Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This One's On My Eternal Playlist, March 9, 2006
I have all James McMurtry's albums, have seen him several times over various releases, and this is still the acme for me. This album continues to resonate after all these years. When my Ipod hits a song from this album in its shuffle I invariably turn the volume up. This is a beautiful album, but one that does not take a cheery view of life. These are not songs that will make you smile or brighten your day. McMurtry's world is populated with the desperate, the failed, and those just hanging on. The songs "Down Across the Delaware", "Levelland", "One More Winter", and "Where'd You Hide the Body" are so lovely and so bleak. And if you are ever driving across west Texas, this is part of the soundtrack you need to play (see also Terry Allen and Jimmie Dale Gilmore). Give a listen to a great singer-songwriter and his best album (so far).
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There's no such thing as a "perfect" album . . ., April 4, 2000
. . . but this is as close as you're likely to come. In all seriousness, I put *Body* on my personal shortlist of all-but-perfect albums, alongside Lyle Lovett's *Joshua Judges Ruth,* Patty Griffin's *Living With Ghosts,* Freedy Johnston's *Can You Fly* . . . even Dylan's *Blood on the Tracks* is an apt comparison. Several of the songs on this record -- "Levelland," "Down Across the Delaware," "Melinda," "Iolanthe" -- are, in my estimation, as good as any songs ever written by anybody, anywhere.I don't want to regurgitate the praises offered by previous reviewers; they're all true, and all warranted. Instead, I'd like to use this space to draw particular attention to "Rachel's Song," which is one of the most powerful and affecting things I know. Written and sung from the perspective of an abandoned woman -- addressing in absentia the man who left her -- it's unlike anything else on the record: elsewhere McMurtry is sardonically funny and basically generous of spirit; this, however, is a long, level stare into the abyss -- a depiction of a cold, bottomless, almost inarticulate hatred that's so utterly pure as to consume or negate everything outside of itself. Absolutely stunning; I've never heard anything else remotely like it. To quote Jorge Luis Borges (on Robert Graves) -- this fable deserves to be very ancient.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
McMurtrys'real world lyrics hit hard., September 30, 1999
By A Customer
This is his best work as far as I am concerned, although all of his work ranks higher than most song weavers. His real world lyrics compete strongly with those of one of my other favorite musical poets of the day, Jeff Holmes of the "Floating Men". Both of these gents take you back to things that you remember in life with exceptional detail. The opening track, Iolanthe, is awesome and all the cuts grow on you with listening. From " mama had no sense with cars, she drove a sunbeam and drove it hard... on Fuller Brush Man to,..."I probably ought to quit my drinkin, but I don't believe I will." Lord knows I can relate to the Title track of "Where'd you hide the body?" This was my anthem during my divorce last year. Buy this if you live in the real world, you won't regret it!
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