[.ca] Shining My Flashlight at the M

one of my favs!:
this is one of those CDs that i play over and over again. you will, too. the songs range from whimsy and hiliarious to the sad but in the end up lifting "bad as it gets." and if you ever get a chance to see christine lavin in concert, do it. (and she also paints your nails with glitter during her break!)

Haunting and cynical, Christine Lavin dazzles us again.:
Christine Lavin's 1997 album, Shining My Flashlight On The Moon, teases us with the magic and ingenius "folk" story-telling writing and singing that is Lavin. While not as witty and comical as her previous albums, Flashlight is more introspective. The title song is haunting as she tells the story of a shared moment with her father, who died recently, and again in a reflection of his memory in "The Scent of Your Cologne". "Honey, We Have to Talk" and "I Want to be Lonely Again" is every long-time couple's nightmare reality looking at togetherness vs alone-ness. "Music to Operate By" reflects Lavin's usual brilliance when it comes to inovative subject matter, providing music for your surgeon giving him guidance while putting you under the knife. Lavin has a distinctive way of story telling when it comes to personalities and characters. "The Polka-Dancing Bus Driver", "Robert and Annie", and "Two Amerians in Paris" all bring that unusual perspective Lavin has in telling you about regular people in their irregular lives, using her songs like a magnifying glass on their lives. A true treasure on the album is "If I Ruled the World." In this delightful banter-song, Lavin tells us how she would run things if she was in charge, including creating a fast forward button to speed through boring people's babble. Politicians should take note of some of her recommendations as a world under Lavin's rule might be a better place. This album is a treasure of Lavin classics, but it stretches beyond her usual silliness adding a more sentimental dimension. Lavin fans will be delighted and new listeners will spend time with a richer, deeper, and more intimate Christine Lavin.

Great Stuff:
For me, this CD purchase would have been justified by just one song. Planet X. One of the most amazing song lyrics I have ever heard, and I've heard a LOT of songs. The rest of the CD is gravy.

A benign, yet still demented, mind at work...:
Anyone who can write a song like "Planet X", about the quarrel between those who think Pluto is a planet and those who think not, and make it last over six minutes, and come up with the rhymes Lavin does, must be insane. But the song is unforgettable...funny and lovely and thought-provoking all at once. Isn't that, however, what Christine is famous for being? The disc is worth the price for that song alone, if you value songwriting. However, there are many other fine ones here. "Music to Operate By" and "If I Ruled the World" are typical of Christine's humor at its best. "Happy Divorce Day" is so true, so sad, that if divorce has touched you in a major way it becomes hard to listen to it. The story song "Polka Dancing Bus Driver" pulls the heartstrings too, but in a sweet payoff. Quite an achievement. I can't believe it would disappoint anyone who likes singer/songwriter contemporary folk with an urban sensibility. I hesitate to call Lavin a "folksinger" however...she embraces a wider world than that term connotes.

• Shining My Flashlight on the Moon
• Two Americans in Paris
• Introduction to the One-Song Musical "Honey, We Have to Talk"
• I Want to Be Lonely Again
• Music to Operate By
• Happy Divorce Day
• Polka-Dancing Bus Driver and the 40-Year-Old Mystery
• Robert and Annie in Larchmont, New York
• If I Ruled the World
• As Bad as It Gets
• Snackin'
• Scent of Your Cologne
• Planet X