Young Lions

If you needed an indication of how confident Adrian Belew had become after the mild success of Mr. Music Head, then you need go no further than the opening seconds of Young Lions.

Adrian Belew: Young Lions

Cue a b-i-g tribal beat, restrained shimmering guitar, third world grunt-chants and a strange beat-poetry vocal: 

"...Hot
Tribal night
Underneath
Phluorescent skies
Bonfires rage
Strange
Wild - waving - shouting
Picasso faces

In the guise of a lioness
The wind kisses her burning dress..."

                  Young Lions        

No sooner have we escaped from the African plains than The Belew Eclectic One-Man-Band spins us straight into...Pretty Pink Rose, featuring guest co-vocalist, David Bowie...

David Bowie & Adrian Belew

Pretty Pink Rose

God only knows what Pretty Pink Rose is about...

"...She's the poor man's gold
She's the anarchist crucible
Flying in the face of the despot cannibal
Pretty pink rose
Never let it rain, never rain
On the heart of the pretty pink rose..."

                          Pretty Pink Rose

...but the boys sound and look like they were having fun...and those guitars sound manic and wild.

Immediately following is a reworking of Heartbeat, from King Crimson's undeservedly under-rated Beat. This terrific song had been frequently derided by King Crimson fans as being "pop"...so I guess Belew had every right to use it...but to my ears, it's not particularly different from the original.

"...Heartbeat was the only song I can think of that I brought into the band complete as one of my own songs. Most of the time King Crimson wrote together. I felt the band took the song over and made it differently than I would have done. I always thought it would be nice to do it the way I had it on my mind's turntable..." from the Inner Views interview, 1992

My guess is that Heartbeat had meant a great deal to the Belew marriage...and needed to be reiterated at that time, when everything was falling apart. 

"...I remember the feeling
Oh, my hands in your hair
I remember the rhythm
Oh, the rhythm we made
I need to laugh sometimes
And feel your heartbeat
Right next to me..."

              Heartbeat

The minor key of Heartbeat is then cleverly reversed with the deceptively upbeat sounding Looking For a UFO, one of those songs that are disserviced by quoting their lyrics out of context. I Am What I Am, follows with another great world beat and the eccentric Nashville preacher Prophet Omega, being cut in an out to make one of the greatest motivational (and human) anthems ever...

What was Side 2 opens with The Travelling Wilbury's (then-recently-released) You're Not Alone, which, like Heartbeat, is probably a comment upon Belew's dissolving marriage and we discover that wife, Martha, has a lover, while Adrian almost undoes Roy Orbison at his own game.

Men In Helicopters sees Belew beating his Environmental drum ("Beat it loud" is what I say)  

"...I think that (Men In Helicopters) is best ecology song I've ever written. There's only one or two ways you can talk about things like what we're doing wrong to the planet without sounding like you think you're better than someone else. What I like about that song is it says we're ALL responsible. It's such a vivid picture to me: these guys shooting animals from helicopters with high-powered rifles and you just think, 'What a sad state that is for the world to be in.'..." from Keneally.com interview, 1992

It's the second last track, though, Phone Call From The Moon that's the standout for me, virtually a spoken monologue that crunches home the devestating loneliness that a man can feel when his family is ripped apart. Phone Call is every bit as powerful as anything on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and deserves to be recognised as an incredible piece of psychodrama. Like Lennon, Belew would pare that down for his next release, the superb Inner Revolution.

Lastly, a brief word on the cover:

"...That's me at age five. It was taken when I was on my way to Sunday school. I have no idea what the stuffed animal I'm carrying is though. Some people have said that it looks like a duck or a skunk. One of the reasons I put that on the cover was because I first got interested in music at that time. My parents would have me sing with records. You get hooked on the applause..."  from the Inner Views interview, 1992 

Young Lions is a terrific album hampered only by its diversity. It still mystifies me why it never became more widely known, because I think it's very, very cool!

Adrian Belew: Young Lions

"..What makes Adrian Belew's albums so enjoyable is the element of stylistic surprise. Singalong pop rears its head in Looking For A U.F.O. and the fluid melodies of Small World, while Phone Call From the Moon glosses loopy, stratospheric lounge jazz...While not Belew's most essential release, YOUNG LIONS combines the compositional range and technical excellence that makes his work so rewarding..."  Amazon.co.uk blurb 

"...Young Lions surpassed my expectations. The album resonates with its own verve. The songs are all good, the lyrics are full of images and the guitar work is as Belew as it gets. It's a very listenable album and representative of an idiosyncratic pop stylist..." Amazon.com reviewer G. Yeo

"...This CD is my first time hearing this artist. I wouldn't have described myself as an afficionado of progressive rock before now, but I really loved this CD. It rocks!..." Amazon.com reviewer H. Clark

While Adrian was promoting his previous album, Mr. Music Head, David Bowie invited Adrian to be musical director for his next world tour. Adrian jumped at the chance but that meant Young Lions had to be written and recorded at break-neck speed. Here's Adrian's low-down on the Making of Young Lions:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3 

So, shortly after finishing Young Lions, Belew joined the David Bowie Sound & Vision tour and there are several great anecdotes from the tour posted on Adrian's Elephant Blog:

• the tour bus &
• meeting Paul McCartney for the first time
• meeting Mick Jagger