John Cale 7: Helen Of Troy

The cover of Helen Of Troy depicts John Cale in a straightjacket, over a pair of leather pants and stylish shoes with clashing socks. It’s a good setup for the music within, mostly right in line with his last two albums, with contributions from Chris Spedding and Brian Eno. String and choral arrangements by Robert Kirby, now best known for his work with Nick Drake, add color.

One adjective that applies to this album is menacing, right from the opening “My Maria”. Between the keyboards, guitar, and choir, the arrangement recalls Lou Reed’s “Lady Day”, but it’s even more impressionistic and impenetrable yet haunting somehow. The title track is punctuated by mincing, campy commentary from one Alan Courtney, synth blasts that sound very much like Roxy Music saxes but aren’t, and Enossification resembling an outer-space bowling alley. The much sunnier “China Sea” is as jaunty as anything on Paris 1919, complete with Beach Boy harmonies and other Wilsonian touches. A compact portrait of insanity, “Engine” begins with just piano and his voice, which gets increasingly unhinged after the band kicks in. Soon he’s pounding keys with his fists and shrieking until everything just stops. “Save Us” seems to be a prayer for salvation, and he manages to keep things in check despite the desperate tone. Following the template set on “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend”, his voice goes from weary to histrionic within the space of a verse and chorus throughout this album, and certainly on “Cable Hogue”, presumably inspired by the recent Sam Peckinpah film.

But he could also be tender, as demonstrated on the positively torchy “I Keep A Close Watch”, the loveliest thing he’s ever written, and a love song to boot worthy of Sinatra. The sentimental mood doesn’t last for “Pablo Picasso”, the Jonathan Richman classic originally produced by Cale but unreleased at the time of this cover. “Leaving It Up To You” is mostly straightforward, but he gets very worked up in the middle, going to far as to reference Sharon Tate, which caused the song to be pulled from some pressings. (The much more placid “Coral Moon” was the replacement.) Jimmy Reed’s “Baby, What You Want Me To Do” is also played straight rock as opposed to blues, though without the shuffle it tends to drag. So it is that “Sudden Death” fits the same slot as “Ghost Story” and other “nightmare” songs, but in this context it’s no more scary than anything else, just morbid.

Cale maintains that Helen Of Troy was unfinished, and rushed out by the label before he had time to perfect it. Considering how ornate the tracks are, it’s hard to imagine what was missing; could be he didn’t intend there to be so much reverb anywhere. Even so, it wasn’t officially released in the U.S. for decades, which he may or may not have appreciated.

John Cale Helen Of Troy (1975)—3