SONG TITLE: IF YOU ALL GET TO HEAVEN

PERFORMER: TERENCE TRENT D'ARBY

SONGWRITER: TERENCE TRENT D'ARBY

YEAR OF RELEASE: 1987

COMMENTS: The first song on Mr. D'Arby's first album is some kind of pagan soul song. It could be described as a religious expression of doubt. After the first line of Terence singing the title softly from somewhere far away, the male vocal chorus comes roaring in with "Say a prayer for my brother." There is something weird about the low harmonies that comes off like a group of monks meeting in the woods at midnight.

Indeed the whole song comes off like a meeting of some cult doing rituals in the smoke of a ceremonial campfire. All the wood block sounding percussion at the beginning and little windy keyboards add up. He asks for prayers for Asmodeus, whom I seem to remember as some evil Egyptian deity whose name dare not be mentioned. What about the "bloody communion?" Also, all the requests for prayers for "blood baptism" and for his camel (?). Is there some kind of human sacrifice going on here? There seems to be some idea that all of this serious ritual is in anticipation of the "rumors of war."

TTD learned a lot of tricks from his forebears, and not just from listening to blacks. More and more over time, I can hear a very creative influence from the Beatles in particular. One of the great signs of his ambition - and one of the fundamental roots of his artistic success - is the way he strived from the very beginning to create unique sound palettes from song to song. Like the Fab Four, he looks not just for a good hook, but for a whole sonic chemistry unlike anything before. You won't mistake the sound of this record for anything by the Beatles, or Prince (another black man of similar philosophic bent), or even anything else by TTD himself. Furthermore, the sounds on the record end up sounding organic, like they belong together, not something cobbled together just to be weird.

Yet having established his uniqueness, he is then free to make use of inspiration and styles closer to home. The melody in the verses sounds broadly like a classic soul styling, like Otis Redding for example.

And finally, speaking of creative use of influences, the single thing that holds together this thing together is his voice. He has great emotion -soul- in his performance, and all kinds of range and effect. Obviously he has learned how to sing from listening to Jackie Wilson records. Listen particularly to the last enunciation of the title, and how he reaches way up high on the last "he-a-ven," and putting on that perfectly inflected harsh distortion. Damn, but this boy flat had the goods right out of the box.

Terence Trent D'Arby-Sananda Maitreya Images  2  3  4  5  6 

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