Poetic Justice (Steve Harley album)

Poetic Justice
Studio album by Steve Harley
Released	1996 7 October 2002 (re-release)
Genre	Pop rock
Length	51:43
Label	Transatlantic Records (Castle Communications PLC)
Producer	Steve Harley
Steve Harley chronology
Yes You Can (1992) Poetic Justice (1996) More Than Somewhat – The Very Best of Steve Harley (1998)

Poetic Justice is the fourth studio album by British singer-songwriter Steve Harley, released in 1996.

Background

After the 1992 studio album Yes You Can, which would largely consist of Harley-penned songs from the 1980s, Poetic Justice was the follow-up album. The album was recorded at Berry House Studios in Ardingly, Sussex. The album included three covers; the Jimmy Ruffin 1966 hit song "What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?", the 1965 Bob Dylan hit song "Love Minus Zero-No Limit" and the 1970 Van Morrison hit song "Crazy Love".^[1] The new songs on the album were largely written during touring.^[2] The song "Riding the Waves (For Virginia Woolf)" was originally an album track on Harley's 1978 debut solo album Hobo with a Grin, and became a popular live number. For the Poetic Justice version, the album labelled it as "re-recorded "live" in the studio 1996".^[1]

On 16 May 1997, Harley was interviewed by John Gray for the Summer 1997 issue of Smiler magazine (issue 52), where the article was titled 'Poetic Brilliance!'. Whilst speaking of the album's covers Harley revealed "There's a lot of people who are quite unhappy with the covers that I've done on my new album, so I'm thinking I won't bother doing any again. My audience think I've run out of ideas if I only write eight out of eleven."^[3] Speaking of his reaction to Robson & Jerome reaching the UK number one spot with a cover of "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" in 1996, Harley replied "I'd recorded it long before they turned up. We were saying to the record company, I'd done this as a single, and they hadn't got a bloody clue. Three months later it was being played by them. There should be a separate chart for those kind of people. You've got to remember, I sit here as the man who was knocked off No. 1 by Telly Savalas doing "If" – with a lollipop – there should be a separate chart for these people. "Make Me Smile" would have been No. 1 for five or six weeks instead of two, you know. Gimmicky records – huh! There should be a gimmick chart."^[3]

In relation to the cover of "Love Minus Zero-No Limit", Gray commented that, before Poetic Justice was released, Rod Stewart had revealed he planned to record "Love Minus Zero". Harley replied "No! No – he didn't tell me! I gave him this album "Poetic Justice" – end of last year, about September or October. It won't stop him. He sells 25 times more than I do, so why should he not do it anyway?" Gray asked "What about the future? There was the album last year, is it going to be another four years until the next album?" Harley replied "Oh it's still a new album. We did those 22 dates in the autumn, we're doing 22 now – all different places except one. So it's still a new album."

Finally, Harley was asked if he'd like another hit single, to which he responded "I would dearly love it. They should have released "The Last Time I Saw You" or "That's My Life in Your Hands" – they would have got a lot of air play – not Radio One – but a good plugger these days gets people like me on all those "gold" stations or Virgin – they'll all play it, and even if it was only a turntable hit, I'd have liked that, but record companies now are run by accountants. It's hard to get anyone to talk sense."^[4]

In an article on Harley for the online music magazine Perfect Sound Forever, circa 2002, Harley spoke of the album, stating "Songwriting is one of the few jobs even in the world of creative art that we do where you don't get better with age. It's also true perhaps with novelists: that their best work is often left behind in their twenties and up to their mid thirties, when you're truly inspired and think you can rule the world. In '96, I released Poetic Justice and I do five or six songs from that most nights on tour and I would say they might just be the best songs I've ever written and they touch people as though they're the best songs I've ever written and they go down as though they were big hits."^[5]

Discounting the album's three cover versions, the track "That's My Life in Your Hands" was the only song to feature a writing credit other than Harley himself. The co-writing credit for the music went to Hugh Nicholson. Harley recalled in 2015: "Hugh had written another song, same chords, different words and title. I asked permission to change the lyrics and produce my own version. I wrote all the lyrics."

