Something I Saw or Thought I Saw

New Album

Bill Morrissey's first album of original songs in five years, Something I Saw or Thought I Saw is now available at record stores and through on-line music sites, including Rounder Records.

Bill produced and arranged the album himself. Musicians include Kent Allyn (keyboards and guitar), Johnny Cunningham (violin), Marc Elbaum (clarinet and tenor sax), David Henderson (bass), and Cormac McCarthy (harmonica). The songs are:

Twenty-Third Street
Harry's Last Call
Just Before We Lost the War
Winter Song
Moving Day
Buddy Bolden's Blues
St. Valentine's Day
Traveling by Cab
Fix Your Hair the Way You Used To
Judgment Day
Mobile
Will You Be My Rose?

Bill in the studio recording Something I Saw or Though I Saw (photo by Annie Provenzano)

The Title

The title comes from the first line of a Robert Frost poem (circa 1937), "On the Heart's Beginning to Cloud the Mind":

    Something I saw or thought I saw 
    In the desert at midnight in Utah, 
    Looking out of my lower berth 
    At moonlit sky and moonlit earth. 
    The sky had here and there a star; 
    The earth had a single light afar, 
    A flickering, human pathetic light, 
    That was maintained against the night, 
    It seemed to me, by the people there, 
    With a God-forsaken brute despair. 
    It would flutter and fall in half an hour 
    Like the last petal off a flower....
    
    This I saw when waking late, 
    Going by at a railroad rate, 
    Looking through wreaths of engine smoke 
    Far into the lives of other folk.

Twenty-third Street

The first song, "Twenty-third Street," is set in New York City's Chelsea Hotel. The hotel has a long history of famous literary residents and guests, including Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, and Arthur Miller. Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls was shot at the hotel. Among the musicians who have stayed there are Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Sid Vicious. Cohen and Dylan have referenced the hotel in song.

Rounder's page has a 40-second soundclip from the song.

Photos of the Chelsea Hotel

Buddy Bolden's Blues

Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) was a bandleader who played the improvised form that came to be known as jazz.

Bill Morrissey's new song references an old song with the same title, credited to Jelly Roll Morton, which itself is based on Bolden's "Funky Butt." (Bill covered Mississippi John Hurt's version of "Funky But" on his last album, Songs of Misssissippi John Hurt.)

[Kent Allyn] Kent Allyn (photo by Annie Provenzano)

Commentary and Reviews

"Bill Morrissey has pulled off that rare American feat: a true artistic reawakening in middle age.... [T]he instrumental sound of the new album more than supports Morrissey's words. Working with very old friends, the songwriter produced the album himself, and it's a spare, canny beauty."
—The Boston Herald, April 6, 2001
"The result is Something I Saw or Thought I Saw (Philo/Rounder), another finely wrought collection that reestablishes Morrissey as one of the best musical storytellers you're ever likely to hear. Rich in evocative detail and description—it's no wonder he writes fiction—the songs unerringly uncover the often tough emotional truths that Morrissey is digging for."
—The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 2001
"New Morrissey disc is steeped in tender melancholy.... [T]here are plenty of finely whittled lyrics throughout. In short, it's Morrissey being brilliant, just in a darker way than experienced on his in-between-divorce records."
—The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, April 5, 2001
"Despite the air of uncertainty in the title, Bill Morrissey shows that he needn't discern between fact and fiction to create unforgettable acoustic-folk music."
—Drew Wheeler, CDNow
"[T]hroughout the record, Morrissey finds a humble but deeply affecting grace between the vibrant world of memory and desire and the stark facts of reality."
—The Charleston Gazette, March 15, 2001
"With his keen eye for detail and tersely sketched characters, the songs on Something I Saw strike a clean balance between economy and vividness."
—The Philadelphia City Paper, April 12, 2001
"Something I Saw or Thought I Saw is chock full of Morrissey’s trademark story-songs that capture characters in the midst of transitions in which they are reevaluating and reexamining their lives and relationships."
—Seth Rogovoy, The Berkshire Eagle, March 9, 2001
Morrissey's sparse lyrical vignettes feature people we've all met.... Rarely do the songs sound as if they were performed by a full band; no drums are in the mix. The solo instrumental lines are sprinkled conservatively throughout the recording, helping set the mood of each song without drawing focus away from Morrissey's voice.
—The Worcester Phoenix, April 5, 2001

Soundclips in mp3 Format

Song	Length	File Size
23rd Street	0:52	1,031 KB
Judgment Day	1:31	1,799 KB
Just before We Lost the War	0:45	897 KB
Mobile	0:49	971 KB
Will You Be My Rose?	0:52	1,029 KB