Christine Lavin
Sometimes Mother Really Does Know Best

(2004)

$15.00

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track listing

1. Strangers Talk to Me in Colorado Springs on a Thursday Night
2. Rocky Mountain . . . Hi!
3. Wind Chimes
4. You Should Have Seen the Frightened Looks on your Faces
5. What kind of ridiculous glamour trajectory am I am?
6. What Was I Thinking?
7. Martha Stewart . . .Victoria’s Secret . . . Bob Dylan . . . Pachelbel?
8. The Tacobel Canon
9. Steve . . . you are so busted!
10. A Question of Tempo (When I’m Under Pressure)
11. Planet X
12. Planet? Planot? Goofy?
13. Who are the brainiacs in the house tonight?
14. Bernice, carol, and tonight’s crowd compete for the Science Prize
15. You Look Pretty Good for Your Age
16. Art Jensen, Mr. Colorado Springs, your life will never be the same
17. Flashback to 1956: How do you spell ‘Cassiopeia’?
18. Boston Red Sox fans: the most loyal, most tenacious, yet most troubled of all baseball fans.
19. Ballad of a Ballgame
20. The Legal Ramifications of a Crackerjack Vendor who Works in Yankee Stadium
21. Sometimes Mother Really Does Know Best

The hilarious Christine Lavin quite literally shines in live performance as she straps on a miner’s headlamp and twirls her glowing batons. But the real sparkle comes from Lavin’s sung and spoken wit – this singer-songwriter-guitarist-creative firecracker regales and involves her legion of fans with riotously acute original songs, comic monologues, quizzes, contests, and, in this case, her quest to identify and crown Mr. Colorado Springs in the audience at the 2003 benefit concert captured on this live CD.

Sometimes Mother Really Does Know Best is the award-winning Ms. Lavin’s sixteenth album in a recording career that stretches back to 1981 and a touring schedule that encompasses almost 52 weeks a year. She also manages to juggle ever-expanding sidelines in freelance writing, radio program hosting, her serious obsessions with knitting, cooking, and her cultural heroine, Dame Edna, and using the Internet for instant-action song postings reflecting current events.

Some of the ten songs on Sometimes Mother have appeared on previous Lavin studio and live CDs, but never like this! One of Christine’s signature compositions, “What Was I Thinking?,” resurfaces with updated topical needling of Martha Stewart, while the gentle, affectionately rueful “You Look Pretty Good for Your Age” is wrapped around Christine’s search for Mr. Colorado Springs. Five other favorites are captured “live” for the first time, including the tranquil-to-berserk tropical ordeal recounted in “Wind Chimes,” the introductory “Strangers Talk to Me,” and the anthem of the uncoordinated, “Ballad of a Ballgame.” There are also three new songs presented – Joanne Hammill’s increasing frantic round, “A Question of Tempo (When I’m Under Pressure)”; Christine’s battle with bureaucracy, “The Legal Ramifications of a Crackerjack Vendor Who Works in Yankee Stadium”; and the closing title song, with its moral lesson about the consequences of “a permanent reminder of a temporary fad,” be it eyebrow ring or facelift, a controversial modern day topic.

At least half the fun of this CD comes from Christine’s giddy but incisively sarcastic song introductions and a half-dozen comic monologues. “What kind of a ridiculous glamour trajectory am I on?” conveys the tragicomic outrage of being mistaken for an ex-nun and a lunch lady by her fans; “Bernice, Carol, and tonight’s crowd compete for the science prize” is a spontaneous quiz that involves such philosophical brain teasers as “How many roads MUST a man walk down before they call him a man?” 

Armed only with a guitar, a Boomerang sampling device that multiplies and delays Christine’s vocals into harmonies and swirling rounds, and a wry, mocking self-awareness and boundless insight into contemporary culture, the Christine Lavin experience in concert is just as funny when heard at home, as preserved on Sometimes Mother Really Does Know Best. Lighten up and laugh for almost 75 minutes!