Flyer

Nanci Griffith

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 13, 1994)
• Original Release Date: September 13, 1994
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Elektra / Wea
• ASIN: B000002HG5
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #69,859 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Nanci Griffith has worn her success well. Along with Lyle Lovett, she has sold the most records of any Texas singer/songwriter, and she has done so on her own terms. Flyer is a jaunty, sometimes driving collection of original songs exploring the politics of the heart and featuring a number of effective guest artists, most notably members of the Counting Crows, Dire Straits, and even R.E.M. But Flyer remains central to her growing body of work for the songs, some of Griffith's most poetic and concise, moving at once beyond a purely Texas folk style and into folk-rock, and yet staying true to her narrative gifts. --Roy Kasten

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly amazing CD, May 31, 2000

By	E. M. Carey "LGW" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was the CD that started it all for me - it's not lonely any more, having been joined by 8 other Nanci Griffith CDs since I bought it. It is a remarkable album - her songs are wonderful, the harmonies beautiful, the lyrics stories in themselves. And despite her distinctive voice and sound, there is real variety, from the slower melodies to more the 'pop'-ier sounding ones. And her duet with Adam Duritz "Going Back To Georgia" is a real high point on the CD, as their voices simply mix magically.

I bought the CD for one song, and ended up loving the whole thing so much that I lent it out to as many friends as I could, many of whom ended up buying it. If only I could convince everyone to do so! Nanci Griffith is a powerful songwriter, singer and, to top it off, story teller. I've found it to be the same with her other albums, but I think that this remains her best because it showcases her range and abilities more than some of the others (all of which are great, too, mind you). Flyer definitely comes with my highest recommendation.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars pages from Nanci's open book, August 17, 2001

By	"[e-mail]" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

No one ever accused Nanci Griffith of being secretive, private, but when it comes down to it, we don't know much about her personal life. That is, not until "Flyer." Each song is like a page from her diary, and if you're a Nanci fan at all, that makes this a must-have.

So it hits and misses, musically, but it does it with the awkward grace of Nanci herself, with this kind of unabashed, blurty admission of truth, maybe not always clean and perfectly wrought...but honest.

Which makes the inclusion of the Julie Gold song, "Southbound Train," very strange on a cd FULL of Nanci originals, but I guess it spoke to her, and if you look at the lyrics you can see why, see how it tells a little more the story of our flyer Nanci.

"Goodnight to a Mother's Dream" might be the saddest song she's ever written, and it's certainly done more for me than any other, as far as shedding light on Nanci herself. Little girl raised to be strong, to be independent, to take care of herself and think for herself -- and what does it get her? "I've got love enough for two, but it's just me and this old moon." And I just want to reach out and shake her for this, for all this earnestness, this beautiful woman's belief somehow that she's "plain as plain can be" and tell her just how grateful I am for all she's given me. "I am the heart not taken," she says, "the one thought not worth breaking. I am the late-blooming rose with only a mother's dream to hold." Wonderful, heartbreaking stuff. And man, I love Nanci for it, and I feel a whole lot closer to her from having heard this song, this album.

"Anything You Need But Me" is the flipside of that story, but another one I can identify with: "you sent me out on a limb, brought me home, sent me back again. Out on that limb one too many times, you shoulda known I'd learn to fly."

She gives us a lot of long-distance love and love lost on this album, "Flyer," "Say It Isn't So," "Talk to Me While I'm Listening.," "Fragile," and, perhaps best in "Nobody's Angel": "I'm the one who would understand, who listens with pen in hand, everyone's shoulder till it's me who falls down. I'm nobody's angel now."

She remembers John (cf. "There's a Light Beyond These Woods...") in "On Grafton Street" and "Always Will," and she's even got a love song to her long-time accompanist and best friend James Hooker in "Don't Forget About Me."

And she leaves us with a rousing note of hope, she reminds us she's strong, with the fabulous "This Heart." "This heart was stranded in the winter, was stuck out in a blizzard in its summer clothes, this heart knows when the love comes and when it goes."

So get "Flyer," if you love Nanci, if you'd like to love Nanci, or even if you'd just like to get to know her a little better.

And Nanci, if you're out there, I've always got my porch light on.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your New Best Long-Lost Friend, July 31, 2002

By	Lawrence E. Wilson (Mayfield, East Sussex, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the first Nanci Griffith album I ever heard, and it remains one of my favorites, and is the one I recommend to people who are just discovering her incredible talents. I used to listen to it every Saturday morning while working as backup bookkeeper at my local Borders---it was in the pile of tapes owned by the office manager. Everything about it grabbed me fast: her lovely voice, the poetry of the songwriting, the mix of sorrow and sass. It felt from the beginning as if I knew this woman, as if she were writing and singing with me in mind...

I think my favorite song on this album is "Grafton Street," a track on which the Chieftains perform backup duties. Over an intriguing percussive beat, the harp-strings shimmer, and then Griffith begins to sing a plaintive melody line, telling a simple memory-story in simple, clear language, a story which goes straight to my heart, an arrow accurately shot. And all Griffith's shots are accurate.

The ordinariness of her subject matter is deceptive. In focusing on the commonplace (a train trip, a card game, a city snowstorm), she effortlessly connects us to all the big universal truths (love, loss, struggle, solitude) and sings them so beautifully. You'll want to buy every single Nanci Griffith CD, but start with this one.