World Party

A Welsh singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Karl Wallinger ranks among the most skilled craftsmen ofalternative pop who, through a string of unfortunate events (a lack of support from his record label, but also a brain aneurysm that forced him into five years of recording silence), have reaped far less than they so skillfully sowed. Born in 1957 in Prestatyn, a seaside town in north Wales, Wallinger took his first steps in music at nineteen with Pax, fittingly as a keyboardist; he later formed, together with Dave Sharp and Nigel Twist, Quasimodo (a band out of whose ashes would later rise the far more successful Alarm, led by fellow townsman Mike Peters – today involved in the reunion of the Big Country replacing Stuart Adamson) and in 1983 he became a permanent member of the even better-known WaterboysMike Scott notices his talent and, after two albums in which Karl's role is relegated to the background, involves him more heavily during the recording of one of the band's most important albums, "This Is The Sea" – his contributions include the arrangement of hit "The Whole Of The Moon", winner of the prestigious Ivor Novello Award (destined to be repeatedly included in every compilations by Scott and the Waterboys, and to be covered by a whole string of fellow artists ranging from Jennifer Warnes to Steve Hogarth of Marillion), and the music for another successful single, "Don't Bang The Drum".

Once this brief but important experience was over, Karl Wallinger decided to go it alone, and in 1986 what was, at least at first, essentially a one-man band was born. It's Wallinger himself who plays almost all the instruments on the first album released under the name World Party, “Private Revolution”, essentially a home recording that managed to earn fairly good reviews and sales not only in his native United Kingdom but also in the United States. Impervious to trends, Wallinger's songs absorb years of loving listens to his greatest musical passions, namely the Beatles, the Beach Boys and above all Bob Dylan – and his debut also makes room for a cover of “All I Really Want To Do”, surprisingly faithful to the original and already taken to success by Cher and the Byrds. All this at a time when several heavyweights of Sixties and Seventies pop/rock were struggling to make sense of the new decade, its logic and its language, and to keep up with the times by clumsily updating their own formula (it was, after all, the year of the shaky “Press To Play” by Paul McCartney and of “Leather Jackets” by an Elton John running short of ideas, batteries drained, an album he would later go so far as to exclude from the campaign of remastered reissues of his Geffen-era work).

On “Private Revolution” one song in particular stands out, which, once released as a single, climbed to number five on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart (in the UK it stalled at number 42). “Ship Of Fools” remained his trademark song for many years, until 1998, when EMI (in cahoots with Guy Chambers, who had taken Wallinger's place in the Waterboys in 1986, and the session musicians who backed the artist in the studio and on tour) decided to hand his “She’s The One” – originally intended for a soundtrack Tom Petty was working on – over to the far more famous Robbie Williams. In the hands of the former Take That member, the song became a huge international hit, selling 400,000 copies in Britain alone and winning two Brit Awards (“Single Of The Year” and “Best British Video”), but Karl Wallinger would go on to accuse the label of failing to properly promote – and indeed of deliberately sabotaging – his album “Egyptology”, which contained the song in question. At this point the inevitable happened: Karl licked his wounds, left EMI, took back ownership of his back-catalogue and reissued everything through the Seaview label (backed by a distribution deal with Universal Music). To coincide with the 2007 Steely Dan tour, during which World Party performed as support act, a first greatest-hits compilations, “Best In Show”, was also released, gathering the finest moments from the five albums put out under the World Party name.

Strongly identified with the international environmental movement, the song "Ship Of Fools" was released at a particularly charged moment. It was 1986, sadly remembered as the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and issues such as energy resource management, pollution and the preservation of Nature and its balance were being felt by the public with ever greater urgency, embraced more wholeheartedly than in the past. On the political stage of 1980s Europe, the first Green parties were gaining real traction, following earlier attempts in Australia, England and Germany (years later a parliamentary group would even be formed in Brussels, the European Greens – European Free Alliance, today chaired by Cohn-Bendit).