Release

The album was released in the UK on CD via Transatlantic Records, a division of Castle Communications PLC. On 7 October 2002, Castle Music Ltd. re-issued the album on CD.^[6][7] On 20 September 2010, Repertoire Records, under license from Comeuppance Ltd., re-issued the album as a digi-pack CD, whilst the back cover was re-worked, featuring a dark shot of a hill and the sky, instead of the original cover of a woodland in the dark distance.^[8] In 2010–11, Sanctuary Fontana made the album available as a digital download on sites such as iTunes.^[7][9]

Promotion

No singles were taken to promote the album, despite Harley's interest in releasing "That's My Life in Your Hands" and "The Last Time I Saw You". Additionally, "What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?" was purposely recorded to be a single.^[10]

Many of the songs on the album have been performed live. A live version of the album's opening track "That's My Life in Your Hands" would appear as one of two bonus tracks on the 2000 re-issue of Harley's 1978 album Hobo with a Grin.^[11] "Two Damn'd Lies", "All in a Life's Work" and "The Last Time I Saw You" would appear on the 2002 live album, Acoustic and Pure Live, which featured Jim Cregan and other guests.^[12] A live version of "Safe" was used as one of two extra tracks on the 2001 single "A Friend for Life". This version was recorded live at The Blomsbury Theatre in London during the spring of 2000.^[13]

"The Last Time I Saw You" was debuted live at the Mick Ronson Tribute Concert, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 29 April 1994. Harley's performance of the song, along with "Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile)", appeared on the 2001 two-disc CD compilation The Mick Ronson Memorial Concert.^[14]

Track listing

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[15]
24.000 Dischi (Italian Dalai editore book)	[16]
The Virgin Encyclopedia of 70s Music	[17]
High Fidelity News and Record Review (Volume 41, Issues 7–12 – Link House Publications)	favourable[18]

Thom Jurek of Allmusic stated "The 1996 album "Poetic Justice" is actually a very solid and subdued set for Steve Harley. He's in fine voice here, and his own songs are pretty much top of the heap for having been some "20 years past his prime" as some jive Brit journo called him. It's nonsense, of course, since Harley may not have had the hits in the '90s, but certainly had the requisite taste, musicianship and elegance to put a collection of songs together like this one. His covers of Bob Dylan's "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," and Van Morrison's "Crazy Love" both put on offer his roots as a musician and his own, dare we say it, pedigree. "Poetic Justice" is fine work top to bottom, and should be owned by any fan, or investigated by the curious." Additionally, out of the eleven songs on the album, Jurek highlighted "What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?", "Two Damn'd Lies" and Crazy Love" as album highlights by labelling them AMG Pick Tracks.^[15]

As part of the unreleased book The Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel story, author Hans Peters spoke of the album, stating "The album "Poetic Justice" contains some very nice poems. "All in a Life's Work" and "The Last Time I Saw You" are absolute masterpieces. It also contains poems from great artists like Van Morrison and Dylan. Steve himself recorded another version of "Riding the Waves"."^[2]

In the 2007 Italian book 24.000 Dischi (24,000 discs), written by Riccardo Bertoncelli and Cris Thellung, a review of the Poetic Justice album stated "In the first new album since 1979 Harley confirms a vein intimate, melancholic, introverted but of great emotional and poetic lyricism. It is another disc gone unnoticed but beautiful and deeply felt, which stand out the cover of "Live Minus Zero" (Dylan) and "Crazy Love" (Van Morrison) and stunning reinterpretation of "Last Time I Saw You" and "Riding the Waves" (dedicated to Virginia Woolf)."^[16]

In the 1996 Link House Publications High Fidelity News and Record Review (Volume 41, Issues 7–12), a review of the album stated "Something about Harley has him classified, historically, with rock's assholes, but this latest solo almost redeems him."^[18]

Personnel

• Steve Harley – lead vocals, producer
• Paul Francis – drums
• Andrew Brown – bass, double-bass
• Thomas Arnold – Hammond organ, accordion, percussion, piano, keyboards
• Ian Nice – piano, keyboards
• Nick Pynn – acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, dulcimer, mando-cello
• Phil Beer – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bottle-neck guitar, violin, vocals
• Richard Durrant – classical guitar on "Crazy Love"
• Mark Price – drums on "Strange Communications" and "The Last Time I Saw You"
• Herbie Flowers – double-bass on "Strange Communications"
• Susan Harvey – vocals
• Curtis Schwartz – engineer
• Phil Nicholls – sleeve photography
• Chris Insoll – photo tinting
• Hugh Gilmour at Castle – design
• Steve Blackwell, James Wyllie – representation
• Paul Charles at Asgard – agency

References