Donovan - Neutronica
#335
by Jim Erbe
Donovan
Neutronica
Genre: Lazy
Allen’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5
Jim’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5
Requisite ‘80’s Covers:
These both feel really obscure, but they are requisite so here goes…
“No Man’s Land,” originally recorded by Eric Bogle. I had never heard of this song before and it was not included on the Apple Music version of this album, so I tracked it down for the sake of completeness and then listened to the original for the sake of comparison. My takeaway…Donovan’s version is not as good and is literally endless.
Also, “The Heights of Alma” is a cover of a traditional Irish song about the Crimean War. I opted not to track down the original. It’s better than “No Man’s Land” until it adds dozens of simulated fifes and makes a sharp turn to become the worst thing ever.
I was not prepared for this album.
I know very little about Donovan. Coming into this, I knew maybe three songs and that he is Ione Skye’s dad. That’s the sum total of my Donovan knowledge.
But I like folk music…a lot. I grew up in a household where The Irish Rovers and Peter, Paul and Mary were big, fat, hairy deals. And nowadays, I am perfectly happy interlacing Good Old War, The Mulligan Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show in with the rest of my collection. So, I figured whatever Donovan was up to in 1980 should be right up my alley.
Woof! Like I said, I was not prepared for this album.
First of all, it kicks off with a disco song, “Shipwreck”. And not good disco, we aren’t talking “Turn the Beat Around” or anything like that. Nope, this is the type of disco song you’d expect from an episode of CHiPs where Ponch has to go undercover as a lounge singer. It’s straight trash.
I find myself laughing aloud when we get to chorus and Donovan belts out “Shipwrecked on the ocean of love/Sadness-bound, heartbreak ahoy”; assuming he is leaning into the corniness of the song and wrote the lyrics ironically. But as the song progresses that phrase is repeated…a lot…and I begin to doubt that assessment. .
Now, I am lyrics guy, I always have been. I can appreciate a great hook or solo, but I will always favor a so-so song with great lyrics (I’m looking at you, Decemberists) over a musically outstanding song with uninspired lyrics. That’s just the way I’m wired, sue me.
So it becomes obvious that Donovan and I are going to have a problem. Musically, these songs are mediocre at best, the bulk of them are either a single guitar or a keyboard pretty much just plinking along with the lyrics and those lyrics...yikes! They range from the frustratingly naïve--his protest song, “Neutron”, which is inexplicably a soft shoe number, describes bombs the way a child might “Neutron you’re a real estate bomb/the property stays and the people are gone”—to the just plain frustrating.
“Mee Mee I Love You”, a song co-written by his eight-year-old daughter (not Ione Skye, the one who sells T-Shirts in Palm Springs), comes off as a song from a second grade musical version of Spike Jonze’s “Her”. Maybe. I’m speculating here because there aren’t enough lyrics to really figure out what the song is about. But that extra “E” and the fact that there are only three lines and repeats them over and over again makes me feel like we’re dealing with a glitching computer.
This song is the embodiment of what drives me crazy about this album. Donovan is a talented guy, but this album just feels so…lazy, The lyrics, the arrangements, all of it just seems like everyone put in the minimum effort required and nobody seemed to care about the results. As a fundamentally lazy person, I get it…it’s just absolutely no fun to listen to.
In the mid 70’s my brother and his best friend set out to write a pop song that would make them rock stars. They came up with two lines: “One, two, three, I love thee/Baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh.” It’s not much of a song but it’s catchy as hell and it immediately became the stuff of Erbe Family legend. We tease him about it to this day. The funny thing is that that “song” would not feel out of place on this album. I think there’s an excellent chance it would have actually
been the lead single.
In summary, I was not prepared for this album, but I probably should have been. I mean, Donovan himself warns you up top. Sadness-bound, heartbreak ahoy indeed.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0EJIVcEkteV9TSR4DkYzXo?si=eCpHXk9rTBCB9h2zR0P49w
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