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Peter Hammill: Fireships

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Enigma Records
Released: 1986
Time:
 44:30
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Peter Hammill
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.sofasound.com
Appears with: Van der Graaf Generator, David Jackson
Purchase date: 2009.11.22
Price in €: 2,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Skin (P.Hammill) - 4:18
[2] After the Show (P.Hammill) - 4:20
[3] Painting by Numbers (P.Hammill) - 4:01
[4] Shell (P.Hammill) - 4:18
[5] All Said and Done (P.Hammill) - 3:40
[6] A Perfect Date (P.Hammill) - 4:14
[7] Four Pails (M.Hutchinson/C.J.J.Smith) - 4:30
[8] Now Lover (P.Hammill) - 9:47

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Peter Hammill - Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals, Producer, Engineer, Cover Art

David P. Jackson - Saxophone
Hugh Banton - Cello
David Coulter - Didjeridu
Guy Evans - Percussion, Drums
Stuart Gordon - Violin
David Luckhurst - Voices

Paul Ridout - Engineer, Cover Art
Neil Perry - Engineer
Coach - Engineer
Stephen Street - Engineer
Arun - Cut, Mastering

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1986 LP Charisma 344
1996 CD Blue Plate 001258
1994 CD Charisma 344
1999 CD Charisma 344
2006 CD Enigma D2-73206

Performed and produced in 1985.
Recorded at Sofa Sound and The Wool Hall



All but a reunion of Van Der Graaf Generator in terms of personnel, and hearkening to the latter-day spirit in terms of some of the tone, Skin is nonetheless Peter Hammill continuing to declare his own direction minute by minute, rather than plotting overarching career goals. There is more of a dependence on MIDI on this album, and a lot of obvious keyboard support, but the core human players come through loud and clear, especially Guy Evans on drums and David Jackson on saxes. It is odd to hear Hammill belting his way through a song with the support of sampled and synthesized horns and a rocking beat, especially when the song is about the death of art ("Painting By Numbers"), but it's also a welcome relief -- that ability to flex is exactly the thing that has helped to keep the man's creative existence alive since 1967. The album is also highlighted by "Four Pails," a beautiful song by longtime Hammill confederate Chris Judge Smith. The album has had several CD releases, with the Fie! release having improved sound.

Steven McDonald - All Music Guide



Uncommonly cultured, highly intelligent and thoroughly a gentleman, Peter Hammill is to progressive music what Sir Laurence Olivier represents to the theatre. An innovator from the start, his group Van Der Graaf Generator was a late `60s pioneer of progressive rock. In 1971, Hammill went solo, releasing the first of many albums known for their artful, sophisticated music. profoundly literate lyrics and, most notably. Hammill's vocals. Deep, dignified and consummately controlled, an instrument in itself, Hammill's dramatic voice has directly influenced the stylings of artists as diverse as Peter Gabriel, Mark E. Smith and Marc Almond. Skin, his first domestic release since 1981, showcases Hammill in fine form. It's a first-hand observation/exploration of the hows, whys and wherefores of love. relationships and the human condition-heady stuff, yes, and not appropriate for a sunny day at the beach, perhaps, but very satisfying. It's about time Hammill received the recognition given his contemporaries Robert Wyatt, Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp. Top cuts: "Skin," "Painting By Numbers," "Shell."

CMJ.com
 

 L y r i c s


Skin

There's a shiver down the spine
of the body map...
how come everything gets so physical?
With your finger on the pulse
and your head in the clouds
everything's so tactile
In your private world,
In your little world.
        
CHORUS:
Under the skin you search for paradise,
under the skin some kind of parasite
remains concealed.
Under the skin a true identity, a memory
will soon be revealed, under the skin.
        
Hit that button, no time to lose -
everything's so immediate.
You'd have it all right now
If you got to choose
In your private world,
such a tiny world.
        
CHORUS
        
Is something out to get you under the skin?
Full of the promise of paradise?
Paradise now?
        
Everything gets so physical,
everything's so immediate
In your private world,
such a tiny world.
        
CHORUS
        
Does something get to you
under the skin?


