The title of this screed was Lowell George's reply when asked why there was so little bottleneck guitar on Thanks I'll Eat It Here, an album troubled not only by the break-up of Little Feat, but also a catalog of health problems related to obesity, back surgery, and of course prodigious drug abuse; heroin, cocaine, alcohol ... what you got? Thanks! I'll eat it here. But there's another possible reason for the delays and difficulties - chronic lack of self-confidence.He knew his songwriting was a cake left out in the rain. He couldn't come up with enough material for a Little Feat album, leave alone a solo project. As a direct result of his reduced creativity, the other writers stepped up to fill the gap. I'm sure everybody would have been happy if Lowell continued to be the band's principal songwriter, so for him to blame Bill Payne's jazz-rock leanings for his dissatisfaction is disingenuous at best.
So, what do you want the boy to do? Can't you see it's breaking the child in two?
There was a lack of vision for the solo album, other than it was not to be a Little Feat album. Yet he covered a Little Feat tune and gave Neon Park the job of packaging it, whose style is joined at the hip with the band. Richie Hayward and Bill Payne both play on it (along with just about anybody else who could lift their face from a bowl of blow for long enough). He didn't have the confidence to cut the cord. That we got an album at all is something of a miracle. And he put a band together and started a tour and then he fell over and, for the first time, didn't get up again.
Over the years, more people have come to love this album for what it is than hate it for what it's not. It's Lowell George, singing as beautifully as ever, and maybe with a little more soul. Singing a bunch of songs which range from the ridiculous to the sublime.
The Ridiculous
Jimmy Webb, a songwriter almost without peer in Literate Pop, right up there with Paul Simon, contributes not only his worst song, but a song nearly as wretched as Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Himmler's Ring is the one song on the album everybody either hates or makes excuses for.
A sketch of a song. Ten tossed-off lines, rinse and repeat. It must have taken Webb as many minutes to write. The tone is obvious from the arrangement, but we have no idea what the song's about. Webb explains the joke: “It was a kind of a barbed wire affair with Himmler’s Ring, which I think was widely misunderstood by most people. It was a satire of a guy who collects Nazi war memorabilia. I thought that was a singular hook for a song.”
Well, yeah but no. Webb is no satirist. He's not Steely Dan. But why did Lowell include it? My guess is he asked Webb if he had something lying around, and maybe it would lighten the tone, or he was desperate to delay the tone arm on its spiral of doom to the label, and hey, it was an exclusive Jimmy Webb composition ... it had to be good, right? Right? But I'm tired of making excuses for it ("delightfully oddball", "Lowell goofing off as only he can" etc.). It doesn't sound right and it stinks and I'm never going to listen to it again. Fooey on it.
The Sublime
Twenty Million Things To Do is very possibly his finest song. He gives a co-writing credit to his eight year-old step-son, Jed Levy, who (according to Lowell) came up with the couplet "I've got twenty million things to do, but I'm only thinking of you" while fooling around with a tape recorder. A co-write in the loosest sense of the word, and a generous gift of royalties to his son-in-law.
But this isn't an album of his own compositions, which was the main reason for the disappointed reaction on release. Nor is it a showcase for his signature slide playing, another cause of chopfallen mien across the diaspora. It's all about the singing. In the blizzard of brilliance that was Little Feat, his singing tends to get overlooked.
He is a superb vocalist. And it's showcased here in a different context, on cover versions that would never have been considered for a band release, and just what is the problem here? It's unlikely anyone coming fresh to TIEIH would understand the shit flung at it by people who call themselves fans.
China White, which now heads up the album, was a victim of Lowell's inability to complete to his own satisfaction (although it sounds just fine to everybody else). After refusing to leave the studio for coke-fuelled days and nights without sleep, trying to nail the take, he had to be locked out of the building and told to go home. And it still, amazingly, didn't make the cut. A love/hate song to his addiction, it bleeds raw soul from every stretched-out, strung-out syllable.
I said blow away, blow away
This cruel reality
And keep me from its storm
Suspicion has crept in, and ruined my life
I'm messed up, and hassled, and worn
Well its pure indignation
Just another sensation
And I'd like to knock on that door
But the boy he keeps on callin' for more
Yes and my sweet China White
She ain't here tonight
And love has robbed me blind
So cast away, cast away
From this ball full of pain
For it sinks beneath the waves
Yes and my sweet China White
She ain't here tonight
Oh and love has robbed me blind
Yes ahh sweet Morphine has robbed me blind ...
I guess morphine sounds more poetic, more romantic, than heroin. It makes for a strong opening statement - confessional yet unrepentant. Not Little Feat, but pure Lowell George.
Cheek To Cheek has been dismissed by some critics as a lightweight pastiche. I don't hear that. Not only does co-writer Van Dyke Parks have a lot of respect and love for "this-type" music, but Lowell isn't camping it up. He's singing from the heart - yo soy amoroso! I suspect those sniping at the song might find it hard to believe that any American would want to sing Mexican music, which is for tourists. It's a beautiful song.
Lonesome Whistle, producer George Massenburg recalls, was recorded by Lowell in '75, as one of the first songs to be considered for the solo album. It got lost until his widow found it in a paper bag in their garage. Exactly who's playing - apart from Lowell - is unknown, but that sure ain't Richie Hayward, is it? The Hank Williams song sits perfectly in Lowell's idiosyncratic eclecticism - two words that should be seen together more frequently.
I've shuffled the running order to accommodate the additions, which helps to hear the album afresh, leaving in the sublime Heartache, the bonus cut from the recent re-issue. What we have lasts a generous 39 minutes, with six of the eleven songs written or co-written by Lowell, a higher proportion than some Feat albums. These changes, together with the eradication of Himmler's Ring, would seem to address most of the criticism the album still attracts from time to time.
The new album art features a South Central L.A. mural, which echoes the cover of that first Little Feat album, and I added Lowell looking from a window. It's not even pretending to be a better cover than Neon Park's masterpiece, but it will allow you to differentiate between this pimped-out version and the original.
