''Songs from Liquid Days'' is a collection of songs composed by composer

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

with lyrics by

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...

Suzanne Vega Suzanne Nadine Vega ( Peck; born July 11, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter best known for her folk-inspired music. Vega's music career spans almost 40 years. She came to prominence in the mid-1980s, releasing four singles that entered the ...

David Byrne David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of ...

and

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 ...

. Glass began the project scoring lyrics by Byrne and then thought to collaborate with additional songwriters. On the project, Glass said: :The words come first. From these I fashioned a set of six songs which, together, form a cycle of themes ranging from reflections on nature to classic romantic settings. After the music was written, I — along with producer Kurt Munkacsi and conductor Michael Riesman — began the long and difficult process of 'casting' singers for the individual songs. We felt that the interpretation a singer brings to a song is an immense contribution to its character — contributing their own personality to the work perhaps more than any other performer. The recording features performances by

Bernard Fowler Bernard Fowler (born January 2, 1960) is an American musician. He is known for a long association with The Rolling Stones, providing backing vocals since 1989 and on their studio recordings and live tours. Fowler has been a featured guest vocal ...

, the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

, Janice Pendarvis, Douglas Perry,

The Roches The Roches were an American vocal trio of sisters Maggie, Terre and Suzzy Roche, from Park Ridge, New Jersey. Career In the late 1960s, eldest sister Maggie (October 26, 1951 – January 21, 2017) and middle sister Terre (pronounced "Terry", ...

Linda Ronstadt Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American ...

, and the Philip Glass Ensemble, directed by Michael Riesman. The recording was released in 1986 by

CBS Records CBS Records may refer to: * CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company * CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990 * CBS Records (2006), founde ...

. The song "Lightning" was performed by the Philip Glass Ensemble on ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...

'', March 22, 1986.

Reception

Stephen Holden Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic. Biography Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...

of ''The New York Times'' wrote in 1986, :The album's six songs are short, oracular reflections on time and love, with imagery that explicitly evokes mystical connections between people and objects ... :The cycle begins with Paul Simon's ''Changing Opinion,'' a mock-solemn meditation on the possible sources of an electrical hum in a room ... :Mr. Byrne's ''Open the Kingdom'' resolves the distance between the commonplace and the mystical in a Zen-like lyric whose abbreviated phrases imagine death as a rush into eternity in which sounds become words – a ''distant roar, turning to speak, turning to hear.'' Holden concludes, "But with all its charms, ''Songs From Liquid Days'' is still minor Glass." Freddy Stidean for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

, wrote that "''Songs From Liquid Days'' became Philip Glass' most popular and successful recording," and concluded that "Songs From Liquid Days may be their he minimalist composers'single greatest achievement."

Track listing

# ''Changing Opinion'' (Glass,

;

, vocals) – 9:57 # ''Lightning'' (Glass,

; Janice Pendarvis, vocals) – 6:42 # ''Freezing'' (Glass, Suzanne Vega;

The Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary class ...

;

, vocals) – 3:16 # ''Liquid Days'' (Glass,

;

, vocals) – 4:45 # ''Open the Kingdom (Liquid Days, Part Two)'' (Glass, David Byrne; Douglas Perry, vocals) – 6:59 # ''Forgetting'' (Glass,

; The Kronos Quartet; Linda Ronstadt, vocals; The Roches, backing vocals) – 8:10 All songs feature the Philip Glass Ensemble under direction of

Michael Riesman Michael Riesman is a composer, conductor, keyboardist, and record producer, best known as Music Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble and conductor of nearly all of Glass' film scores. Biography Michael Riesman studied composition with Peter Stear ...

Artwork

Cover photo of Philip Glass is by

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

Certifications

References

External links

Songs from Liquid Days
official website
Full recording & performance credits
at Discogs {{Authority control 1986 albums 1986 compositions Compositions by Philip Glass Philip Glass albums CBS Records albums