Golden Heart

[tunnel85]

only one skipper for me in the whole knopf repertoire, R&J
 
oh i forgot fish and the bird..and also Shangri la...

Hello brother 
The same for me, same order. And I have in stock the other ones you forgot. 

[ustas]

Yeah, maybe a bit overproduced by MK's standards today, but lots of good songs, and of course, a great (the best IMO) tour.

For me - GH is the best solo album with one minor - it does not sound as should (too bad digital mastering by Chuck Ainlay)

[Pottel]

only one skipper for me in the whole knopf repertoire, R&J
 
oh i forgot fish and the bird..and also Shangri la...

Hello brother 
The same for me, same order. And I have in stock the other ones you forgot. 

lol, bring it on mister!!

[jbaent]

Watching Thank You Australia & NZ last week it was funny to hear the No Can Do riff come up AGAIN (also used it with Clapton), clearly come GH time he thought it was too good a riff to waste.

That riff was also played during Mk concerts with Clapton, I think it was during the Cocaine intro...

Maybe he really wanted to use that riff so badly that he ended uop writting a song to use it!

[Kay Edvin]

Golden Heart is one of my favourite MK/DS album ever!

It is packed with so many good songs.

My favourites is Darling Pretty and Nobody's Got the Gun.

 

[goldenheart96]

Well there are quite a few very good songs on the Golden Heart album (I love "Imelda", "Darling Pretty", "Golden Heart" and "Don't You Get It" for example) but the entire album is just too kitschy for me. I don't know, it's probably because I haven't been able to understand that album yet, not on an intellectual, but on an emotional level... I'm okay with the title track or "Darling Pretty" but "Nobody's Got The Gun" or "Are We In Trouble Now" are just too much for me. Also, I think Mark's voice sounds really, really horrible on that album. I feel obliged to offer him cough syrup whenever I listen to it  

[Love Expresso]

I am able to absolutely support Goldenheart96's opinion about Golden Heart verbatim! She mentions exactly the songs that I like from this album, and I might add "A Night In Summer Long Ago", but everything else really hits the spot! The song itself, Golden Heart, is about a necklace that reminds him of her, and that is very cheesy indeed. I read somewhere that he wanted to make a statement against the cynical way the lyrics took on the OES album,
but somehow he could not reach this goal: The music however is great. I like Chads drumming in general on the whole album, and this very simple and dry
beat on the Golden Heart song is very good.

1996 is a year with very special and unforgettable moments for me, and some are directly connected with this album and the Hamburg show in June, so this album will always have a special place in my heart. But since then, he made two better ones: STP, my all time favourite, and TRD, my all time favourite!  

LE

[Tally]

Let's see now, as for many, GH is for me very much a mixed bag.

* The No Can Do riff was certainly good enough for a song, but I'm not sure that Mark made the most of it and the song drags
* Bonaparte is excellent, even though we're all tired of it live
* Darling Pretty is wonderful, with that fat Les Paul sound
* Je Suis Desole is great, love the violins, they sound like waves or a boat on the water, very fitting
* The title song, Nobody's got the Gun and Night in Summer all sound rather bland to me
* Several outtakes were outstanding: Gravy Train, What Have I Got to Do, Tall Order Baby

I find it interesting to note that Mark was not just into folk music during this period, but his songwriting also had a distinct pop element, for example in Darling Pretty with its catchy lyrics and sort-of-tonal/key-raise at the end. In essence, I find GH partly more commercial than OES, with a lot of slower and longer numbers as well. This side of Mark's music has been pretty absent since, or at least since STP.

[superval99]

Tallgren, I agree with you that Bonaparte is an excellent song, but must disagree when you say "we're all tired of it live".  When I heard it was to be on the GL set-list, my heart sank!  I needn't have worried, though. On the contrary, on the GL tour I found it had a new lease of life and I really loved hearing it played the way it was played with the Uillian pipes and, also, I found Mark really sang it so magnificently!

You say, "Golden Heart" and "A Night in Summer" are bland.  Not to me! These are two of my favourites from the album, along with "Darling Pretty" and "Are We in Trouble Now".   However, I still can't get to love "No Can Do" or "Don't You Get It" with it's rather banal lyric!

All in all, though, it's still one of my favourite albums and when I bought it in 1996, it was never off the CD player!   

As you say, though, it's a mixed bag!   

[knopfling]

I like "No Can Do."
I like the music behind it, and I love it when MK gives us some insight into his life. I assume it is at least somewhat autobiographical.

[localhero1986]

Yeah, maybe a bit overproduced by MK's standards today, but lots of good songs, and of course, a great (the best IMO) tour.

For me - GH is the best solo album with one minor - it does not sound as should (too bad digital mastering by Chuck Ainlay)

I agree. When listening to Darling Pretty from Private investigations, it sounds much much better. I really hope the complete GH album will be sound like that one day.

For me, the GH is still the best record ever made, all songs fit perfectly to the cover (how odd it might sound), I think all songs have that brown-goldish color in them. I'm happy Don't you get it is on the record, although the lyrics are a bit, well what shall I say, repetitive... It wasn't until 2003 when I "discovered" my fav. song: Done with Bonaparte (yes Essy, go ahead, shoot me again!). If I could travel back in time, I'd go back to May 1996 and buy me a ticket for the show in Kerkrade. I still feel sorry I wasn't there...

[sweetsurrender]

Done with Bonapart is the one song I wished I heard it played live during GL tour ! It's such a brilliant song with nice upbeat tunes.

[Knopflerfan]

Done with Bonapart is the one song I wished I heard it played live during GL tour ! It's such a brilliant song with nice upbeat tunes.

Dare I say it, I actually really enjoyed the 'GL Tour' version of this song, maybe because I really enjoyed Mike Mccuskers 'bagpipes' being used on this song? Not sure it will go down as a 'Classic' MK song and perhaps enough is enough regarding this particular song 'Live' now?

[superval99]

Or even Mike McGoldrick!   

[Tally]

I don't really find the Don't You Get It lyrics banal, but they're quite "in your face". This guy, Mark or whatever, wants to dream his own dreams, drive his own car and be a free man to ride, metaphorically speaking. It sounds like a note to Ed Bicknell and his desire for Mark's large scale projects, but it's not necessarily aimed specifically at him. What's important is Mark's breaking free, which is what this record is very much about. It's not a personal favourite, but I think that the repetitive lyrics have an effect, and that's hammering in the message. GH was such a personal record.