Album of the Day #5

Music Inspired by The Snow Goose

by Camel

        This album 1975 is a large part of my childhood, and one of the three albums I remember from a very young age (the others being The Beatle's A Hard Day's Night and Gryphon's Raindance).  For their third album, Camel wanted to write a conceptual album about a book.

Originally they toyed with the idea of writing one about Sidhartha, which had been half done with the Moody Blue's In Search of the Lost Chord, done seven years earlier, but the group settled on Paul Gallico's  1941 short (and highly suggested) story, The Snow Goose.  When the band asked Gallico if they could use his work, and collaborate on the album, he refused, as he was anti-smoking, even though the band had no affiliation with the cigarette company of the same name at this time.  Because they could not use any aspects of the book itself, many aspects of the original plan for the album had to be cut out, such as words, potentially selling the album with the story, and even changing the name from the its original (The Snow Goose), to Music Inspired by The Snow Goose.  The dropping of words from the album made way for some truly amazing instrumental passages, and very memorable melodies.  This album mixes three genres: rock and jazz, which are found in all their albums, as they are a Canterbury Scene band, like Caravan and Soft Machine, but also classical, which gives this album an elegant twist with classical double reed instruments, and reoccurring motifs, which run throughout the album (much like The Who's Quadrophenia).  The most noticeable aspect of this album, is Andrew Latimer's forlorn guitar, which perfectly mirrors the book, as it is bold, yet sad, just like the book's hero Rhayader.  Another amazing thing about this album is that it is perfectly tailored for the vinyl format.  Both sides of the album start out softly, and gradually crescendo into harder and louder songs, but then go back to soft for the last song of each side, meaning that, although the album is better in its entirety, it can still be enjoyed on one side.  Finally, this album comes full circle, when it reprises its first song as its last song, giving two meanings, that even though the world may be given heroes and enemies, nature as a whole stays constant; and that love and friendships are a never ending circle, and should be remembered and cherished.