Belinda Carlisle wouldn’t be the first boomer to look back on her formative years through rose-tinteds, as she does on her new release Once Upon a Time in California, and I dare say she won’t be the last. The erstwhile singer of trailblazing L.A. new-wave punkettes, the Go-Go’s, she has been clean and sober these last 20 years, and, if her releases no longer rattle the upper reaches of the charts, she maintains a strong fanbase, especially in the U.K. and Australia.
Given this is Cover Me Songs, it is worth mentioning, if only in passing, the last two albums that Carlisle has made, if only to refute the idea that this project might just represent more of the same. In 2007 she issued Voila, a set of French chansons, sung in that language, and in 2017, Wilder Shores, made up of chants from the Sikh religion, and sung in Punjabi. That’s a bit, different, eh, as are each the albums.
Once Upon a Time in California harks back to safer ground, mostly to the songs of Carlisle’s childhood in Southern California. Rather than seeking to put any new spin on the large print ballads that these most are, it is her voice that is the single identifying factor for the set; it’s mixed high and proud, awash with luscious string arrangements and spry studio polish. Were it not for that voice, this might come across as too much. Amazingly, it doesn’t, unless I too am similarly nostalgic for balmy and long childhood days. Born on Britain’s rainy south coast, I don’t think so, other than in envy.
Bacharach and David’s “Anyone Who Had a Heart” is up first, pitched slightly moodier than the Dionne Warwick original. Then it heads straight to diva central, with a full chorale of girly backing vocals. Wonderfully overwrought, it extinguishes all memory of a song, which, in the U.K., had the misfortune to be the trademark template of Cilla Black, the Liverpool foghorn. Carlisle then gifts Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” with a delicious gilded jangle, the strings now more a restrained ornament. It reminds both how good a song it is, and how good a singer is she. One fault might be the plodding percussion, but maybe that’s picky.
I never took to the song “One” and its “loneliest number” shtick, that making it a difficult song to convince me about, but she gets close, imparting a flavor of Aimee Mann to both her delivery and the arrangement. Given Mann has indeed covered it herself, maybe that explains then the sudden fadeout, just as you perhaps realize that point. A pity, as there is a delicious piano solo just ahead of that.
Which would be the version of “Never My Love” that was the inspiration here? Much as I hope it was the 1967 original, by The Association, my suspicion hangs on the much later Barry Manilow iteration, as the mood is definitively kitchen sink. That’s not a snark, either, as I love his version too. The drums are great, too, I need to add, together with a feeling, as the bubba-bah-bahs come in, that it would be great to hear the Beach Boys, via a Time Machine, do this song.
The British Invasion gets traction next, for a gloopy and glossy, “Air That I Breathe,” encroaching, for the first time, the risk of tooth decay, so sugary is it. But arguably no less than the original, which cannot be said for “Time In a Bottle,” which imparts Jim Croce’s song with twinkly piano and a(nother) whiff, in the harmonies, of the brothers Wilson and cousin Love. Carlisle’s version makes a good bookend to Croce’s, the twinkle in the original coming from guitar, and his voice the opposite of hers, a resounding baritone boom to her measured mezzosoprano.
There would have been something surprising were the Carpenters not to get a nod here, and, of all the songs, it probably had to be “Superstar.” Arranged in the style of a James Bond theme of the last century, it is a syrupy success, a slight throatiness in Carlisle’s tone suggesting a passing familiarity with Rita Coolidge’s version. Not usually a fan of such confectionary, I am oddly drawn to this cover, if not to the counterpoint b.v.s added in at some stage.
“Everybody’s Talkin’,” like “Air That I Breathe” before it, suffers from to much sweetness, smacking of candy floss where dental floss may be more welcome. None of the falter apparent in Nilsson’s take of the Fred Neil written song remains. If that was a misfire, not so “Get Together,” a hit for the Youngbloods in 1967. Here Carlisle has performed quite a clever feat of alchemy; if the original smacks of a summer of love purity, immediately redolent of flowers and beads, this new version sounds equally time specific, but as if it had been performed by the Mamas and Papas or The Flowerpot (Wo)Men. I like.
The closing track to Once Upon a Time in California is “Reflections of My Life,” certainly not one expected or predicted, catching this writer out in a proustian rush of Thursday night Top Of the Pops on the telly. Having had no idea that (the) Marmalade had been successful stateside, I see now they only really had one hit of any consequence, this being it, #10 in 1970, but fair play. The Scot in me is delighted, therefore, that it was a version of this song that the singer saw fit to close with. OK, it isn’t either the hardiest song here, or the best re-arrangement, either, but, if this record arose out of nostalgia, surely my own nostalgia counts too.
Had Once Upon a Time in California been made even only ten years ago, I would fear for its legs, the mood and market maybe not ready for such unbridled sentimentality. But it works, maybe as Carlisle is looking to carry her existing fans with her, they too looking longingly back to what were perceivably better times. Heck, sometimes anywhere is better than now. Carlisle and her producer, Gabe Prince, clearly know their demographic. It isn’t edgy or clever, and it isn’t post anything. Enjoy it for what it is.
Once Upon a Time in California tracklisting:
- Anyone Who Had A Heart (Diane Warwick cover)
- If You Could Read My Mind (Gordon Lightfoot cover)
- One (Harry Nillson cover)
- Never My Love (The Association cover)
- The Air That I Breathe (The Hollies cover)
- Time In A Bottle (Jim Croce cover)
- Superstar (Delaney & Bonnie & Friends cover)
- Everybody’s Talkin’ (Fred Neil cover)
- Get Together (Dino Valenti cover)
- Reflections Of My Life (The Marmalade cover)
