Like Ringo’s sweet adieu, Tom’s spoken words are delivered tenderly, like reading a nighttime story to a child. It is also orchestral, sans rock band, though much more lush than “Wake-Up Time.” It also shares the distinction of having spoken words in it, as does “Wake Up Time.”Ībout that, Tom told me he was unsure why he spoke lines in the song, but it just felt right. It’s much closer in tone to The Beatles’ final song on the White Album, “Good Night,” the gentle lullaby Lennon wrote for Ringo to sing. But the use of the orchestra on it is the very opposite of thunderous dissonance it’s a beautifully tender and poignant underscoring of the emotion and message of the song. Tom’s final song was unlike all the other songs he wrote for the album – mostly just his voice and piano – and an orchestra. It grows perilous sounding before being resolved to a big E major chord, played on many pianos and other instruments all at once. The orchestral ending of this ending song remains one of the most experimental and dramatic conclusions of any Beatles song: the now-iconic instrumental chaos that simmers and builds, growing in dissonant intensity and expanding thundering chaos. Once Lennon had written most of “A Day In The Life,” it became undeniable that it would be the perfect closer. Pepper the challenge of creating a finale song that is as chromatic, vivid, brave and compelling as all the songs which preceded it. The Beatles had a similar quandary when making Sgt. The man was on songwriting fire.īut where does one end such an album? What song could possibly serve as the last one to be heard about all that? (But came out on the She’s The One soundtrack, and in the great collections of Wildflowers songs now released). Little did we even realize then the bounty of songs written and recorded for this one album which weren’t included. Yet with Wildflowers, Tom not only expanded his substantial songbook profoundly, he did so with joy. Leonard Cohen said it’s the same reason you never see matadors older than 30 it takes a lot of energy, audacity and luck simply to survive in this kind of work, much less reach the realm of lasting greatness. T this stage in a rock and roll career, especially if there’s been some serious success, the common pattern is to go downhill, creatively, to lose that spark, the electric connection to the source. Here he was overflowing with songs, all beautifully pure and powerfully realized, and all timelessly unified by his big heart and passionate soul. Yet Tom took it in his easy, happy, humble stride. Wildflowers emerged like a revelation, and was staggering to behold. Yet there’s a gentle calm at its core, a sense of hope and even joy, which was especially projected by its final song. It is a phenomenal tour de force of songwriting greatness exploding in every direction at once. Whereas Wildflowers does not reflect madness, or an artist unmoored from the harbor with no clear destination.
There’s little question that Brian Wilson walked that line when creating “Good Vibrations,” which was more like the creation of the Sistine Chapel paintings than that of a hit single. Which is not unusual in the creation of the greatest art. Yet in that opus, there’s some undeniable madness at play. What he did is similar to Michelangelo, who, when asked to add some art to the Sistine Chapel, proceeded to paint its entire ceiling and walls with the fullness of his genius, overflowing with creativity. He wrote “You Wreck Me” to Mike Campbell’s chords, but the words and melodies all came from him. To pack so much artistry and expression into that one space was evidence of artists unchained in their abilities.īut while The White Album was the result of four songwriters separately writing a lot of material, Wildflowers came from Tom.
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That remarkable abundance of material for The Beatles became a double album–the first and only one ever by this band–and revealed that their creative powers were sparking at full capacity. Its formation was not unlike that of The Beatles White Album in its profusion of songs in every side, shape and color–short simple songs, complex epics, traditional, expermental, rockers, ballads, funny, sad–a whole universe way too expansive for any conventional LP. Wildflowers, when under construction, was too small of a frame to contain the fullness of his creation.
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For Wildflowers, he tapped into the source so directly that a multitude of songs flooded out of him in a veritable torrent of creative energy.
When creating it, he’d already ascended to that mythic ‘Toppermost’ of which The Beatles spoke, and done so repeatedly with remarkably authentic, heartfelt real-time rock and roll, forever evolving but never abandoning that essential fire.
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