own amalgamation of the rhythms of life, and it is important to note that she wrote all of these songs herself. Interspersed throughout most of the songs are sounds of city streets and life going on elsewhere at the edge of hearing. As for the voice, it reminds me a good deal of Stevie Nicks, but Sophie sings with a passion all her own.

Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover was a huge hit that requires little explanation on my part. California Here I Come is an ode to change and an embrace of the future, culminating most interestingly with a recitation by Sophie of the Lord's Prayer. Mysteries We Understand is a rocking standout track pulsing with a funky beat, creating an energetic release not to be missed. This is followed by a sharp transition to the slow and quiet beginning of Savior Child, but Sophie's energy cannot be contained for very long; the chorus soon comes rushing in, bringing with its catchiness a rich fullness of sound that carries the song to its end. Carry Me is unquestionably the most unusual and thus compelling of the eleven tracks. Sophie begins rather calmly speaking and singing about loving her mother, then suddenly she is making the kinds of passionate sounds that don't seem to belong alongside thoughts of one's mother. The song concludes with a cacophony of organized chaos, marked by the soft insertion of the question "What are you doing?" in the background. These types of things lead some to label a couple of these songs as incestuous, but I believe that Sophie's musings are so cosmic in nature that real-life taboos have no meaning to her besides their usefulness in expanding the consciousness of herself and her listeners. At the mid-point of the album, Sophie acknowledges her connection with Bob Dylan by offering a cover version of I Want You that is completely her own. We Are One Body is an especially noteworthy track, offering thoughts which seem to sum up some of Sophie's personal philosophy: let's fill the whole world with desire, she says, come make love to exclusion. The tracks Live and Let Love and Don't Stop Swaying are natural adjuncts to this communication on her part. Listen is an amazing track; it starts with Sophie speaking very quietly, then suddenly she rises up with a promise to "turn you on," heavy guitar licks fill the air, and the resulting music is a sensuous and quite sexy tour de force.

If you only know Sophie B. Hawkins from her one hit single, the music of this album may well surprise if not shock you at first. After a few listens, though, you find yourself drawn into this strange world that Sophie is singing from and about, seeking the type of mind-expanding consciousness Sophie seems capable of offering. The music definitely gets even better over time, as I find myself appreciating and enjoying it more now than I did at the time of its release. There is real mystery, beauty, and unbridled passion in these songs.

I first heard about this when I was a fool uncool in school. 1992...I didn't know nothing but what they had told me.

Then I discovered Sophie B.

New York City Girl, Sexual Omnivore, Urban Jungle Bunny, she moved and grooved and rocked my world.

Tongues and Tails, written by Sophie in her early twenties, is incredibly primal, tribal, sexual, spiritual, fiery, and passionate.

Let me stand next to her fire.

Dylan would be proud. Her Amazonian cover of 'I Want You' can make you forget the folky original.

Ignore the cynics, the critics who diss this as being lewd and lascivious. They are fools uncool from the old school.

'Carry Me' is a shocker. So free and wild. Don't take the lyrics literally. It's about emotional intimacy, not sex.

'Before I Walk...' very healing and soothing to all the wounded souls and broken hearts in this world.

'Listen' a raucous guitar rocker. In your face and shameless.

'Damn I Wish' is one of the best songs of the decade. Great throbbing roiling beat, lyrics can't be beat...when was the last time you heard someone use the word 'Shucks' in a song? So sweet

Don't stop swayin' Sophie...you can hang from my jungle gym anytime.

Reaction upon first listening to _Tongues and Tails_: "This album is weird. It's actually kind of embarrassing, even, listening to this. What's with the orgasmic moans on Carry Me? Why the implied incest, both in Carry Me and Don;t Stop Swaying? And why is she yelling instead of singing on some of these songs? I don't think I like this at all."

Upon listening for the second time: "Hmm...some of this incest stuff seems to be metaphorical. I don't mind the yelling and moaning nearly so much anymore either. And some of these songs are actually pretty good."

Third time: "Sophie rocks! This is the bomb!"

