13. Styx--Pieces of Eight
#13: Styx--Pieces of Eight (1978)
Top-Notch Tracks: "I'm O.K.," "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights,)" "Pieces of Eight," "Queen of Spades," "Renegade," "Great White Hope," "Sing For the Day"
Album Depth: "Lords of the Ring," "The Message," "Aku-Aku"
Weak Links: Nope.
Stand-Out Lyrics: "Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please! In this corner, wearing white. from the city of the big shoulders, the number one contender in a ten round exhibition for your entertainment. So when the bell sounds, prepare yourself for the main event!"--"Great White Hope"
"It's six o'clock, good morning sounds are everywhere. The warmth of spring, a gentle breeze blows through my hair. I hurry through my life never stopping to see how beautiful it was meant to be."--"Pieces of Eight"
"Give me a job, give me security. Give me a chance to survive. I'm just a poor soul in the unemployment line. My God, I'm hardly alive!"--"Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)"
"They say do your best, but don't cause a fuss. Don't make waves. Be like the rest of us."--"I'm O.K."
"Mornings I find she's left me. So cold, so alone, but aware. I try to escape, she finds me. Oh, run though I may, she's there! There! There! There! There!"--"Queen of Spades"
"If I had known it would be like this, I might have given it a second thought."--"Great White Hope"
"The jig is up, the news is out. They've finally found me."--"Renegade"
"Hanna, you're with me in spirit wherever I go. To the ends of the earth, and all points between, high and low."--"Sing For the Day"
"And so we came from everywhere, the young and old, the rich and poor, to hear the legend of the magic ring, and of the powers it could bring."--"The Lords of the Ring"
"It's six o'clock, it's quitting time, I'm done for the day. Out on the streets I overheard a lady say, 'We now have everything, or so people say. But now this emptiness haunts me every day.'"--"Pieces of Eight"
"Now you've paid your money. You're sitting in your ringside seats. And I know that some of you out there might wanna see the champ get beat."--"Great White Hope"
"Oh, mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law."--"Renegade"
"Hanna, I need you as much as you think you need me."--"Sing For the Day"
"Hahahahahaha, you lose!"--"Queen of Spades"
"I'm feeling good about myself, and that's for sure."--"I'm O.K."
"Paradise. Can it be all I heard it was? I close my eyes, and maybe I'm already there."--"Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)"
"Everybody sing now!"--"I'm O.K."
Album cover: 3 out of 10. I've said before that I really think this album cover held the album back some. The music is fantastic, but the album peaked at #6 on the Billboard albums chart. Would it have gotten higher on the charts if the album cover had featured a young, attractive woman, like a Heather Thomas or a Cheryl Ladd? I think so. Which do you think the average teenage music buyer would rather be carrying around, an album with a picture of a Lynda Carter or a Catherine Bach on the cover, or an album with a picture of someone who looks like their mom's friends Gladys and Mabel? This album could have been #1. (Now, in fairness to the cover model, she's not an unattractive woman, she's just too damn old for the targeted consumer of the album.)
Comments: Truth be told, I originally had this album slotted in at #18, but after listening to it several times, I just had to move it up a few spots. When I looked back after finishing the HondoJoe Top 200 songs list, I realized I really short-shrifted Styx, with only three songs on the list. It was a poor representation of the importance of Styx's music in my life. I've made up for it a bit by including three Styx albums in my Top 60 album list, with two more, "Cornerstone," and "Kilroy Was Here," definitely being in my top 100.
No songs from "Pieces of Eight" made my Top 200, but five or six of them easily could have. This album is loaded from top to bottom. It's funny, but I've always thought of Styx as being Dennis DeYoung's band, with a few occasional good songs by Tommy Shaw and about one song per album by James Young. But, all three radio hits from this album ("Renegade," "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)," and "Sing For the Day,") were written and sung by Tommy Shaw. It's about time Tommy Shaw gets some credit in my mind for the greatness of Styx.
Tommy's hits are great, from the hard-rocking desperation of "Blue Collar," to the acapella "Oh, mama" refrain of "Renegade." (It's definitely one of the three best songs featuring a guy plaintively singing to his mama.) (Or is it momma?) And "Sing For the Day" has a nice, whimsical feel of a song that should be sung at a Renaissance fair, which is a pretty tricky sound to pull off on a rock album from the 70s.
