Pirates (album)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pirates
Pirates cover
Studio album by Rickie Lee Jones
Released July 1981
Recorded January 1980 - April 1981
Genre Rock
Length 38:38
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman
Professional reviews
Rickie Lee Jones chronology
Rickie Lee Jones
(1979)		 Pirates
(1981)		 Girl at Her Volcano
(1983)

Pirates is the second album by Chicago-born singer, songwriter, and musician Rickie Lee Jones, released in July 1981, two years after her eponymous debut Rickie Lee Jones. The album is partially an account of her break-up with fellow musician Tom Waits after the success of her debut album. The cover is a 1976-copyrighted photo by Brassaï.

Contents

[edit] Recording

Initial recording for Pirates began in January 1980, with the live recordings for "Skeletons" and "The Returns" from January 30 from these sessions kept on the final album. In the same month, Jones picked up a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Jones came to album sessions at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood with five songs, which were recorded and arranged in a two-month spurt in early 1980 before Jones was given an extended break for further writing. Album sessions reconvened in November 1980 and concluded in April 1981, three months before the album release.

All songs were copyrighted on June 9, 1980, as well as “Hey Bub,” which was omitted from the album release, except for “Living It Up” and “Traces of the Western Slopes,” copyrighted in July, 1981, at the time of the album release.

[edit] Overview

Jones relocated to New York City after her split from Tom Waits, and soon set up home with a fellow musician, Sal Bernardi from New Jersey, whom she had met in Venice, California in the mid-1970s, writing in their apartment in Greenwich Village. Bernardi, who had been referenced in the lyrics to "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" from her debut, was to become a frequent collaborator with Jones, and they composed the epic eight-minute suite "Traces of the Western Slopes" together.

Elsewhere, the music on Pirates is often cinematic, with influences ranging from Leonard Bernstein to Bruce Springsteen and Laura Nyro. The album is more musically ambitious than its predecessor, and explores elements of jazz, R&B, bebop, pop, and Broadway, with multiple changes in tempo and mood within most songs.

[edit] Success

Pirates was well-received by critics, achieving a five-star rating in Rolling Stone magazine, which featured Jones on the cover of the August 6, 1981 issue for a second time. The album also became a Top 5 US chart success, and remained on the UK album charts for three months without the aid of a major hit single.

In recent years, Pirates' reputation has grown considerably, with British-based music magazine Word magazine proclaiming it as one of pop music's 25 Most Underrated Albums of All Time in 2005.

[edit] Songs

All songs written and composed by Rickie Lee Jones, excepted when noted:

"We Belong Together" Here, Jones appears to lament the end of her relationship with Waits, populating her narrative with intriguing bohemian characters such as Johnny the King. The song also references movie icons Marlon Brando and Natalie Wood. Jones plays an elegant piano melody with the arrangement building around her.

"Living It Up" One of the last songs recorded for Pirates, "Living It Up" details the lives of a succession of bohemian street characters, with Jones introducing Louie, Eddie, and the down-and-out teenage domestic violence victim Zero. Jones' jaunty piano melody is embellished by sweeps of orchestration, lavish vocal harmonies, and tempo changes.

"Skeletons" Along with "The Returns," the first song to be recorded for the album on January 30, 1980. The song, delivered solo on piano with a string arrangement, is based on the true story of a man who, in a case of mistaken identity, was killed by police in Los Angeles while taking his wife to hospital to give birth.

"Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (Jones, David Kalish) Co-written with David Kalish, this is a bebop tribute to 1950s R&B icons, with a finger-snapping guitar riff and an in-studio male vocal chorus. It is one of the album's most upbeat songs and one of the few not to feature significant tempo/rhythm changes.

"Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" Another ode to Waits, this references "rainbow sleeves" in its lyrics; Waits' song "Rainbow Sleeves" was later to be recorded by Jones on her EP album Girl at Her Volcano. The song begins jauntily with a jazz horn melody before the horns fade out, making a return for the coda.

"A Lucky Guy" Along with "The Returns," perhaps the album's simplest song musically, here Jones appears jealous of Waits' apparent ease to get on with life at the end of the relationship ("he's a lucky guy/he doesn't worry about me when I'm gone.")

"Traces of the Western Slopes" (Sal Bernardi, Jones) Co-written with then-boyfriend Sal Bernardi, this is an eight-minute epic again detailing bohemian nightlife and referencing Edgar Allan Poe.

"The Returns" A soft, simple ending delivered solo on piano with string arrangement, much like the closer to the previous album, "After Hours." It is also the album's shortest composition.

[edit] Personnel

Rickie Lee Jones - vocals, guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, percussion, vocals & horn arrangements

[edit] Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1981 US 5
1981 UK 37

Singles - Billboard

Year Single Chart Position
1981 "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" Mainstream Rock 40
1981 "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" Mainstream Rock 31
1981 "A Lucky Guy" Pop Singles 64

[edit] References

[edit] External links