Comicopera or Comic Opera?

Who is Robert Wyatt? Robert Wyatt has been a recording artist since the mid-1960’s. He is primarily known for his drumming although he is proficient in several other musical instruments, including the guitar, piano, and bass guitar. His first record was with the band Soft Machine, a band who helped usher in the progressive rock movement through their fusion of jazz and psychedelic rock. I know of Soft Machine through their association with Jimi Hendrix via management team (Soft Machine even toured with the Experience briefly in 1968). Wyatt left Soft Machine in 1971 due to creative differences. In 1973 Wyatt drunkenly fell from a 4^th-story condominium during a party, causing paralysis from his waist down.

Since his accident, he has primarily been recording as a solo artist. He still plays drums but without kick drums or other foot-related percussion. He has released numerous solo efforts, keeping with his jazz background while also delving into other genres such as reggae, experimental, and folk. His album Comicopera was released in 2007 and was critically acclaimed for being ambitious in its stylistic scope and containing some of his best lyrics.

#108 – Robert Wyatt, Comicopera (Metascore = 86)

Comicopera begins with the soft piece “Stay Tuned”, a folksy ballad about Wyatt trying to communicate, trying to tell his love or friend to “stay tuned”, that he’s doing the best he can to reach them. This is the first song of a suite of four songs about love and communication. “Just as You Are” continues this theme with a guest vocalist Monica Vasconcelos and excellent musical support by Paul Weller and Phil Manzanera on guitars. “Just as You Are” is a beautiful song…the music and lyrics are well written. “You You” sounds like early Genesis songs with the instrumentation mix.

The instrumental “Anachronist” shifts the story to a more upbeat pop sensibility while also shifting the subject away from love. “A Beautiful Place” sounds like a walking/talking tune that takes a stab at religion when it says “in the Methodist hall/despite a poster which says/that it’s there for us all/and it’s a beautiful day/for walking away”. “Be Serious” continues the attack; Wyatt begs Christians, Muslims and other religions to “put a lid on it” when discussing self expression and religion. This is where I get lost with this music personally. I acknowledge his craftiness, but at this point I’m ambivalent with him.

“On the Town Square”, another instrumental, segregates the anti-religion songs from the anti-government songs, starting with “Mob Rule”, the first of three songs that question the political process and Britain’s involvement in wars overseas. “Out of the Blue” ends this particular section with a sad description of the atrocities of war. From here Wyatt veers entirely away from the English language into other languages, including Italian and Spanish. This is where the album becomes a bit awkward and disjointed. While I appreciate the effort that he puts into these songs, and musically the songs are very good, but I just feel like they stop his message dead in the album’s tracks. I’m sure there are many of us that wish the songs had been in all English rather than mixed.

How to evaluate this album? Musically, I enjoyed this record quite a bit. I found the mix of instruments to be very thoughtful in supporting the lyrics, especially with the jazzier numbers. Lyrically, I found the music to be interesting but had conflicting feelings about his messages. While I cannot deny that Wyatt is a creative lyricist, some of his words just do not mesh with my own. That said, I can understand some of the critical praise that came with the record.