| Broken China |
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| Released: 1996 by EMI Records Running Time: 59:16 Ranking: #3 out of 7 solo albums Album Highlight: Along The Shoreline Album Weak Point: Unfair Ground Average Song Rating: **** Comments: This album can be described as having either sixteen short songs or four very long ones. The tracks are divided into groups of four, each section having four songs that blend into one another. Each section has a mixture of instrumentals and lyrical tracks, and each is a work of art. This is a beautiful album, and achieves the same sort of haunting emotion by using music that Waters achieves on Amused To Death by using lyrics. There are several stand-out tracks that work well on their own, but for the most part, the songs on this album work best when heard in context, and together they make up this fabulous work of art. |
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| 1- Breaking Water Written: with Anthony Moore Running Time: 2:28 Rating: *** Comments: This album opens with a slow instrumental which consists mostly of stormy sound effects and the faint hum of an instrument in the background. There is not much music hear, but there is a definite emotion, and it serves well to lead you into the next track. It's not a tedious listen by any means, but it doesn't work well on its own. (no lyrics) |
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| 2- Night Of A Thousand Furry Toys Written: with Anthony Moore Running Time: 4:22 RANKING: #10 ****** Comments: This is a chilling, beautiful song which is one of the highlights of the album. It emerges suddenly from the instrumental, getting into an awesome, steady beat, with a guitar strumming softly. Wright's voice soon takes over, with that same soft quality it always has, and sings the haunting lyrics. You also hear Anthony Moore's voice on this track, which sounds as if it's coming through a telephone, and adds a new dimension to the song. It's a brilliant track, and serves the underlying concept of the album well. Lyrics: now you feel it, a shiver and you begin frozen breath that scrapes across the skin and a sound you've never heard before, you screaming welcome to the world of random noise where you simply haven't got a choice when they push your levers and pull your strings it's another world, it's a better world that we bring here you are on the planet of hot and cold where you do exactly as you're told in a world of a thousand furry toys you can hear the screams of little girls and boys it's a charming noise if you really want that kind of thing, mama now you feel it, a shiver and you've begun when they pull those strings how you'll start to run and there's no stepping off or stepping down it's another world and it's a better world that's what we have found |
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| 3- Hidden Fear Written: with Gerry Gordon Running Time: 3:28 Rating: **** Comments: This is one of the two extremely haunting tracks on the album. The simple yet powerful music backs up the lyrics with a strong emotion, and manages to sound great without a single beat of the drum. This song can seem tedious at first, but the more you listen to it, and let it get to you, the better it sounds, and the deeper it reaches. Lyrics: why do we feel this adult pain and hold these secrets that don't belong? this loneliness has no place with us the silence grows, it has no place with life your outward joy holds back the fears which deepen inside of us we travel all alone and carry the guilt of those who disappear our childlike hopes in disarray this pain no child should feel we disappear |
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| 4- Runaway Written: by Anthony Moore Running Time: 4:00 Rating: ***** Comments: This track carries the haunting hum of the previous song through a sea of growing sound effects, into a steady beat that makes for an excellent instrumental. This song gives the feeling of running away without the feeling of the actual running part like such songs as "On The Run" or "Run Like Hell" do. The music keeps building onto itself, as the emotion gets stronger and stronger, and finally the beat ends, giving way to that same hum that took you into it. The runaway, it seems, has failed. (no lyrics) |
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| 5- Unfair Ground Written: solo Running Time: 2:21 Rating: *** Comments: This track, also an instrumental, leads into the next group of songs. Like many other songs on this album, it can seem tedious at the first listen, but after awhile, the brilliant mixture of sound effects, light guitar playing and stringed instrument sounds work together to create a very unique and powerful feeling. This track is less like music and more like noise, but the noise has a definite musical quality about it. (no lyrics) |
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| 6- Satellite Written: solo Running Time: 4:06 Rating: ***** Comments: This instrumental starts out in sharp contrast to the previous track. There is a definite beat, and soon, the guitars come in to give a very powerful music element to the song. This is one of the best instrumentals of the album, and also one of the longest. The combination of drums and guitars is flawless, and creates a very unique and beautiful sound, that seems to go around and around like a satellite in orbit. There is a definite emotion here, but that is left up to the listener. It seems crazy to say, but this song seems to make you feel as if you are a satellite, and you are feeling what a satellite feels. (no lyrics) |
