Customer Reviews

Wrong-Eyed Jesus

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The first time I heard "A Perfect Day to Chase Tornados" (on a CMJ comp) I just about fell out of my chair. Not only is the song musically wonderful, but its story and theme resonates with such truth and beauty--much like the man himself. I've been lucky enough to meet Jim a couple of times and he's just an incredible person and artist. Wrong-Eyed Jesus was my favorite album of 1997--I bought copies of it left and right (which would explain those high soundscan #s in Sacramento) and gave them to friends. White is a gifted storyteller--songs such as "Perfect Day to Chase Tornados" "Sleepy Town" and "The Road That Leads to Heaven" conjure dark, mysterious, beautiful images. That and any guy who can write a line like "I would wear wooly underwear in the sauna just to show you I love you" is a genius in my book. I hope to God his next record places Jim White on the musical radar screen. This is a talent that deserves to be heard. Not everybody's going to get it--but those who do are lucky indeed.

I just want to write something here as the editorial review on this site gives completely the wrong impression. It sounds to me like that reviewer didn't give the album enough chance, and that he judged it too hastily and perhaps snappily.

One-Eyed Jesus is certainly not for everybody, but I consider it to be a bona fide masterpiece that requires an awful lot of time and effort to fully appreciate. The sound of the album is a very layered one, and it's only with a great many repeated plays that it truly reveals itself; at that point the music and poetic lyrics really do start to hook you. There's a mysticism about the whole thing somehow, and once you begin to understand the album's transcendent nature (particularly evident towards the end of the album) it repeatedly produces a smile, and makes the heart leap!

Jim Whites debut album is ground breaking music...Starting with a 14 page story in the attached booklet about how he (jim white) shouted "wrong eyed Jesus" to the complete mixture of bluesey folk music with a twisted spiritual edge makes one drool over each tasty morsel that jim serves to the ears..the lyrics are catchy and you find yourself humming and singing the strange lyrics to the amazement of gaping onlooker..."I whisper beautiful secrets down the drain pipes at night" and other such fun, twisted, music..
In a age when all music is starting to sound the same. Jim white breaks new ground and this CD is a must have along with his second album

I got introduced to the works of Jim White after reading a capasle review of "No Such Place" in Time Magazine and discovered "Wrong Eyed Jesus". The title actually refers to a bizarre encounter Mr. White had in his rural southern teen years and is quite harrowing. The song themselves are wonderful. They will not make much sense.at first. Jim White is an expert songwriter. Some of my favorites on this album include "The Book of Angels" which is probably a plea for a girl. "Still Waters" is oddly southern gothic in which there is a ghost in the matter of course and a beautiful chorus. "A Perfect Day to Chase Tornados" is a masterpiece. This album is very subtle and has lots of religious overtones. You can't classify Jim White until you listen to his music and I recommend that everyone should.

I had no idea who Jim White was until I recently visited a friend, who had this album. I was really amazed by how strong most the songs were on the album. They have a slightly off-kilter feeling, kinda like much of Tom Waites(although I am in no way saying that the two are alike). The only reason that I'm not giving the album 5 stars is because some of the songs don't seem to work as well. Sleepytown is one particular standout. the song is in a constant upward swing from the silent almost whispering in the first few phrases to the down right orchestral and choral ending. Throughout the song, sounds are building on top of each other, but the great thing about this buildup is that it doesn't come only at the end of each chorus. The sounds seem to glide in at the most unexpected but most effective times. The other real standout is The Road That Leads To Heaven, for the same reasons. The song begins with an eerie cello and then becomes more melodic as the song goes on. All and all a great album to check out if southern religious imagery and folk lore wrapped in a somewhat off center point of view is what your looking for these days.

Hallucinatory, mystical, melodic, dissonant. Terror, beauty and tears. This is a jubilant, sometimes hopelessly quirky hymn to life and death. Has there ever been a more original country-folk-punk musician? I bought it by accident, and then felt like I'd (fortunately) been let in to a whole blessed world. Sweet stuff.

this is an excellent cd - music with a brain and a sense of humour. I recommend it to anyone who's sick of the same old sugary-sweet treacle the big labels are selling and who wants some genuine American weirdness. Beautiful, haunting music - can't wait to see him live!

On the radio I heard some guy singing about a preacher talking about tornados as he lay dying in the mud, and a blind girl who waited for a stranger to take her away. I missed the singer's name and had to do a keyword search to find the album (how many songs have the word "tornados" in their titles?) When the CD arrived, I was delighted to find the rest of it as good as "Tornados." Each of the songs tells a story. Each story is set against a background of Southern folk religion -- a kind of Old Testament mix of dour self-abnegation and wide-eyed awe in the face of the miraculous. There's a brooding sense that at any moment everything we know may be swept away by a sublime, almighty power. This is a dark, luminous album full of songs reminiscent of the best Southern writers (I, too, was reminded of Flannery O'Connor, but Jim's stories are even more ambiguous). It's not a perfect album, but it's pretty impressive. I hope we hear a lot more from Jim White.

10 out of 10. No recent musical offerings have moved me with such intensity since I first heard Leonard Cohen. Like Cohen, White is completely unpretentious, just raw evocative lyrics held aloft by a brilliant array of musical instruments, without becoming too self absorbed or experimental. Try reading the story in the liner notes while listening to the CD for the first time, it will take you on a journey that you won't want to end.

This CD puts me in a happy sort of trance. I have to resist listening to it or I'll over do it. The flow, variance & composition of the songs, musicianship and details of the recording not to mention the eery lyrics. Where's this guy been hiding? Hopefully he'll hide out some more to prevent mainstream from destroying his artistry. Thanks Jim - I can't wait for the next one.