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 Released in 1994, the CD was quickly snapped up by millions of women and men who were caught in an erotic laugh at the title but who were soon pleasantly gratified by the music on the cuts themselves. I didn't discover it until 2000, but that's okay; it just proves that good music doesn't have to be keyed to release dates. It's just there for the ages.
Now I know some people aren't wild about the "John Tesh Style". We all have our preferences and "unpreferences", from Mozart to shock-rock to country. I didn't much like my own "unpreference", disco (Yiii!!!), either so I know that different folks have different strokes when it comes to musical taste. And normally I probably wouldn't have liked the Tesh stuff; I might have thought it too sweet and all. But for some odd reason, the music Tesh and his people send our way hits the right buttons with me, and I guess, a lot of other diverse kinds of people too. Maybe not you, but as Popeye said, "I yam whut I yam," and so if you don't like Tesh's saxy style, you go your own way, I'll go mine. But I do like this CD, or this "tape" as someone I know, who shall remain nameless, and who also likes it, would put it.
I love to listen to this music in lots of circumstances. Romance. Thinking creatively about a new project and how to make it flow. Or simply trying to let go of the stress and get my head back together. This is the ticket for the ride to all of them. And what a nice ride it is into the sensual darkness.
The journey starts with Don Henley's "End of the Innocence". This is a song that I first actually hated back in the '90s when Henley first came out with it. I think it was because I just couldn't identify with what I felt was Henley's bitter and broken heartbroken vision at that time. I did identify with it later though, when I was blown away by something Big in my life, and now I am hard on Henley's trail and love his stuff like "The Heart Of The Matter." As the tone-setter for this album "End of the Innocence" cuts a mean swath into your consciousness and gets you ready. There is a wavelike motion in the music that brings you awake inside yourself and reminds you that innocence, too, can be dangerously blind, and its demise can bring clarity.
Then comes "The Living Years," a nice slider that mellows you again and gets you all secure again and ready for what may come.
What comes next is "Take A Look At Me Now", a Phil Collins song that is a bracing as Phil was in his everyman role of lover and adventurer and moral conscience. Here he is the lover and it comes through in the sax and the song and pulls you back toward the edge again.
Then, ahhhhh, you ARE at the edge, honeybabe, when the music swings into "One More Night." This song is a promise that every "one more night" is THE only night we have, so we'd better set it on fire and let it burn. And let it go and go and go. And come back.
Back to the center, we go with "Broken Wings." Drop down and rest, sweet dove. Get your breathing back.
Then up in the air again with "Live To Tell." Ahhhh, but there is something really mythical and wonderful going on in this song. Temple Bells tolling out there in the mist, or maybe just the beating of your heart as the years roll by. You can almost see it and feel it but is there, out there, as if beyond the ominous sea of time and tide. But you are not alone.
And to remind that you are not alone, we drop into the arms of the deleriously nostalgic "Fields of Gold." You listen to this song and your head spins out a music video of walking through the fields with the Other..hand in hand…young…sweet…warm . Only those who have been there on that warm day, walking through those fields, either in the world or in the mind, with all that new life all around, can sense the depth of joy and love hidden behind the repeated motions in this musical journey. And ah, to find that special place in those fields of gold, that place all our own…and a place forever remembered.
Then to slip into "I Will Always Love You." Oh wow, what a heart-string tugger that one is. Just those signature notes in the front end tell it all. You can see the look in their eyes as they are going away, you feel the pain, you know you have given away the Big One and you will never get it back like that again. All you have left is the memory and yet…and yet…can you somehow…can you somehow make it happen again? Or will the winds of love carry you there? Maybe? Maybe, but for now all we have is this sweet sorrow to dull our heart like a weight of lead carrying us down.
Okay. So now you know you've blown it. Wasted it. Really shot all your bread and lied your way into emptiness. Can you remember what it was like to be real? Yeah, you can, if you remember your hero. This you remember your dream when you hear "Wind Beneath My Wings." And that sad, lonesome sax just keeps on pulling at your brain and your heart and reminds you that somewhere, someplace out there, there really is something good. And it's called love. Oh, the sax variations here are so good, so good, so sweet.
But wait, think again. Yeah, you really did lose it all. You're nothing but a cold and lonely "Desperado". This classic Eagles tune is the timeless reminder that you can go out there and really throw it all away…but even so, if you make the right choice…the Queen of Hearts, not that old false-front but sweet-smelling Queen of Diamonds, you'll come out okay. And if you haven't completely burned all your bridges…Hey, maybe one last time…the Heart Lady just may give you…another chance.
But there is a price to be paid. There are always consequences. There is always some sadness to be weathered in love. Even if you can get the Heart Lady or God or somebody to give you another shot. Thus we are led up into "Tears In Heaven", a sweet Eric Clapton/Will Jennings number that helps us rise to our feet again and in a way, believe in love again, and a future.
Then we come round again like gypsies, like will-o-the-wisps, like creatures of a dream, as all lovers are, to the end, which is to say, another beginning. And we find at the end of our tale a return, perhaps, to love in "Don't Give Up," a musical reminder that the game of love is never over and yes there is the special someone Still, still there. Only the selfish give up, withdraw, throw in the towel. But for those willing to taste life once again, there is a way. And there is love again. If you…"Don't Give Up."
The John Tesh people that put these project CDs together have put together some good ones. But in my mind this one is heads and tails above the rest. It's great sax music. It's about embracing. And its about living. And the songs and the themes and the people behind the music are all wrapped up in something elusively indrawing here. I like it. Maybe too much. But I don't care. I still like it. Hope you do too.
SAX BY THE FIRE….by the John Tesh Project….1994.
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