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| 7- Woman Of Custom Written: by Anthony Moore Running Time: 3:44 Rating: ***** Comments: The only lyrical track in this group of songs, this is a beautiful one. Wright's voice sounds superb on this track, and it's backed up by one of the most beautiful melodies on the album, and an excellent chorus. The beat doesn't come in until the second verse, and from then on it becomes a great-sounding song, with a happy emotion behind it, in sharp contrast to the surrounding tracks. Lyrics: woman of custom just severed ties what had never changed had always died so suddenly she's opened eyes that fill with tears and come alive her stifled love sleeping forever was unaroused like changeless weather and little chance that she was ever going to smash the precious measure she never lived with pain, fear, or anger windowless and tame like a precious stone langoured a heart enchained, willing to surrender but now if storms would only blow she could really freel the roll those years of sleep, all waking dreams unpeople places on painted screens and diffused in subdued streams her life was cast, traditional schemes she never lived with pain, fear, or anger windowless and tame like a precious stone langoured a heart enchained, willing to surrender but now she could really feel the roll she could really fell the roll "a hunger that lasts can have no pain" it's just these words that don't explain eaten alive and spat out again they jam in the memory like ancient remains woman of custom just severed ties what had never changed had always died so suddenly she's opened eyes that fill with tears and come alive |
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| 8- Interlude Written: solo Running Time: 1:16 Rating: *** Comments: This short instrumental marks the end of the first half of the album, hence the title. It is a beautiful, piano-driven piece that also doesn't have any drums, and thus adds to its simple power. There is nothing especially good about this song, but there isn't anything bad about it. It's just a short, simple piece of music. (no lyrics) |
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| 9- Black Cloud Written: solo Running Time: 3:19 Rating: *** Comments: Knowing the titles of these instrumentals really adds a lot to the power behind them. In hearing this piece, you can picture a black cloud, and all that it represents, and the emotion that such an object suggests. There is some very powerful music on this track, also consisting of nothing but guitars and sound effects. Like "Unfair Ground" this also can be described as sounding like harmonious noise, only this noise sounds more harmonious. And like many other songs on the album, it can sound tedious at first, but becomes more powerful upon further listens. (no lyrics) |
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| 10- Far From The Harbour Wall Written: with Anthony Moore Running Time: 6:09 Rating: **** Comments: This is one of the longest songs on the album, and also one of the strongest. It is in this song where the concept of the album seems to take a clear shape, about a woman in a struggle with the world and the search for emotion. The lyrics begin to have a clearer meaning, yet the music remains abstract. The piano, when it appears in this track, sounds beautiful. While this song is not as melodious as the other lyrical songs, there is a definite power behind it. Lyrics: a part of herself, she thought love was dying the game of opposites, a hateful lie she can't hang on at all, she's giving up the fight she's locked in a wall of ice through half the day and half the night on a path that's been prescribed nothing comes, but she can't leave her life or hear the falling rain, or the heart race in her and dark as it grows at night, with fear of light's change she's drowning away in what she can do and what she contains and her heart is so low now, because i could not cope with pain how things are not the same, she's got no remedies a heartbreaking fall and i fear a change of course i feel like we were born insane i hear the love, i fear the love for the heart is so low, see how it grows apart and deep from the other side, we live our lives so plain we have no night, we have no day, we have no falling rain not love in our eyes, not love in our stare felt more like inner sea, had no quality so say those who drown at night far from the harbour wall, far from the harbour wall... |
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| 11- Drowning Written: solo Running Time: 1:38 Rating: *** Comments: Another short and simple instrumental, this one's power lies not in the simplicity itself, but in the very sound, so soft in the background, yet so strong and powerful. This sound dies to a new sound which takes over, and gives the feeling of being underwater, breathless, and sinking lower and lower. (no lyrics) |
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| 12- Reaching For The Rail Written: with Anthony Moore Running Time: 6:30 Rating: ***** Comments: The longest song on the album, this is a piece so full of emotion and beauty that you can forget what you're listening to. It is this track where the voice of Sinead O'Connor first appears, and if you didn't appreciate her talent before, you will fall in love with her singing here, with its heaviness and emotional quality. Wright also sings on this track, making this into a beautiful duet. The music blends in perfectly with the singing, and creates a quality that sounds like desperation and love made music. This is one of the saddest and most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Lyrics: i'm ill with a fever, i feel like a child i lay in the dark til morning came it's so unoriginal and i feel it worse at night i know it's not terminal but i'm near half-dead with fright and freezing cold but sooner than wake up to find it all unchanged i'll sleep through the day til the daylight ends 'cos it's all so familiar as it comes around again the same taste to everything the same unbroken chain that still remains with morning i rise a dream that won't leave me you're sad, naken and pale and you're reaching for the rail you took a look inside, how could you peel away? or break the shell, the hurt you've hidden so well for all your days and you're going down as you slip beneath the waves won't make a sound won't even leave a trace before you i hear an appalling sigh from the street below and it's creeping fear congealed in stone that paves the crazy road and all are succombing and they look so hopelessly at the heartbreak, it's easy to deal with just take these and you'll really never feel it |