After the Show

He made a bit of money,
that's something you might like to know....
He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
after the show.
        
He's been so many people,
he wore them all like poisoned vests,
still playing the soliloquy from Hamlet
close to his chest.
        
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?
        
He had his hour of glory,
that's something you should keep in mind....
When he's drinking in the cafe on the corner
there's no sense of time,
just waiting on for Godot,
convinced he's been here years before...
he's taken that philosophy in German
square on the jaw.
        
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?
        
He made a bit of money,
that's something you might like to know;
he'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
after the show
        
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?


Painting by Numbers

It's not that complicated,
no more than a clench of fist -
she want to paint her heart out,
she want to tell it as she sees it is.
Authority condemns her,
they say to paint's a waste without a base,
some bedrock of idea.
        
Painting by numbers doesn't add up,
Painting by numbers doesn't add up,
it's passionless bed-rest,
work-body that's headless,
a head that's without heart -
painting by numbers doesn't add up to art.
        
Her constant vows mean nothing,
not content alone that sells -
The Market Theory beckons,
no-one remembers what the story tells;
no-one remembers passion,
we just recite the line
that art is fine and fashion costly.
        
Painting by numbers doesn't add up;
safety in numbers, put your hands up
in mute surrender...
they'll break her or bend her
for the heart on her sleeve.
Painting by numbers all the modern world believes.
        
And the whole thing falls apart
when the movement's more important than the art;
when we're more concerned
with what's been thought than said
this is the moment when the culture's dead.
        
It's not that complicated,
it's simple as can be:
she want to paint her heart out,
they want a programme for the B.B.C.
where academic critics can talk of art that's fine
like holy wine - the Blessed Intellectuals!
        
Painting by numbers, safety in numbers...
The poets from Venus assume that they've seen us -
they're quick to depart.
Painting by numbers doesn't add up to art.


Shell

Turn a card, turn a page,
the action sure to start,
second-stage reaction
to illogical thoughts on random lines -
in a Borges dream we move toward
the writing of lives.
        
Leave it out, leave it in,
no edits -
with a shout, with a grin I said
it was a certainty that I'd arrive
in an Escher sketch
we walk around
the drawing of lines.
        
The character uncertainty
as he contemplates his lot
and tries to move with urgency
though he's rooted to the spot.
        
On the brink, on the edge,
but lately what I think,
what I said escapes me
in a flash, a tiger burning bright -
does the visionary trance obscure
the burgeoning night?
        
And she said "What are you doing?"
And he said "What do you think?"
Oh, no,
what on earth are we doing?
        
The characters procrastinate
on the threshold of the door;
there's something here that fascinates,
though the meaning's still unsure
and the plot so thick.
Is it some kind of history?
Sketch the thumbnail to the quick.
Oh, even though it's full of contradiction,
though it's flawed in the design
this is no fiction,
it's a lifeline.
        
Here we are, there we went,
full circle, shooting stars,
heaven-sent, turned turtle on the beach
our shells are left behind
life a library, like a memory
of our ghost-written lives.


All Said and Done

All the words in the world
wouldn't make you stay this evening;
though I scrabble around for any I can say,
so hard to take our leave,
so hard to stop believing.
        
I guess we know this silence well enough,
and you'll be going by and by;
I'm scared that anything I offer
might be taken for a lie.
        
CHORUS:
All said and done,
and there's no way to make it any different.
I hold my tongue as you're walking away.
So goodbye comes -
oh, I don't want to make it difficult
but nothing's easy
when there's nothing left to say.
        
Now we only talk as though time were heavy weather
with a storm-cloud brewing on each hasty phrase...
all the words in the world wouldn't put us back together.
        
Maybe we had our opportunities...
most of those chances passed us by;
I'm scared that anything I offer
might be taken as a bribe.
        
CHORUS


A Perfect Date

A perfect date to hesitate,
I hope it won't be too long.
        
You're a sucker for the punch
and the telegraph bells are ringing;
now it's coming to the crunch
as you stumble on the Jaffa Gate.
I think you know how it happens on the stage
when the heavenly choir are singing -
you've been taken by a perfect date.
        
