All those promises

[David from London]

Wish I could get to Cedar Rapids for the show, but unfortunately I can't. I looked at the website for the place where it's being held, and it has a flyer which has a write-up on FINB. It particularly mentioned 'All those promises' which hasn't received as much publicity as some of the other songs on the CD.

The more I listen to it, the more it grows on me and I think it's now one of my favourite tracks. Janis' rendition of it at the QEH in London was more than first-rate. I almost cried because it's so sad - just as I actually did cry with joy over the Old American Folk Song!!

[Chet]

David - can you give a link to where the flyer is? I can't find it, and it's too early for me to do too much digging.

[chris h]

David I agree next to Joy this is my favourite track. It is sad, but there is so much depth to this song, and of course, Janis just evokes so much emotion. There is no one to equal her......... chris h

[David from London]

Sorry, Chet. Looking at the flyer again I see that the mention of the song is in the piece about Janis on the website - http://www.legionarts.org/music/Ian.htm - not the flyer. There's a link to the flyer, which is a PDF, from that page.

[NinasSpaceChild]

I have to share my appreciation of All Those Promises. It is quite possibly my favourite song on the album.

It was real hairs standing up on the back of my neck with lump in my throat time when Janis performed it live recently.

[gisli]

I am propably gonna be thrown out of the board for this, please don´t.:o

But I have to admit that I just simply didn´t like FINB when I first heard it, at first I thought it was because it was to "folky" for me and I had a feeling I was not in that new black style.
Then I thought: I don´t like it because it is bit to much "Live" and I don´t like "Live" records.....usually, don´t know why. I even went as far as to think oh my God, this is not "MY" Janis she uses that word W###es of Babylon, this is not right. What is happening?????

After listening a bit to the cd and reading what yo guy´s wrote about them songs here on this board, I found out that I just wasn´t ready for this cd, I had to finish listening to the other Janis album´s first, that is all from Restless Eyes, Breaking Silence and soforth.
Bricks started to fall one by one in the wall that I had built around FINB, then one song got to me and it was "All Those Promises".....I found "MY Janis" (selfish of me) in that song.
I then discovered the song The Drowning Man and that song got the most to me, it went straight to my heart............after that there was no stoping, I discovered one song after another even though I had listened (heard) them ten times before. (so what??? I am a slow man)

My feeling, today for this work is, that it´s not long enough, the songs should have been longer. Each song should have been 8-10min. In this cd there is a different Janis can´t say in what way, maybe it is the storyteller in her that is coming more out, or I am discovering and maybe because of this, my selfishness think that the songs should have been longer.

I don´t know, can´t, darn it, put quite the right words to express what I am trying to say here....
The bottom line is that this cd is a pearl in shell, you have to open the shell to find the pearl....and when you have....you want to dive back into the water to find more pearls.......because "you are hooked".

[Chet]

Gisli

It sounds like you had to pry the shell open to get at the FINB pearl. :D

I think you got it right when you said "it is the storyteller in her". When I saw that phrase in your post, something clicked in my brain. You are absolutely right - Janis is not just singing in this new album, she's telling stories. In particular, "Jackie Skates" got us discussing in the middle board and I felt like I was back in university, attending one of my lit crit classes. :)

Up till now, the word I kept thinking whenever I listen to FINB is "poet". Janis is not just a songwriter, but a poet (poetess? :D ). But now, with your permission, I will use your word - storyteller.

[Manchester]

I had exactly the same feeling when I first heard the new album. "My Janis" had turned into something/someone different. Stars and Between the Lines are still my favourite albums, with Aftertones and Billies Bones in the top four too. I really wasn't sure I liked it, and even voiced that between a few people at the LRC - to huge gasps of shock and mock horror! But, like you, my favourites were All Those Promises, Joy and The Drowning Man.

Consequently, I didn't listen to it very much before the LRC. Following that, and after hearing the stories behind a lot of the songs, plus attending four other concerts, seeing how happy Janis is performing them, I am definitely a convert.

Your last paragraph says it all.

Anne

[David from London]

It certainly is an album containing many stories, and one of the good things about Janis is that when she sings you can actually hear the words. At the QEH there were several moments when people gasped at the words of the songs. You don't get that in many live performances.

[Dar]

And how fitting that Pearl's daughter has become such a pearl in her own right. :D

I've always considered Janis to be a bit of a storyteller. Maria, Jolene, Ruby, Aftertones, Jesse, Stars, the list goes on and on, heck even Play Like a Girl is a story.

[Chet]

*takes Dee's mental eraser to rub image from mind of gisli prying open shell to get at Janis*

Oh wait, gisli was talking about FINB as being the pearl, not Janis. As for Janis - she is definitely a gem, but one that's as yet unnamed, in a class of her own.