Aside from the hits, I've always thought of this album as the two odd fun songs from Side 1 ("Great White Hope," and "I'm O. K.,") and the two epic songs from Side 2 ("Queen of Spades," and "Pieces of Eight.")
"Queen of Spades" always reminds me of the many hours we spent playing the card game Hearts, especially while on campouts at Bridger Wilderness or at the Cherry Hilton. And I'm also reminded of my brother and I teaching his wife to play Hearts, explaining to her that "shooting the moon" is a difficult and rare maneuver, only to have her "shoot the moon" on us two hands in a row. ("Hahahahahaha, you lose!" indeed!)
And "Pieces of Eight" is a good message song, combining some of the best bits from the song "The Grand Illusion" with just a hint of "Piano Man." (I especially like the "It's six o'clock" morning and evening verses.)
"I'm O. K." is probably my favorite song on the album, with its feel-good vibe and grandiose organ solo. It's nutty, kooky, and fun. My fondness for "Great White Hope" is tempered a bit through the lens of current events. I mean, do we really need a Great White Hope? Is it really such a bad thing to have black men dominate the boxing ring? Can't we let them have that one thing?
And speaking of boxing, "Lords of the Ring" is probably the weakest song on the entire album (aside from short instrumental "The Message," and fade-out whispering "Aku-Aku,") but it's still a pretty good song. And how big of a nerd was I? I was such a clueless nerd that I thought "Lords of the Ring" was about boxing. I wasn't familiar at all with "The Lords of the Rings" books by Tolkien. I thought the song had more to do with Ali than Frodo, because I had never heard of Frodo.
The album "Pieces of Eight" sometimes gets overlooked in the grand scheme of Styx music. It doesn't have the group's signature song ("Come Sail Away,") and it doesn't have the big, goofy hit ("Mr. Roboto,") or the schmaltzy love ballad ("Babe,") or the campy Jimmy Fallon/Paul Rudd video ("Too Much Time On My Hands.") But what it does have is eight of the best damn songs you're going to hear together on one album. And that's O. K. in my book.
Up next: I grew up on a farm. I know a thing or two about both of these things.
For some reason, my older sisters never bought Pieces of Eight on eight-track or vinyl or tape when they ruled the stereo. And when it came my turn to rule the stereo, I was too absorbed in Billy Joel and current music to go back and buy this album. It is, however, an excellent album, and one I wish we'd had in the Olson family music catalog.
ReplyDeleteI would like to clear one thing up, though. As I listened to "The Lords of the Ring," I could immediately tell that the song was not about the "Lord of the Rings" books. I read those books a lot during my teenage years, and I'm kind of disappointed in myself that I didn't share them with you. Truth be told, I read them more than the scriptures. In fact, I read them so much that Mom got concerned one day and came into my room and asked me if there was anything bad in the books. I assured her that there wasn't anything bad in them, and told her it was about magic rings and elves and goblins and dwarves and stuff like that. She apparently was satisfied by this because she never brought it up again, and she never asked me to stop reading them. Anyway, the Styx song is not about those books because the lyrics don't mention anything at all that is related to the books. So I just did a little research, and I found the following quote by Dennis DeYoung about the song.
Dennis: “The Lords of the Ring” was not about J.R.R Tolkien. There is this elevation of rock star in our culture. You hear it all over the place in our culture, even in politics. People say, “We’re gonna rock” or they say, “Let’s Rock n’ Roll.” Being a rock star means you’re the fucking king of the entertainment world. “The Lords of the Ring” was me, once again, being a coward, and writing in metaphors. I was commenting that we had finally made it; we were the lords of the ring. If you listen to the lyrics of the song, it is not boastful. To me, it is tongue in cheek like the “Grand Illusion was.” “All hail to the lords of the ring.” It is not literal. Once again, I’m saying, “It’s all bullshit. It’s a fantasy.” It was my version of being successful. I was saying that being entertainment royalty was pure fantasy. It is mythology in the guise of being a rock star but it is just not true. “Don’t be fooled by the radio, the TV or the magazines.” What the fuck more do I have to say? I’m talking about me. I’m saying that you can’t think that everybody is better than you. People just make this shit up and they get the mythology going.
And now you know...the rest of the story.
Nardo