Glad to Get Away

Glad to Get Away is the twenty-fourth album by Jandek, and was released (1994) as Corwood Industries#0762. It continues the acoustic sound of the prior two albums.

1 Overview
2 Track listing
3 Album cover description
4 Miscellanea
5 Reviews
6 External links

[edit] Overview

The second ever Corwood CD, Glad to Get Away, which was the second of two Jandek albums released in 1994, found the performer working on his acoustic technique and writing lyrics that varied from humorous to disturbing to downright religious. Somehow it all fit - many followers consider this the finest album of Jandek's "second acoustic phase" that covered albums between Twelfth Apostle and The Beginning.

The album is of a piece with its predecessor, Graven Image. They share similar covers for one, a view down an alley of the same white house, though it appears the photographer moved over a few feet for this cover. The disc itself begins with an odd trade-off between the twisted and the divine. "Bitter Tale" opens with about two minutes of picked guitar before the words "It was a cold and bitter tale/about a man who spent his time in jail" are heard. This then leads into "Hey Mister Can You Tell Me" which asks the question "is that a knife stuck in your face?" It also claims that "the way you been carrying on is a disgrace," but that leads into "Ezekiel," which is a ballad that appears to seek the Old Testament prophet. THAT then leads to "Moon Dance" (NOT a cover of the Van Morrison song) which begins, "I got life and death stains on my pants/it’s coming and going out of my clothes/this here my soul, I’m dead." Throughout, the music and vocals are consistent, moving with ease between a strummed folk and a blues focus. It all leads to a trip (the source of the title?) to Madison, where the performer is, "sitting here in Madison/trying to figure out where you are." He "drove a long long way/but didn't have no rain before today," metaphorically insinuating that he drove to Madison to find his lost love, then chickened out (but also dropping the non-sequitur "you know you can't bring electric devices/out in the rain" just for kicks).

The rest of the album seems to wander back to God - perhaps having given up on love, the singer now decides redemption is the only course. This, of course, is the theme to a thousand Chaste-love poems from the Middle Ages and it's a curious reminder of how little sexuality there is in Jandek's music. Things may get violent from time to time, and there's plenty of despair to go around, but ultimately Jandek is the lost knight who can't quite get to a love or to the Lord. So where does he wind up instead? "I don't know why but I must keep listening" the performer says on "Plenty," perhaps referring to his desire to continue putting out music to what was then still a tiny audience, his need to continue the quest? That leads to "What" which says, "at the end of the day don’t turn around you’ll have to pay" but pay what? He doesn't seem to know. At the end of it all, it seems, all you can do is float down a river. The river Styx? A river to Madrid? Not for him to say, apparently. All he knows is he "brought you this way." Where you are is entirely up to you.

[edit] Track listing

Bitter Tale – 2:25
Hey Mister Can You Tell Me – 3:33
Ezekiel – 2:49
Moon Dance – 2:22
Flowers on My Shirt – 2:36
Morning Drum – 2:58
Down Clown – 2:45
Rain in Madison – 2:19
Van Ness Mission – 3:03
Anticipation – 3:12
Nancy Knows – 3:10
Take My Will – 4:03
Plenty – 2:00
What – 3:06

[edit] Album cover description

Almost identical to Graven Image. It looks like he stepped about ten feet to one side -- you're looking down the driveway along the side of the house, instead of just at the back of the house -- and took another photo. -- Seth Tisue

[edit] Miscellanea

Part of this album cover would be incorporated into both the trailer and the DVD cover of the documentary Jandek on Corwood.

[edit] Reviews

Sixteen years after his first album, Jandek sounds more confident in his playing, and his vocals are more up front, but his detuned/untuned acoustic guitar and depressed, stream-of-consciousness folk/blues songs remain at the core of his music... 'Rain in Madison' jumps out, a cracked blues-style story about... something ('you know you can't bring no electric devices out in the rain'). On 'Van Ness Mission', he turns up the echo full blast for a disturbing 'delic journey that continues on 'Anticipation' like a free-style Tav Falco goin' down slow. 'Nancy Knows' is an awkward but complex instrumental that clearly shows Jandek now moving his left hand around the neck of his guitar in a way very foreign to his early open-strum approach. I wonder if the tune is named for the same Nancy who sang on chair beside a window back in '82. 'Take My Will' is more early blues, Jandek-style... He pulls out his harmonica for a little dylan-squeal accompaniment on 'Plenty'. The cycles of nature are not often rapid; listen as one of nature’s strangest wonders continues to slowly 'progress'. -- Piero Scaruffi -- The History of Rock Music #4