You made the Mount of Venus your Jerusalem,
you're marking time as symbol for debate;
you hope to find some moment close to infinite,
you hope to find a perfect date.
        
A perfect date to hesitate.
The future beckons us on.
There comes a time to hesitate -
I hope it won't be too long.
        
You're a sucker for the punch...
...you've been taken by a perfect date.
        
You've been playing on a hunch
and the strings of your heart are zinging.
Yeh, you cut loose from the bunch
but that doesn't mean you've sealed your fate.
I think you know how it happens,
though it's strange,
when the heavenly choir start singing:
you've been taken by a perfect date


Four Pails

Four pails of water and a bagfull of salts.
        
That is all we are, that is all a man comprises,
chemicals alone, with no spirit, soul or ghost -
nothing so bizarre.
No amount of faith disguises
what is true is what we fear the most
        
Nothing can survive
save the things men leave behind them.
Any other case would be really too absurd -
if thoughts remained alive
surely modern science would find them?
No, the soul is nothing but a word.
        
All the wonders Man achieves
emerge from cerebral tissue.
Chemical reactions' ebb and surge
form that Thing that is you....
It's a sad philosophy,
but better sad than wrong.
Face the truth instead:
when you're dead you're dead,
when you're gone you're gone...
now she's gone.
        
Four pails of water and a bagfull of salts.
        
That is all she was, all my lover represented -
that sounds just as mad as saying she will never die.
Fools may clutch at straws
but truth must not be circumvented:
as the tree falls, so must that tree lie!
        
Now that sounds so odd...
once I would have preached it brightly.
Now questions appear I rationally can't ignore...
Nothingness or God,
Which of them seems more unlikely?
        
Once I would have answered clearly,
now I only think I'm nearly sure.
        
(Chris Judge Smith)


Now Lover

In the here and now....
Between sensation at the nerve-ends
and arrival of information at the cortex
time elapses.
So, you see, each time we touch
we did so in the past.
        
Now, lover,
slicing through time in a perfect curve,
Due for a moment of energy;
somehow we'll get what we most deserve
in the here and now.
        
In the here and now,
although completely different people
in the moments before and after having sex,
we are time-locked.
Cracked, forgotten statues,
we are strangled in the undergrowth,
lost in ancient magic, we are motion,
we are wonderful flow.
We are time-locked,
Unknowing of the code, but addicted to the pulse
        
Now, lover,
melt in the crucible,
flesh and blood bodies consumed by the catalyst.
Somehow we'll raise our sights from the mud,
we are always now,
we are Always Now!
        
If we were always here and now,
instead of slightly, now and then...
so immaterial, so lost, embracing
all the grace that comes before the fall.
        
If we were always here and now,
electric shiver in the spine,
how could we turn away, see life as grey and drab?
How come we don't see what we have?
        
If we were always here and now,
soul to soul and skin to skin....
Is it some kind of make-believe,
is it some kind of dream we're in,
with a mint copy of original sin?
        
In the here and now,
between sensation at the nerve-ends
and the arrival of information at the cortex
time elapses
        
Cracked, forgotten statues, we are
strangled in the undergrowth;
lying on the mattress
of the magic and the wonderful,
nothing really matters as we're
sucked in by the undertow....
We are Motion, we are Feeling, we are Now!
        
Although completely different people
in the moments before and after having sex
we are time-locked, we are time-locked....
Though we know
each time we touch
we did so in the past.
        
Now come on, come on, lover,
slicing through time in a perfect curve,
due for a moment of energy...
somehow we'll get what we most deserve
in the here and now.
Melt in the crucible, flesh and blood
bodies consumed by the catalyst,
surrender to nothing,
welcome the flood of the here and now.
Slicing through time in a perfect curve,
due for a moment of energy,
somehow we'll get what we most deserve;
melt in the crucible, flesh and blood
bodies, consumed by the catalyst,
surrender to nothing,
nip the thought in the bud.
We are always now,
We are Always Now!
        
If we were always here and now...

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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