''Mister Heartbreak'' is the second studio album by

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

artist, singer and composer

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

, released on February 14, 1984. Like its predecessor, it contains reworked elements of Anderson's ''

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

'' ("Langue d'Amour", "Kokuku", based on musical elements from "Rising Sun", and "Blue Lagoon"). However, Anderson also introduced new material ("Sharkey's Day"/"Sharkey's Night" and "Gravity's Angel"), while "Excellent Birds", written in collaboration with Peter Gabriel, was written for a 1984 project for video artist

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...

called ''

Good Morning, Mr. Orwell "Good Morning, Mr. Orwell" was the first international satellite "installation" by Nam June Paik, a South Korean-born American artist often credited with inventing video art. It occurred on New Year's Day, 1984. The event, which Paik saw as a r ...

''.

Background

"Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

's ''

Gravity's Rainbow ''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, ...

''. Anderson had "wanted to make an opera of that book ... and asked him if that would be OK... He said, 'You can do it, but you can only use banjo.' And so I thought, 'Well, thanks. I don't know if I could do it like that." "Blue Lagoon" contains allusions to other tales of the sea:

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's '' The Tempest'' (Ariel's song) and

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...

's ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...

''. The album's lead track, "Sharkey's Day", formed the basis of a popular

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

. Author

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

read the lyrics of the closing track, "Sharkey's Night", while Peter Gabriel provided vocals on "Excellent Birds", an alternate version of which, titled "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)", also appeared on his album '' So'' (1986). According to Anderson, she and Gabriel "could never agree on what a bassline was. (I think I probably don't hear so well down there.) I wanted to learn from him, but it turned into a standoff and so we each put out our own version of the song." A third version of the song can be heard in the music video version, directed by Dean Winkler. Most of the songs on the album were later performed in Anderson's 1986 concert film '' Home of the Brave''. Burroughs appears in the film in two brief segments, reciting lines from "Sharkey's Night", although it is Anderson herself who performs a complete version of the song at the film's conclusion. "Sharkey's Night" featured in the Australian short documentary film ''Ladies Please!'' (1995).

Track listing

All songs written by

, except where otherwise indicated. Side one #"Sharkey's Day" – 7:41 #"Langue d'Amour" – 6:12 #"Gravity's Angel" – 6:02 Side two #"Kokoku" – 7:03 #"Excellent Birds" (Anderson, Peter Gabriel) – 3:12 #"Blue Lagoon" – 7:03 #"Sharkey's Night" (Anderson,

) – 2:29

Personnel

– vocals (tracks 1–6), Synclavier (track 1–6),

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

(track 1),

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a lar ...

(track 1), electronic conches (track 2),

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

(track 2),

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

(track 3), percussion (track 4) *

Adrian Belew Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew (born December 23, 1949) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual and impressionistic approach to ...

– guitar (tracks 1, 3, 6, 7) *

Anton Fier Anton Fier (June 20, 1956 – September 14, 2022) was an American drummer, producer, composer, and bandleader. Family Fier, known as Tony, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruthe Marie Fier and Anton J. Fier Jr., a former Marine and electrician. ...

– drums (track 1), toms (track 4), wood block (track 4) *

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, ...

– bass guitar (tracks 1, 3–6) * Daniel Ponce – iya (tracks 1), ikonkolo (track 1),

shekere The shekere (from Yoruba Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀) is a West African percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd. The Shekere originated in a tribe in Nigeria called the Yoruba. The in ...

(track 1), double bell from the Cameroons (track 1) *November (Michelle Cobbs, Dolette McDonald, Brenda Nelson) – back-up vocals (track 1) * Peter Gabriel – back-up vocals (tracks 2–3), vocals (track 5), Synclavier (track 5),

LinnDrum The LinnDrum, also referred to as the LM-2, is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985. About 5,000 units were sold. Its high-quality samples, flexibility and affordability made the LinnDrum popular; it sold far m ...

(track 5) *

David Van Tieghem David Van Tieghem (born April 21, 1955) is an American composer, percussionist and sound designer, best known for his philosophy of utilizing any available object as a percussion instrument and for his collaborations with the experimental artists ...

– plywood (track 3), bowls (track 3), Simmons drums (track 3), drums (track 3),

steel drum The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. Descript ...

(track 6),

gato Gato (Spanish for cat) may refer to: People * Gato (given name) * Gato (surname) Places * Gato Island, in the Visayan Sea, Philippines * Gato Island, in the Mochima National Park on the northeastern coast of Venezuela * Gato, Orocovis, Puert ...

(track 6),

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

(track 6) * Sang-Won Park – kayagum (track 4) *

Phoebe Snow Phoebe Snow (born Phoebe Ann Laub; July 17, 1950 – April 26, 2011) was an American roots music singer-songwriter and guitarist, known for her hit 1974 and 1975 songs " San Francisco Bay Blues", " Poetry Man", "Harpo's Blues", and her credited ...

– back-up vocals (track 4) *Atsuko Yuma – back-up vocals (track 4) *Connie Harvey – Japanese chorus (track 4) *Janet Wright – Japanese chorus (track 4) * Nile Rodgers – guitar (track 5) *Bill Blaber – soprano (track 6) *

– vocals (track 7) ;Technical *Laurie Anderson – co-producer (tracks 1–2, 4–7), producer (track 3), art, graphics *Bill Laswell – co-producer (tracks 1, 4, 7), mixing assistance (track 3) *Roma Baron – co-producer (tracks 2, 6) *Peter Gabriel – co-producer (track 5) *Leanne Ungar – engineer *Bob Bielecki – technical consultant, systems design, Synclavier spectral displays *Mike Getlin – assistant engineer *Joe Lopes – assistant engineer *Pat Martin – assistant engineer *Larry Franke – assistant engineer *Tim Cox – assistant engineer *Mike Krowiak – mixing assistant * Bob Ludwig – mastering *

Howie Weinberg Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer with over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize. Career Weinberg mastered Herbie Hancock's 1983 album '' Future Shock''. Other ...

– mastering *Bud Shark – printing

Charts

Album

References

External links

''Mister Heartbreak''
at Myspace (streamed copy where licensed) {{Authority control Laurie Anderson albums 1984 albums Albums produced by Bill Laswell Warner Records albums William S. Burroughs Art pop albums Experimental music albums