America– 674

ALBUM: Holiday (1974)

Gotta hand it to these guys, the album starts with a short instrumental so soft that it practically stage whispers: Here comes some more soft rock.

Don’t mix this opiodic music with alcohol or you may have to call a somnambulance.

Seriously, ‘Tin Man’ and ‘Lonely People’ are two soft-rock mainstays, in the repertoire of every small club singer with an acoustic guitar. With George Martin producing, one can almost hear a little soft-rock Beatles with laid back vocal harmonies and pleasantly hooky melodies. But then the lyrics let you down:

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don’t give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

Hmmmm.   Drink from the silver cup? Ride the highway in the sky?

If you are going to get George Martin to produce the album and do lonely people gibberish, give me something more tantalizing and obliquely weird like: ‘Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.’

But hey, it’s America.

Look at all the lonely people.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

(A betterAmerica choice not on this album):