"...If You Go Away..."
Despite the beautiful annotation (a 20-page
booklet with wads of rare 45 label repros, period magazine covers, in-studio
photos of McKuen with Petula Clark and Frank Sinatra) and properly immaculate
remastered sound from Duncan Cowell - you're faced with 25 songs of such
mind-blowing saccharine that this well-intentioned CD compilation is like
licking a spoon of stale honey – 25 times - across 80-minutes.
Here are the details...
"Love's Been Good To Me: The Songs Of Rod
McKuen" by VARIOUS ARTISTS on Ace CDTOP 1481 (Barcode 029667076920) is a
25-track CD compilation and for collectors has Three Previously Unreleased Songs
- Tracks 7, 20 and 23 (79:51 minutes).
1. Doesn't Anybody Know My
Name - Waylon Jennings
2. The World I Used To
Know - Glen Campbell
3. Love's Been Good To
Me - Tom Jones
4. Lonesome Cities -
Frank Sinatra
5. A Single Woman -
Nina Simone
6. Les Amants De Coeur
- Jacques Brel
7. Children One And
All - Mary Travers and Rod McKuen
8. The Wind Of Change
- Petula Clark
9. Jean - Oliver
10. A Boy Named
Charlie Brown - Rod McKuen
11. If You Go Away -
Dusty Springfield
12. The Sea - The San
Sebastian Strings
13. I Think Of You -
Perry Como
14. Hello Heartaches -
Barbara Kay
15. Ally Ally Oxen
Free - The Kingston Trio
16. Soldiers Who Want
To Be Heroes - The Gateway Trio
17. The Importance Of
The Rose - The Limeliters
18. Ain't You Glad
You're Living Joe - Michael Sarne
19. This Is Our House
- Shelby Flint
20. Kaleidoscope -
Nancy Sinatra & Rod McKuen
21. One By One - Barry
McGuire
22. I've Been To Town
- Glenn Yarbrough
23. Because We Love -
Rod McKuen
24. I'll Say Goodbye -
Jimmie Rodgers
25. Seasons In The Sun
- Terry Jacks
The gorgeous Audio quality aside - McKuen just
didn't have the melody or lyrical magic of Bacharach and David - so tunes like
"Jean" by Oliver, the awful croaking of a clearly ill Nina Simone on
"A Single Woman" (unreleased for a reason) and the truly
cringe-making cack that is "Seasons In The Sun" by Terry Jacks and
"A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is enough to make you want to scream -
please stop - have mercy for pity's sake!
But if you want an inkling of this compilation's
true awfulness - try "The Sea" by The San Sebastian Singers where
someone speaks lovey-dovey bilge to a backdrop of an ocean wave lapping onto
some shore somewhere (and it does this with strings!). Why use water boarding
on ISIS terrorists when you can play them this twice or three times and do some
real damage.
Love may well have been good for you Rod - but
for us it was horrifying. Unless you're an uber-fan - I'd advise a listen first
- or perhaps try something easier - like immigrating into the Donster's USA...
