Larry Norman - Something New Under the Sun

I suppose I really should have started with In Another Land as that was my first Larry Norman album, and one that was a really big deal to me - but it was also the foundation upon which my love for this particular album was built. An album I felt at the time was the best thing he'd ever done - of course with the benefit of hindsight I can unequivocally say that isn't true.

Besides, I'll get to that one and probably others in due time, I'll start here because it's where I am and I wanted to listen to Something New Under the Sun. So I am. 

Larry Norman is a polarizing figure to a lot of people but I only knew him from his music, and first hand accounts from my dear dead dear friend Dave who went on tour with him doing live sound many years ago. Dave had nothing bad to say about Larry, and to quote good ol' Forrest Gump, "And that’s all I’ve got to say about that." To me Larry was as big a deal as there was and for many years I eagerly bought everything I could get my hands on - heck I even mail ordered all of those rehashed Essential anthologies. Even if he was more "Do what I say, not what I do" what he said (wrote) made a big impact on me when I was young.

Something New Under the Sun was a raw, rough, and wonderfully cohesive album that was quite different from the trilogy that preceded it - and I think that irritated his parent label. Sure, he owned his own Solid Rock imprint - but distribution was something else entirely and without that you got nothing.

The album was recorded in 1977 and didn't see the light of day until 1981 - that's a long time between records (well, to be fair he did fill the space with stuff, however, that's for another day) - but it didn't kill his career, it was just a flesh wound. Once he was out front leading the way but the times they were a changing and Larry never really transitioned out of the 70s. Sure he'd release a lot more stuff, but it was a case of diminishing returns and recycled bits and pieces. Not to say there weren't occasional flashes of brilliance, but mostly he would be left behind as an artifact to a tumultuous time.

I'm sort of drifting a bit here, but as I listen to Something New Under the Sun, and have the album in front of me with the notes and cryptic messages this really felt like it was the start of something. It seemed like Larry was just getting started and had mapped out a master plan with songs and albums waiting to be completed and released. 

By this time I was firmly a fan of all things Solid Rock, from Randy Stonehill to Mark Heard one of the things I looked for in the credits was whether or not Jon Linn was playing guitar - to me that guy was Eddie Van Halen, Phil Keaggy and Eric Clapton rolled into one of the great unsung guitar slingers. Something New Under the Sun was a wonderful showcase for Jon's playing. 

From the opening track "Hard Luck Bad News" he tears it up, anchoring the songs with a growl and when it was time to let loose he earned his nickname "Wonderfingers" - it was everything I wanted to hear when I was eighteen. This doesn't mean everything on the album gave me the finger tingles - I still want to drag the needle across the record to get to the end of "I Feel Like Dying." I get that it's a song that sets the stage for the despair of the protagonist Pilgrim - but it's just so bloody irritating. Thankfully things get back on track and the rest of the album clips along. The first side closes with "Watch What You're Doing" a song that is amazing, and then wears out it's welcome by not knowing when to end. There's a killer three minute song buried in that hot mess - and this was the edited and short version. Yeah, I have the full version somewhere, and it's - well, a lot. 

The second side is a new chapter and starts off with "Leaving The Past Behind" and sets the tone for the rest of the songs on the the album. Heck, even the slower blues spiritual on the second side "Put Your Life Into His Hands" is a song I appreciate. It's still not a song I particularly like, but Jon Linn saves the day when his slide work takes the spotlight. The album closes with "Let That Tape Keep Rolling" that takes pretty much every Chuck Berry trope and amps them up and let's them fly. The song serves as an encapsulation of the album and a bit of Larry's own history in music. It's a good closer and a really fun song.

I wasn't a Dylan fan, and it would be years and years later before I'd finally hear "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" from Bringing It All Back Home and realize this was the inspiration (well, note for note is more than inspiration) for "Nightmare #97" dang, even the album photos and layout was taken from Dylan's 1965 effort.

The album would hint at upcoming releases that he had planned and make passing references to, like when he'd see us again City of Lost Angels and Island in the Sky. At the time it was awesome to hear - it was like seeing a title card at the end of a movie announcing the name of the upcoming sequel. The promised albums never did come - the best laid plans and all that. I did send off for the "free record" and lyric song book. I have the record, which is in decent shape, but the Annotated Edition of the lyric book suffered water damage when the crawl space flooded.

What I found cool about the book was the back cover where Larry tells people to stop ordering albums that don't exist ... and speaking of stuff that doesn't exist, the unfulfilled promise of "coming next" just never came: Larry Norman on Tour, Ose Enco, Something New - Part Two, Before and After, and one I really hoped would materialize, "Streams of White Light - Part Two. Man, what could have been. It wasn't like Larry just say around after Something New Under the Sun, he released a lot of stuff ... just nothing that ever really measured up to his past, which apparently he had left behind. 

Whatever the case, here I am over forty years later listening to, and truly enjoying Something New Under the Sun - which of course it wasn't, it was a deliberate step into the past musically, but the point was to show we didn't have to be our old selves, we could be something new.