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| 13- Blue Room In Venice Written: with Gerry Gordon Running Time: 2:47 Rating: **** Comments: The first thing that comes to mind when hearing this song is that it sounds a lot like "Hidden Fear" and written in part by the same person, it does. This is the other very haunting track on the album, only this seems to have more to it that just a haunting quality. It seems to be crying out of that emotion, with a feeling of desperation. It's a short and beautiful song to begin the last, and best, group of songs on the album. Lyrics: i can see you through a pool of darkness i stretch out my hand to reach you i know you are there so please look at me how i've missed you how i've missed love my hand is here if you still know me then touch my fingertips i see the waters move about your face i feel your naked hand please don't let go again your sacrifice that meant so much left us with no place to stand please let me touch and let me near let me near |
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| 14- Sweet July Written: solo Running Time: 4:13 Rating: **** Comments: This is the last instrumental on the album, and one of the longer ones. It almost sounds at first like "The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard" from Amused To Death, but without the talking. This entire album can be compared to Waters's album for several reasons, and one is the similarity of the emotion behind them. This track seems to have all that same type of hopeless emotion, but said solely with the music, the gentle pounding of the keyboards, and the howling of the guitars. This is a beautiful track, and a piece of music that is the quintessence of a Rick Wright instrumental. (no lyrics) |
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| 15- Along The Shoreline Written: with Anthony Moore Running Time: 4:36 RANKING: #7 ****** Comments: With a few synthesized notes, this track comes roaring in, the best on the album, and one of the most up-beat. The lyrics are hopeful and happy, and the music backs up that strong, positive emotion beautifully. The song has the perfect pace, with an excellent beat, and just altogether awesome musical accompanyment. The highlight of the song is when the instruments quiet down allowing Wright to sing the chorus with minimal musical distraction. The louder this song gets, the better it sounds, with enough power and beauty to make this one of the most incredible songs of all the solo albums. Lyrics: you feel her warmth, feel it like a summer day shining from the cloudlesds sky, it lights her way with darkness hone, like a distant road we travelled it all night until the morning rose we we're turning towards the sun, unfolding everyday from out behind the clouded mind we more than words can say we half-naked souls and a harmony is a song of tears, all washed into the sea as we stand along the shoreline we were cut off from our lives by a wall of pain it can't be seen, it's so routine, it has no face or name but now the day has broken, can see in better ways a path leading to the light, a hope that never fades all power to the brave you feel her warmth, feel it like solar rays see how they kindle fire, illuminate her face free as the sunlght that shines down from above that opens us all to feel love |
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| 16- Breakthrough Written: with Anthony Moore Running Time: 4:19 Rating: ***** Comments: This is the final, beautiful track on the album, featuring Sinead O'Connor's awesome voice. It serves well to stick with you when the album is over. The lyrics are simple and beautiful, and the music is the same. The chorus is the best on the album, and sounds wonderful, the melody is also the strongest of the album. This beautiful track brings the album to a beautiful close, an altogether brilliant work of art. Lyrics: i can take or leave it, won't be the woebegone don't need a model universe to hang your pictures on you hide somewhere, you die somewhere and then this senseless thought by hating more you're feeling more and that's how you get caught they're never gonna make it easy of this you can be sure i greet you from your wilderness i'll stay inside your door there is no cage or prison, they have no fence too tall you die more times than anyone, and there's still no place to fall they're never gonna keep it simple this comes down from above i have no helm, no secret realm i dream to be at the heart of love, a part of love i bet you can conceal it, but that's just a dead-end track i'll cover you like the driven snow and then i'll bring you back you'll see, you'll feel like, you feel like a banner unfurled and gently blown and there before you opening eyes the self you've never known they're never gonna make it easy of this you can be sure you feel untied, beatified and loved for evermore |
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