"Logic dances you from here to there, not very far/ Making sense can't tell you where you are."
SAM PHILLIPS was wiser than she knew when she sang those lines on "Signposts," the second song on her new album, "Martinis and Bikinis," out now on Virgin Records. She couldn't resist the temptation to ignore her own advice, however, so often as not the lyrics on the rest of the album get bogged down in attempts to address emotional questions with logical thought.
What this means is that reading the lyric sheet is about as enjoyable as browsing through pages of college sophomore poetry, with clumsy metaphors drowning in seas of moral posturing. Fortunately for Phillips, she's a recording artist, and while the printing of a lyric sheet was probably not the smartest thing she could have done, the music included on the CD that accompanies it is some of this year's most accomplished pop this side of Elvis Costello's "Brutal Youth," which was released on the same day 2 ½ weeks ago.
In this day and age, the phrase "pop music" has about a hundred meanings, so I might as well explain the way I'm using it here. Back in the '60s, when "pop" was short for "popular," the finest practitioners in the game were the Beatles. Since then, a whole sub-genre of "pop music," much of which has plunged straight into cut-out bins nationwide, has come into existence based simply on the influence of those lovable moppets from Liverpool. Phillips has obviously listened to a few other artists here and there, but the spirit of the Beatles, and especially of John Lennon, is very evident on this album.
OK, so that spirit has been around on her three previous releases: the obscure independent "The Turning," done back when she used her real name of Leslie Phillips and sang more directly about Christianity; the brilliant "The Indescribable Wow," which won her most of her ardent, if somewhat far-flung, fans; and "Cruel Inventions," which, in addition to providing Costello his only employment ever as a studio guitarist, proved to be a fine, if inconsistent, follow-up. At all stages of her career, she has been ably aided by her husband and producer, T Bone Burnett, who matches her gift for hooks and melody with his most accessible and consistent arrangements.
Especially on "Martinis and Bikinis," an album filled to bursting with the kind of catchy, unforgettable tunes and inventive musicianship that just doesn't get done often enough these days. We can begin with the Beatles references, the way the guitars snake around the melody in "Same Rain" just as they did when the Beatles recorded "Rain"; the Far Eastern drone dropped in on "Baby I Can't Please You," along with the string quartet lines of the same song; the bouncing harpsichord of "Strawberry Road," which evokes "Strawberry Fields Forever" of course; or the fact that she actually covers Lennon's solo work, "Gimme Some Truth."
Uh-oh, mentioning that one reminds me about those nagging lyric problems again. Lennon was a well-meaning soul, but not all of his political songs hold up very well today, more than two decades on. "Gimme Some Truth" may have been shocking when he sang it, but the references to short hair and "Tricky Dicky" just don't pack much punch in 1994; if anything, the datedness of the words reinforces the one great truth we've come to learn in the years since Lennon died - that truth by its very nature is remarkably fluid and difficult to grasp.
Two songs before Phillips tackles the ghost of Lennon head-on (the ghost wins, because Phillips forgets to sing the song as if it was anything other than a museum piece), she delivers her truest merging of words and music on the whole album. "I Need Love" is a soaring, bouncing gem of a pop masterpiece, with a chorus that can bring the same sort of thrills as "I Want to Hold Your Hand" once did.
"I need love," a multi-tracked group of Phillips voices swears, as one of the voices drops down to deliver the explanation, "Not some sentimental prison."
"I need God," they continue, and the response is, "Not the political church."
"I need fire," they assert, "to melt the frozen sea inside me." Then again, "I need love."
But words can't easily describe the way she draws out the word "love," to make it sound as if it embodies all the possibilities of the world, to make it give her the peace she describes in the last verse.
I don't know what's true anymore, but I understand when I hear something that makes me think truth is present. And with one or two minor exceptions, the songs on "Martinis and Bikinis" convincingly make the case that Sam Phillips is delivering something true and beautiful - and full of the fire she so longs to find.