And Tongues and Tails hasn't collected any dust since. It takes a couple of listens to get used to, but now I love it. If I play it while getting ready for work, I feel transported to a languid summer's day, uplifted beyond the daily grind. And if I listen to it by night, I feel like a sensual goddess. Sophie dares to say things most songwriters merely imply, and the result is occasionally shocking and always memorable.

I bought this in 1992 after hearing it on Beverly Hills 90210. While I did not particularly care for the plot at the time, I liked the background music and was hypnotized by it. I knoew imediately that I had to get it.

Since my musical tastes were teenybop at the time, you can imagine my suprise when I actually had to look for this album at a reasonable price. It seems everybody in the free world had the same idea.

Although "Damm, I wish I was your lover" was the hit single, I found lots of other tracks that I really liked. Well before Maddonna decided she wanted to be a slightly naughty earth mother, Hawkins had the market cornered with admonitions on "love and let love" as well as "don't stop swaying" Truly an original act.

Even though it was only a modest sucess in the states, it remains one of my favirotes to this day, and actually was the very first CD (as opposed to tape) that I bought. The radio stations occasionally play the single, but they don't know what they are missing by excluding everything else.

I bought this album in 1992 as a seventeen-year old blissfully weaned on the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. But during my late adolescence, I began to cast off the trappings of genre-music (including most of the heavy metal) in the discovery of myself. I began listening to and loving Tori Amos and Loreena McKennitt. I bought "Tongues and Tails" after hearing its first single. Though never a blanketing fan of pop (I still am not), I fell in love with that first single. Much to my surprise, I discovered it to be the weakest (though by no means weak) on the album. "Tongues and Tails" has followed me in my life. Periodically, over the years, I've gotten rid of particular albums (with every year, such purging becomes less and less necessary). One outgrows interests and tastes with passing years. But this album has done what great albums must - it has grown richer over time. The songs have always been wonders (especially the Dylan tune "I Want You," "Before I Walk on Fire" and "We Are One Body"), but as any listener grows older and wiser in the world, the songs become talismans of sexual and emotional awakening. I'm twenty-five years old now - a filmmaker whose favourite singers include McKennitt and Iris DeMent. And Hawkins still, after all this time, more than passes muster - her songwriting and singing are luminous and daring. And this album is a legendary one.

One of the most unlikeliest songs to emerge from the transitional period of the 90's was a mellow ambient number that interacted with some jangling rock guitars, haunting ethereal new age synths, seemed to foreshadow triphop, and exuded a different sensuality, more genuinely sexier and one that wasn't as flaunted outright like Madonna-"give you something sweet each time you come inside my jungle book." That song was "Damn I Wish Your Lover" by Sophie B. Hawkins, whose airy and natural-like voice took this song to #5. Many of her songs have a cosmic and metaphoric tone, giving human qualities to things like California and her open arms and golden hair in "California Here I Come," the reflective "California Here I Come," of a New Yorker fed up with the slums and going westbound for hopes of a better life.

In fact, most of Tongues and Tails follows the relaxed ambient transitional 90s music of that hit single. "Carry Me" which features the verses done in a pronounced monologue with an airy chorus chanting the title, and some sensuous coital moans done after the third verse. Her cover of Bob Dylan's "I Want You" has the same sentimental airiness of "Lover." And the mellow "Before I Walk On Fire," asks a lover for forgiveness for being weak, and humbly pleads for affirmation so one can walk those coals once again. One of the best and most heartfelt songs here. Yearning is another way to describe her voice, and her songs. "Don't Stop Swaying" combines that yearning with a monologue of Hansel and Gretel finding themselves with soulful and physical contact.

A take on the "go west" philosophy is seen in Combining 60's-like organ and snappy 80's pop with religious mysticism is the up-tempo "Mysteries We Understand." Lines like "when you become your light, shining like the sun" wouldn't be out of place on a George Harrison album. The idealism of a saviour born every day "in the valley of your soul" is the topic of "Saviour Child."

