John Cale
Posted in forgotten 70s by teabog on March 29th, 2007
John Cale
“Antarctica Starts Here” (From the album Paris 1919)
Paris 1919 was recently re-released and I will be goddamned if every review that was less than a perfet 10 didn’t piss me off. Sure, all the 9.5s and 4 and ½ star reviews were great—and there were usually sure to how Cale’s early stuff beats the everloving shit out of Reed’s wonderful solo stuff—but they weren’t PERFECT dammit, and this album is PERFECT.
Buy this. Buy it now. I own two copies just in case one breaks.
As for this song, it’s one of the more underappreciated one the album. It closes things out on a rather soft, somnolent note, only it feels a lot more genuine than any other “lullaby” rock track I’ve ever come across.
Once I was driving along rural Illinois, high as a kite. I was 17 years old and had taken several different Very Dangerous drugs. I drove into a ditch, and rather than try and get myself out of it I just rolled up the windows, turned up the stereo as loud as it would go, and played this song over and over again for an hour or so. Then I gunned the motor, made it onto the road, and drove safely home.