Dar - that bit of a storyteller has now graduated to be a full-fledged storyteller. Actually, now that I think of it, I remember reading an article in which she was described as a troubadour. I haven't heard that word in a long time, and it seems to me to be a very appropriate description.


trou·ba·dour
n.
1. One of a class of 12th-century and 13th-century lyric poets in Southern France, northern Italy, and northern Spain, who composed songs in langue d'oc often about courtly love.
2. A strolling minstrel.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=troubadour

[Charlie]

All those promises is my favourite track on the album. I can't say it is the stand out track for me since there are so many other top songs. I loved the lyrics on first hearing and prefer the cut down live version where the singing really grabs me.

[Bat]

My fave on FINB has to be 'Danger,Danger'...I never was one for blue love songs, devastating depression; love the politics of that one.

[GodSistah]

I'm with you on that one, Bat! "Danger, Danger" is my favorite too! Love it. I love "All Those Promises" as well. I think in the future it might be one of those Janis Ian classics that many other artists cover. I could see Liza Minnelli doing a version of it with full orchestra. ;)

~Andrea~

[Kathleen Brogan]

It's a perfect song! I absolutely love it! It will probably stay one of my favorite songs of all time. The phrasing, the warmth, the pain, it's all there. Janis hits my "goosebump notes" with her voice, just like in "Candlelight" and "She Must Be Beautiful". Thanks for the thread!

Kathleen

[david uk]

As Gisli and Anne have intimated, FINB is an album that takes some getting used to for an established Janis fan- but hey a truly great singer songwriter makes her/his audience work and Janis has done that with FINB- nothing on this album is simple- she flits effortlessly from one style to another and the listener has to keep up. But how worthwhile that effort is.... as uncompromising as ever, Janis has produced one of the best albums of her career.

:)

[gisli]

As Gisli and Anne have intimated, FINB is an album that takes some getting used to for an established Janis fan- Janis has produced one of the best albums of her career.

:)

I agree David and though I am not a music critic, (just your average music lover) I do think that FINB is a masterpiece and will be concidered as that in the music industry.
You also point out a good point: an established Janis fan. I think one of the worst thing an artist has to deal with after making a great book, song, cd whatever, is that you judge all the artist work after that by compering it with the artist previous (in your point of view) best work, not allowing him/her to grow in another direction or exspand his/hers horizon. Like Yussef N´Dour, his songs are fab but because he made Seven Seconds Away, a monster hit, everybody expexts him to do another SSA. This could also apply to Janis and her monster hit At Seventeen.
With FINB I expected "My Janis" and had to get over it, I think that in FINB you get a "New Janis" and this "New Janis" is, for me, in the same field as Bob Dylan and Neil Young and to my surprice......I find her better...

[hoops]

I think i've had a different experience than most of you for a few reasons. one is that I've been thru the " this doesn't sound like..." period in my life many many years ago with the ever changing Fleetwood mac ( not at all in the same league as Janis but i loved them at the time) they went from a heavy blues based band to a rock band to a pop band they went thru guitarists like most people go thru underwear. So at a very young age i learned that artists, in order to remain artists need change need to try new thgings to be new people to basically grow...and i began to enjoy the process of every artists growth and growing up with Janis I loved every new peice for what it is. I mean to think that Janis made a disco hit with "Fluy to high" could have been a total nightmare for me personally, i HATE disco, but i love "Fly to high" I'd have lost faith in joni michell decades ago were it not for this joy in growth.

The other reason why i believe i look differently at this is that When i first heard ANYTHING from FINB it was live sitting about 25 ft away from Janis. Dang that woman made "drowning man" All those promises" and other songs from FINB hit home hard. When i got the cd, with the format in which it is produced, i was already in love, i just now had the live album before me. i just want to add this little but, i don't just assume to love the work of the artist because i love the artist. I love the work because it is good work. Janis is not a sloppy artist, she doesn't go into a project with one oar in the water. some do, and some that i really like do, but Janis takes what she has to offer very seriously, it is her gift and her vocation.
peace
hoops

[Dee]

Art isn't easy
Overnight you're a trend
You're the right combination
Then the trend's at an end
You're suddenly last year's sensation

All they ever want is repetition
All they really like is what they know

(Stephen Sondheim)

[NinasSpaceChild]

Oooh, I love Stephen Sondheim. Isn't that from Sunday in the Park with George? I haven't seen that yet, but have seen Putting It Together a few times and that song featured.

[Dee]

It is indeed from Sunday in the Park with George, Dylan. Good ear! ;)