In the United States there are already artists and bands with a strong ecological conscience (in that same year the Rem record songs like "Fall On Me" and "Cuyahoga" for the album "Lifes Rich Pageant", and will title "Green" their first work released after moving to Warner Bros), but when "Ship Of Fools" comes out it slots in easily and successfully into the golden niche of intelligent, "educational" pop. Wallinger brings a breath of fresh air, without ever falling into rhetoric or banality (or into anything already heard before). The song also ends up on a charity compilations in aid of Greenpeace, "Rainbow Warriors" (whose title refers to the famous flagship of the fleet of the well-known international organization in question, active since as far back as 1971), alongside songs by Bryan Ferry, former Go-Go's member Belinda Carlisle, U2, Sting, Eurythmics and Terence Trent D'Arby.

The song opens with an almost bluesy verse, apocalyptic in its pacing, a monochord bed for the bitter reflections of a Karl Wallinger who pours out his anguish in his lowest register. It's held up by a single chord, with the occasional fleeting arpeggio. Then comes the bridge, carried by synthesized horns, as Karl Wallinger tries to shake our conscience ("You will pay tomorrow"... implying "for what you're doing today") before leading us into the sturdy melody of the chorus. "Save me, save me from tomorrow... I don't want to get on this ship of fools, no!"

There's a constant shifting of moods here, from a stark reckoning with the damage wrought by our carelessness and greed, to hope, all the way to an appeal to take charge of the situation and rethink our models, our values. Karl Wallinger manages to get his message across, navigating deftly between well-chosen metaphors and, fortunately, avoiding overloading it with preachiness. His stance, in short, isn't a "told you so" but rather a "let's stop, there's still time."

The World Party factotum draws here on an allegory with very old roots, transplanting it into a new context. Like his former bandmate Mike Scott, he too draws inspiration from art and literature: the exquisitely evoked "ship of fools" calls to mind not only Sebastian Brant's satirical work ("Das Narren Schiff"), published in Basel in 1494, but also a painting by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch from the same historical period, now housed in the Louvre in Paris. "The Ship Of Fools" is an oil painting extraordinarily rich in symbolism, drawing as much on Brant's text as on the better-known "In Praise of Folly" by Erasmus of Rotterdam: in the foreground we see figures crammed onto a small boat, squandering their lives in vice and sin (represented by an owl perched on the mast, watching the scene pitilessly, and by the cherries on the table).

We’re setting sail to the place on the map

From which no one has ever returned

Torn by the promise of the joker and the fool

By the light of the crosses that burn

Torn by the promise of the women and the lace

And the gold and the cotton and pearls

It’s the place where they keep all the darkness you meet

You sail away from the light of the world

Listen baby, you will pay tomorrow

You're gonna pay tomorrow

You will pay tomorrow

Save me, save me from tomorrow

I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no, no

Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow

I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no, no

I want to run and hide, right now

Avarice and greed are gonna drive you over the endless sea

They will leave you drifting in the shallows

Drowning in the oceans of history

Travelin’ the world, you’re in search of no good

But I'm sure you're philosophic, like I knew you would

Using all the good people for your gallant slaves

As your little boat struggles through the the warning waves

But you will pay, you will pay tomorrow

You're gonna pay tomorrow, yeah

You gonna pay tomorrow

Save me, save me from tomorrow

I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no, no

Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow

I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no, no

Where’s it comin’ from? Or where’s it goin’ to?

It's just a, it's just a ship of fools, yeah, oh Lord

"Ship Of Fools" appears on the album "Private Revolution", originally released in 1986 on the Ensign label (the same label that launched Sinead O'Connor, later absorbed into EMI). In 2007 it was also included on the essential greatest-hits set "Best In Show" (Seaview/Universal), and from April 10, 2012 it will also appear, in previously unreleased versions, in a massive box set titled "Arkeology". Among the seventy recordings are b-sides, demos, covers, fragments of radio interviews, rare live recordings and new songs completed in 2011. Strikingly original in its packaging, the imposing new box will also include a 142-page diary (usable in any year) featuring photos, interview excerpts and assorted memorabilia.

(17/02/2012)