Other songs on physical sensuality with the use of heavenly metaphors include the cosmically philosophical "We Are One Body"-"it's in your solar system/it's in my super star/there's nothing more precious than the planet in our hearts." This song is set to a light uptempo drum machine and the usual slow synths.

Sensual, honest, and full of feeling is how I describe Tongues and Tails, a unique and groundbreaking offering in the hip-hop, new-soul, and leftover 80's music of the early 90's. Her sophomore effort would bring about a more mainstream yet still appealing approach.

Very well produced 11 songs, albeit too loud synthesizer and too quiet Sophie B. keyboards - piano, organ, what? Hawkins is a real singer-songwriter with songs of great emotional resonance even for a plus-fifty kinda guy like me. The sensual rhythmic and melodic flow on most of the entries beg revisitation. "Don't Stop Swaying" (cut 11) and "Mysteries We Understand" (cut 3) have great dramatic pull (they should have traded places on the CD - "Mysteries" is the perfect closer).

"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" is a powerful opener and the well-known smash single of the spring of '92. It's a beat ballad which belongs on any "best of the '90s" type collection. The harmony is unusual and the mix is fine. "California Here I Come", the second, less successful Columbia single off the album, is the not the tribute to Al Jolson you might expect [JK], it's a moody reflection of psychic displacement, lyrically reminisicent of "California Dreamin'" by you know who.
It's been sugggested that "Carry Me" is something about incest. It sounds too me that the singer is saying that despite her Mother's absence and kinky behaviour when she *was* around, her daughter has grown to understand her and love her.
"Listen" is an incredible track, in today's lingo, "real". The lyrics are a fairly unprecedented statement of romantic intent. Not a radio-friendly cut, but worth referencing.

Yes, at first the alblum seems kinda candy/pop musicish, there's something more there. The depth it has is unbelievable, in a Finnegan's Wake sort of way. Little inside jokes, that only make sense after the Nth time through the alblum, and details everywhere... Little details that don't even register consciously the first 100 times through. Listen to it before you go to bed, listen to it when you wake up, listen to it while you're beating your friends for making fun of it. They don't know what a true masterpiece they're missing. If you've heard Whaler, and like it, you must get this CD. Whaler, with more sophisticated synths creating its sounds, is only better on the surface. It's nicer to hear, but Tongues is better to actually LISTEN to, I bought the disk when It first came out, and it's one of the few that I still listen to regularly. This disk alone is reason to hope digital lasts forever...

Starting with the one two bang of "Damn! I Wish I Was Your Lover" and "California Here I Come" Sophie proved that she is one of those unique artists who can bend the rules of pop music; using adult themes and actual intelligent lyrics, I was a fan from the first bars of the first single. In fact when the single was high on the charts and the next single "California..." was out, our local Wausau radio station was giving away two tickets to see Sophie in California on the Tonight Show. How I wanted to win that - first, I loved Sophie, but also I so wanted to run away and live in California, a dream I wanted since I was a wee tyke and her song just reinforced that need. I woke up at 5:40 in the morning to hear the results of the contest and though I didn't win, I did end up in California eventually! As for the rest of this dynamic debut by Miss Hawkins, "Mysteries We Understand" continues the fold of the new age pop music Sophie does so well. Along with a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Want You" and her original pieces combining horns, church bells, synths, acoustic guitars, pianos, screaming and background filler, Sophie takes us through her jaunt of inner feelings and hyperness. It's a great collection though truth be told her next album Whaler was the one that really sealed the deal for me.

The sometimes disturbing messages presented in Tongues and Tails are artfully relayed by Hawkins in this 90s-influenced album, full of quality music and lyrics. A listener can't expect that an artist won't reflect the musical styles of an era, so some may not like the way 90s fads effected the way Hawkins presents her thoughts in this breakthrough album. But, with knowledge of the artist's background, her lyrical efforts are well worth exploring. They are both unforgettable and can be heard over and over without regret. Certain lyrical expression was taboo in the 90s, but Hawkins found a way to express herself in a way that was definitely ahead of her time. I wasn't disappointed at all and have enjoyed Tongues and Tails since its release.